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,

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 that! The Engineer

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 Harrow Faire because I

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 in

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 based on

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 the intention of

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 entries, largely focusing on

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 and

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 E.L. Lyons, who

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-published

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

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

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 computer

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.

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. But, is this possible, or even useful? A couple of weeks ago, I read on Astral Codex Ten [https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/welcome-polygenically-screened-babies] about the (belated) first ba

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-events/june-2021-solarpunk-day/] exploring what

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 touches upon speculative fiction, only stooping to Jeff VanderMeer's