I really really really like Blindsight by Peter Watts, and its sequel (or “sidequel”) Echopraxia, or Firefall #1 & #2, or however they are described. And I enjoyed his earlier books, which I came to later, Starfish and it sequel, Maelstrom (and thought Maelstrom is not a sidequel, I thought that S & M bore […]
If only the boy could talk. He had a tongue in his head: Joe had checked. What horrors had silenced it? The usual, probably. Not that I am counting or anything, but my 20th published story, Mid-life Crisis, is now live and available for your free reading pleasure at Chrome Baby magazine. When do we first […]
(Be patient, I do get around to recommending stuff to read somewhere in here eventually …) Candice Carty-Williams is spot on, at least for me, when she warns re self-isolation: 1) Don’t go out and buy a thousand books. Much like holiday reading, you almost certainly won’t get through them all. Your to-be-read pile will […]
In my comfortable childhood, how I longed for nuclear war(1). My friends and I, we were prepared. We didn’t have a bomb shelter, but we would make one in “The Darkies” (2) at fairly short notice. We didn’t have supplies, but we knew where to get them, at the very last minute. I convinced my […]
When the peculiarities of community and place are swept away by the tides of capital, all that’s left is a globalised shopping culture, in which we engage with glazed passivity. Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chainstores. – George Monbiot Nice line, but it is more the conglomeration of chain stores […]
Am I the only person in the world to give up a coffee addiction after watching South Park? Watching Tweek treat his anxiety with coffee I thought, I don’t need the jitters or the upset stomach any more. Yet there I was this morning, having my second cappuccino in two days (I think my sixth […]
“But David”, I hear you say, “you drag us down with your dismal ends of the world, your Cormac McCarthy, your environmental collapse, your negativity. What about a cheerful apocalypse?” Girls and boys and mutants, look no further! “And it won’t be a pretty sight” cha cha cha … … (Thank you Daylight Savings and […]
In my comfortable childhood, how I longed for nuclear war(1). My friends and I, we were prepared. We didn’t have a bomb shelter, but we would make one in “The Darkies” (2) at fairly short notice. We didn’t have supplies, but we knew where to get them, at the very last minute. I convinced my […]
Nobody is looking 