Short Fiction : Snow

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The Ortholan’s crew barely survive their crash on an icy moon, and they owe their narrow escape to the least popular member of their crew, the Navigator, whom they call Blue. But they will need him again if they are to survive, because he is the only person aboard capable of flying the ship back to civilization. Unfortunately, without access to their medication, Navigators become somewhat unstable, and the crew’s only hope of salvation may well be the one who kills them all.

Available on Amazon by clicking here .

Eternal Child

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Not All Writing Is Created Equal

Today I finally took the advice “do something that scares you”, and published Eternal Child, a novella I’ve been sitting on for quite a long time.

I’m a little confused as to where Eternal Child should sit in the traditional fiction categories. It’s a supernatural horror story with very little actual horror, but a ton of subtle foreboding.

If you’d like to read it, you can find an excerpt below and a full version of the book over on Amazon (click on the image to the right).

I would really like to know what you think. Let me know in the comments below, or by email.

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Classic Revisited: A Wizard of Earthsea

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I wrote back in January that I felt Ursula Le Guin’s passing was a great loss for both the art of writing and for SFF in particular. I was driven at the time by my memories of reading A Wizard of Earthsea, one of the first fantasy books I ever held in my hands. You know, back when paper was a thing.

Since I wrote that, I’ve thought back occasionally to the story itself, only to realise that I don’t remember it all that well.

Passing through an airport last week I came across a collection of the first four Earthsea books and it felt a little too much like divine providence to ignore. I ploughed through A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan over the next couple of flights, and rediscovered the work.

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Film Review: Ready Player One

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When I first picked up the book by Ernest Cline, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. It looked like a slightly nostalgic young adult yarn spun around an overwrought nostalgia for the 80s.

Once I got into it, I was very happily surprised. It wasn’t nostalgia, it was obsession tempered by affection. It used its subject matter as a metaphor for a time when things were perhaps less overwrought, and a little more genuine. All this in the least genuine setting of all – virtual reality. Read More