Now that a month has gone by since Locus published a number of appreciations of Chris Priest, I think it's safe to offer up my own contribution. I could have said a great deal more, of course, but that would still only scratch the surface of the times I spent with Chris over almost a quarter of a century, on and off. His friendship meant a great deal and while our tastes in science fiction were not always aligned (but sometimes were) I took every chance to learn from him as a writer. I think his books and stories will endure and I encourage anyone who hasn't read them to take a deep dive ..read more

 I mean to say something about Chris Priest, but in the meantime, I did a bit of pond-dipping for the first time this year (it's remarkably mild and a friend turned up a frog yesterday) and found one of the resident newts doing well ..read more

 If you've been reading this blog for at least a couple of years you might remember this bit of acrylic art I put up early in 2022: It was OK but something about it wasn't quite clicking with me. Then I read a recent interview with the brilliant Chris Foss where he talked about AI-generated imitations of his own style, and how they could never be mistaken for the real thing. (Apologies, but I forget where I saw the interview and haven't been able to relocate it). I looked at the images in the article and agreed that they only looked superficially Chris Foss-like - big bristly spaceships ..read more

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 A new story of mine, "Lottie and the River", will appear in the Christmas issue of New Scientist, with a publication date of December 16th. Not only that, but it's a (mildly) Christmas-themed story. I'm extremely happy to have had this chance to contribute a bit of fiction to NS. Many thanks to Alison Flood and all at NS for having me onboard. I won't say anything else about the story except that it's 3500 words and not connected to anything else I've done, but it is science fiction, and the illustrations are gorgeous ..read more

 After a relatively quiet summer, September and October were filled with travel, including a couple of international trips - a bit of a novelty these days. Enjoying a typically delicious Dutch appelgebak in Leiden I started off with an enjoyable weekend as Guest of Honour at the UK Fantasycon in Birmingham. I was very pleased to be invited, and the reception couldn't have been nicer. The event hotel seemed very good and quite well located for the centre. I sat in on a few panels, attended others, and had a very nice time at the banquet and awards ceremony. Unfortunately I didn't ..read more

 Here's another slice of totally brilliant Gallic pop from the MEGAN soundtrack. I don't think I'd ever heard this before (it's from a few years ago), but wowie. Whoever was putting the music together for that film was really on it ..read more

 Caught this lovely piece of ethereal French dreampop on the excellent soundtrack to MEGAN - and had to dig it out. Hope you like it as much as I do ..read more

My new story is up on Tor, and I couldn't be happier about the wonderful artwork by Ben Zweifel. Rather than spoil the surprise by posting the image here, I'll just recommend that you head on over to Tor.  https://www.tor.com/2023/07/12/detonation-boulevard-alastair-reynolds/  I really am very fortunate to have been blessed with so many gorgeous illustrations in my career. Thank you to Ben for the picture, and to Jonathan and all at Tor for taking the story. Oh, and also The Sisters of Mercy, for the title ..read more

 A recent round of comments reminds me that you're owed an update on where we are with MACHINE VENDETTA. Unfortunately, for those that are keen to get hold of it, it's now been pushed back to January 2024. While the UK edition could have been out by the end of this summer (the book itself is done except for final proofreading, which normally happens about 6 weeks ahead of actual printed copies appearing) it was thought better to have it come out at the same time in America as the UK, which does make sense in terms of maximising the impact of reviews, publicity and so on. Since US publishe ..read more