Artifacts and Enigmas: Author interview

Artifacts and Enigmas: Mysteries from Redemption was one of my favourite speculative fiction reads of 2025. Here I interview Darran M. Handshaw about the inspiration behind this Sherlock Holmes-inspired collection of detective stories set in Pyramid, the ruined city of a fallen techno-civilisation. One of the standouts of

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Carcinising 'Alpha School' - a year innovating in home education

I started home educating Bigger Boy in October last year. Since then, we've independently evolved what strongly resembles an AI-driven 'school-of-the-future'. Alpha School, a private school based in Texas USA, has recently become a media news sensation for its 'AI-driven

No, folks, there isn't an ‘autism’ ‘epidemic'...

We speak about autism as if it's a real biological phenomena. It isn't. If you'd been a chemist in the 1700s, you'd likely know about phlogiston. A fire-like chemical element, phlogiston supposedly permeated all flammable substances, explaining - among other things - why

The young tramspotters’ guide to holidaying in the Netherlands

When I told casual acquaintances (our friends know us too well) we were going on holiday to the Netherlands, I got a lot of questions. Mostly where we were going and whether we were visiting a theme park - because that’s a kid thing, we have two young kids, and

Monstery, techy, puzzly goodness: A review of The Engineer

This is the third review taken from my Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) first chapter read. I didn't mesh with the opening chapter of Dark Heart of Redemption, but was intrigued by its multi-page recap of the previous book in the series, and so I read

Love is a verb. A critical discussion of Harrow Faire

I read Harrow Faire while investigating how to write the villain-heroine situationship into my work-in-progress fantasy novel. Authored by Kathryn Ann Kingsley, Harrow Faire is a 'villain horror/fantasy romance' set in a long-abandoned circus that unexpectedly... comes to life. I wanted to review

Review: Claws and Contrivances (neurodivergent representation)

A few weeks ago, I was reading Regency romance for novel research purposes, and saw a mention of Claws and Contrivances by Stephanie Burgis - the romantic comedy sequel to Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off 2022 finalist Scales and Sensibility. What interested me wasn't (just) the SUPER CUTE dragons

Review: Sun War Trilogy

This is the second review taken from my Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off first chapter read. You can read my first review here. When words fail, bring out the guns, swords, and death spells. It's a good start when an author shares your warped sense of humour. Just

Review: Obsidian Awakening

In June, I began reading the first chapters of every entry to this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO9), a competition designed to highlight the best in self-published fantasy. From these 300 first chapters, I selected about 30 books (10%) where I wanted to read on, with

Part 2. I read 300 first chapters in a month... prologues, and other novelty acts

On June 8th, I began a project to read the first chapters of all 300 entries to the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), a competition run since 2015 to raise awareness of high-quality self-published fantasy books. I blogged in July about my initial thoughts on the SPFBO

Fictional character models *can* consent to sex

First up, an apology. I planned to do a Part 2 on entries to the Self-Published Fantasy Blogoff and then review the largely amazing indie books I've read as part of that competition. I still plan to do this, but was derailed for several months by holidays

I read 300 first chapters in a month... Here's what I learned. Part 1

On June 8th, I began a project to read the first chapters of all 300 entries to the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), a competition run since 2015 to raise awareness of high-quality self-published fantasy books. I was following in the footsteps of Steve William Hannah and

Review: River in the Galaxy

And, on the subject of great writers who need more visibility... I've been following Natalie Kelda on Twitter for a couple of months now. Her tweets for writers kept getting recommended by the new Twitter algorithm and I kept responding to them. Anyway, she's an indie-

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Review: Does traditional publishing want to watch the world burn?

You're about to read possibly the most negative review of a traditionally-published book in history (well, maybe not). When I started penning this explosively nasty review, I wondered why I was so angry, but realised quickly. It's just unfair. The trad-published book I'

What I've been reading...

One of the strangest results of having endometriosis excision surgery last month is that I've been able to read fiction for the first time in years. A subtle effect, at first, it's grown more obvious over a few weeks. Whereas before, my periodic immune flares would

Will ChatGPT replace authors? Part 2

Last week, we discovered that ChatGPT is an unsupervised deep learning artificial intelligence trained to understand the underlying structures of text and language. In this blogpost I'll explain what ChatGPT can do currently (or not), and whether a future ChatGPT (or similar) chatbot will replace authors. A bit

Will ChatGPT replace authors? Part 1

Much has been written recently about whether ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence, will replace journalists, novelists and even written examinations. This concern is not entirely illegitimate. Pop media company Buzzfeed, for example, recently laid off 12% of its workforce while announcing a wider role for ChatGPT. ChatGPT, a language-based

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ChatGPT, science fiction novels, and the limits of machine learning

ChatGPT, the OpenAI ChatBot launched in November last year, is everywhere at the moment. It's been used to write song lyrics, debate the Trolley Problem, and even get a passing grade on English essays. One wag on Twitter even claimed: Pretty much every smart person I know has

The young wizard as Byronic antihero

Last week, I blogged about AI image generator MidJourney and discovered that AIs excel at replicating social archetypes that reoccur in pop culture. This week I'm going to be exploring one of those archetypes - the young wizard as Byronic antihero.

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Of bananas, racism and other AI horrors

In my last AI art creation blogpost, I attempted to depict the lead villain of my science-fantasy novel, only to discover that AI art generator, MidJourney, was determined to give him unwanted rhinoplasty. In this next thrilling episode of 'AI art and other horrors', I will be

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The Hard Limits of visual AI - it's all in the nose

There's been much discussion of whether image-generating AIs, such as MidJourney or DALL-E 2, will render creativity obsolete. They generate visually-appealing images based on text prompts, and there's an obvious application in replacing stock photos or background art. I've been experimenting

Are we *really* facing a Gattaca future?

Babies can now be screened during IVF for traits [https://www.ivfbabble.com/on-the-40th-anniversary-of-the-first-ivf-in-the-usa-the-first-baby-elizabeth-jordan-carr-looks-at-how-science-today-has-produced-a-new-world-first-baby-aurea/] controlled by multiple genes, potentially including intelligence.

Imagining a greener future - Part 2

Chobani yoghurt advert using solarpunk aesthetics. It reminds me a little of the Valley of the Wind in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.On the 26th June, Spectrum London Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Group ran a half-day event [https://spectrumwriters.com/events/2021-virtual-speaker-

Imagining a greener future - Part 1

Last month, the UK's Guardian newspaper ran a story [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/26/stories-to-save-the-world-the-new-wave-of-climate-fiction] trumpeting the new genre of climate fiction or 'cli-fi'. As with most similar articles, the story barely

Aliens

Taking on the Boloverse: World Breakers

I’ve been blogging on-and-off [http://futureslesstravelled.com/introducing-rebooting-the-boloverse/] about the Bolo series of military sci-fi novels for about a year now. However, in a startling development, a new ‘Bolo-esque’ anthology of giant tank stories has just been published by Baen Books [https: