I’m pretty much disinclined to write book reviews when asked, not because there are so many rubbish books out there but because my reaction so often will be along the lines of, ‘It was okay’ thus damning a book by faint praise. As I’ve noted before, I don’t read as much now as thirty or more years ago when I was averaging ten books a month (mostly science fiction and fantasy). I think this is due to me spending a large portion of my time writing and editing – my editing head is perpetually on and when I pick up a book I’m often thinking well, I wouldn’t have done that and you didn’t tell me ab ..read more

I wrote in a post about my addiction to nicotine that it is the way the drug is delivered that is the problem. Smoking delivers a shitload of poisons and damage that are absent in vaping. Vaping is the act of putting stuff in your lungs which are designed for air only, and people are kidding themselves if they think that has no effect (it eventually did on me). Pouches, which I took up to supplant vaping, cause effects in the mouth and in the stomach, so who knows what long term damage they are doing? But recently I began to wonder precisely how much is about delivery and how much is about wha ..read more

Checking back through my journal I see it was the 12th of June 2021 when, after returning from a 6 mile kayak run, I supped on a freezing cold beer in Revans – a Cretan beach bar – and didn’t enjoy it. I then had a glass of red wine and found that better, then proceeded to drink three half-litre carafes of the stuff. The result of this was a hangover that lasted for three days and no wish to have any alcohol at all. After a couple of weeks I had a case of the roaring shits which, I ascertained, might well have been my guts shedding years of damage. My general health and mood improved and I fo ..read more

Time to assess where I’m at with exercise, and with eating in a way that raises my ketones but is not strictly ketogenic i.e. I’m eating high protein and not the high fat of that diet. Prior to February last year I was doing 6 hours of weight training in the gym each week, along with three or four combinations of walking and jogging over a few miles. The latter, without getting into technicalities of VO2 Max, was because I knew I wasn’t getting out-of-breath enough. One of the realities of exercise I’ve learned that it is often what you want to do the least that you need the most. At the time ..read more

Further additions here you’ll find down near the bottom. Two books published by Ian Whates of Newcon Press. The publication of Lockdown Tales was where I also discovered the excellent artwork of Vincent Sammy, who I got to do the new covers you’ll find here.   Since being taken on by Macmillan I’ve published over 30 books, but not all of them are from that publisher. I’m not a writer who had instant success with a big publisher. As I have noted elsewhere, I climbed every step of the ladder, sometimes with people stepping on my fingers. I’ve had numerous short stories published in magazin ..read more

As the number of my published books has climbed people have often asked me, ‘Where do I start?’ to which, over the last few years I’ve been answering with the original version of this article. Things have moved on now and there are books I have to add. With the total now at plus 30 books I guess it can be a daunting prospect for the new reader, but I understand why many want to start when they see the enthusiasm of those who have been reading for some time. And it is to those long-time fans I turn to for anecdotal guidance. But first let me give you some idea of what these books (also novellas ..read more

Since I really enjoy the Critical Drinker’s You Tube videos I felt I should give one of his books a try – written under his real name Will Jordan (I think). An action scene and a soldier apparently dying in the desert got me into the book, then other stuff kicked me out. It started to drag a few chapters in with character sketches and scene setting. Much of this seemed to consist of laborious info-dumps and I felt this writer had failed to grasp the basic principle of ‘show don’t tell’. At least this was my initial impression and I put the book aside. But then the internet came to the rescue b ..read more

My internet is not always 100% either in the UK or on Crete. Sometimes is slows down so that loading circle appears in the middle of watching something and sometimes it disconnects completely. I suppose it might be due to a hundred million Americans waking up and checking their phones, or a mouse ate a wire somewhere or the sun decided to thwack a burst of radiation in our general direction. It can be irritating but, generally, never lasts for long. On Crete since I’ve been here the internet dropping out was becoming more and more noticeable then, last week, it shut off completely. I expected ..read more

Since my last blog post on the subject a month and a half ago I’ve been eating a ketogenic diet (as I noted in that blog post: I’m in ketosis but haven’t been replacing carbs with fat but eating more protein). Generally I eat two meals a day. The first is after midday and consists of meat, veg and eggs – say three strips of belly pork, three eggs and a pile of broccoli. The second sometime between 6 and 8 consists of a small plate of preserved sausage, cheese, a handful of nuts, some pickles and perhaps stuff like cucumber, radish or tomatoes. Time between last meal and first is about 16 to 18 ..read more

Here’s the last of the new covers for my Kindle and POD books produced by Vincent Sammy. I think he’s done an excellent job. Depicted here is a scene from the short story Bioship. Stories: Memories of Earth I believe I wrote this one as a publicity exercise for Tor Macmillan while they were publishing the Owner trilogy, but then it wasn’t used. I subsequently shunted it off to Asimov’s and they published it in their October/November 2013 issue. There’s also an audible version on Starship Sofa (No. 383). Shell Game This appeared in The New Space Opera 2 edited by Gardner Dozois and Johnathan S ..read more