January 2012
6 posts
2 tags
On Colson Whitehead's Zone One.
Much has been written about the fact that Colson Whitehead, esteemed author of so-called literary fiction, has written a genre novel. It’s got zombies, all the reviews say, which is interesting. They focus on it: on the gore that Mr Whitehead so wonderfully describes, and the scenes of tragic, dismaying violence that he presents with some of the most beautiful writing I read in all of 2011....
December 2011
7 posts
3 tags
Here are the best things I watched in 2011.
TV and film, in no particular order:
Drive
Warrior
Moneyball
Game of Thrones (season 1)
Breaking Bad (season 4)
Community (season 3)
Parks & Recreation (season 4)
Another Earth
X-Men First Class
Captain America
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
2 tags
Here are the best albums that I heard in 2011.
In no particular order:
…Trail of Dead - Tao of the Dead
Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing
Cliff Martinez (& others) - Drive OST
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr - It’s A Corporate World
The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
Jim Guthrie - Swords & Sworcery LP
Josh T Pearson - Last Of The Country Gentlemen
The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
Ryan...
2 tags
Here are the best games that I played in 2011.
These are in no particular order:
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Batman: Arkham City
Portal 2
Dead Space 2
Superbrothers: Sword And Sworcery
Bastion
Where’s My Water
Infinity Blade 2
Pullblox
(I haven’t, as of writing, played Super Mario 3D Land or Mario Kart 7. Assume these should probably be in this list.)
2 tags
Here are the best Books I read in 2011.
In no particular order:
David Vann’s Caribou Island
Julian Barnes’ The Sense Of An Ending
John Harding’s Florence & Giles
Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad
Neal Stephenson’s Reamde
RIchard Gwyn’s Vagabond’s Breakfast
Ross Raisin’s Waterline
Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot
(Special mention, because it’s not out...
2 tags
On Skyrim
Here’s a story.
Myself and Uthgerd - she’s my assistant, who I met in a pub when she challenged me to a fist fight which I won - are chasing down a dragon, climbing some very high mountains and going through some pretty precarious conditions. Halfway up the mountain we meet some wolves, and we fight them. Well, I say We. I mean, she runs up to them and forces herself on them....
November 2011
4 posts
Amateur astronomer glimpses an alien solar system →
2 tags
On Care Of Wooden Floors
Will Wiles, the author of Care of Wooden Floors, is the deputy-editor of Icon magazine. When I first read that the novel was being published, that fact led me toward assumptions: that it would be filled with beautiful objects and architecture, and descriptions of said items, and that these descriptions would form the bulk of the novel. What I didn’t necessarily expect was a character as...
October 2011
7 posts
4 tags
A Cover; A Testimony
The Testimony has a cover.
This is the result of months of work, back and forth between the designer and the editors at Blue Door and the Sales & Marketing people of Harper Collins and myself and my agent. It’s a cover that has to be a lot of things to a lot of different people, and we’re all thrilled with the final result.
So, from here it’s only 5 months until the...
September 2011
14 posts
5 tags
The Something Something of Something Machines.
I have no time on my hands. As in, nothing. Zero. We moved recently - to live on the grounds of a boarding school, weirdly, which is a thing for another day entirely - and now I’ve got a 3 hour commute five days a week. I’ve done the first load of edits for The Explorer - out January ‘13, and a novel I’m really very happy with - and The Testimony is out so soon it’s...
Space Shuttle Discovery - a 360VR photo of the... →
“The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my...”
– Victor Frankenstein
August 2011
6 posts
Strange alien planet is impossibly black →
The darkest substance ever found.
July 2011
18 posts
