Search Results for: world building

Sunday 16th August, 2015

Today I put notional pen to paper for the first time in eleven days. Yes, it had been eleven days since I lost wrote some fiction, what with preparing for Nine Worlds, attending Nine Worlds and then recovering from the virus(es?) I was doomed to catch having spent three days in a crowded hotel that uses air conditioning. And I didn’t exactly get very far today, either, as I only wrote about a hundred words … Continue reading

Sunday 12th July, 2015

So, Edge Lit #4 was attended, and I managed to make it through a reading of A Pack of Lies without anyone seriously objecting to my stumbling delivery, my lack of North Walian or Norwegian accent (where appropriate), or the stench of fear I no doubt carried around with me. It was a lot of fun meeting up with everyone again and my thanks to Alex Davis and hs team for organising it.

In … Continue reading

Sunday 3rd August, 2014

Right, at the top of this week’s list of things to tell you:

The friendly folk of The Future Fire [External Link] are crowdfunding another science fiction anthology. This time they will be focusing on dis/ability although there will be intersection with other issues that can cause problems with attaining equality. The anthology will be called “Accessing The Future” and it’s an Indiegogo campaign (here: [External Link]),

If you’re wondering why … Continue reading

Three Little Pigs & Gone Fishing: Story Background

This is a little background on the thinking behind Three Little Pigs (published back in April 2010) and Gone Fishing (published tomorrow, 30th April 2014). More precisely, I’m going to have a bit of a look at the world building as specific to these two stories.

Publishing Details

Three Little Pigs was published by Crossed Genres [External Link] in issue 17 of their original run. This issue is no longer available.

Gone Fishing … Continue reading

R&D: Development Issues

As ever, I had a bright idea. This one got a bit messy. More precisely, I had the bright idea of reusing technology that turned up in earlier stories and something I was drafting at the time. So…

The Framework

The science fiction stories I’m lumping together as background stories are as follows:

The Pack

All things considered. It’s pretty safe to say I’m a dog person. We had quite a few animals around when I was a kid (up until my mum got ill with cancer and eventually died – which made the smallholding something that a single father couldn’t carry on running. I like cats and horses and goats and chickens and all the other things I grew up with but it’s dogs I always seemed to love … Continue reading

Let’s Talk About Sex

(Post title appropriated from Salt’N’Pepa)

Once again, I’m about to do a blog post without any real research or tracking back to relevant information. I am a bad scientist, one of the many reasons I didn’t finish the doctorate I started many moons ago. So, we’re about to set off on a many thousand word essay with the advance warning that this is my opinion (and deluded reasoning) only. Here we go.

What’s it all … Continue reading

Sunday 12th February, 2012

Yesterday, England beat Italy in Rome (in the remains of the snow) and the France-Ireland game got called off due to a frozen, or soon to be frozen pitch. The temperatures were in minus numbers and things did not look good when they took the heaters away. As far as I know, the fixture has yet to be rearranged but people expect it to be the first weekend in March. Wales play Scotland this afternoon.

Continue reading

Women’s Roles in Fantasy Fiction

This post is based partly on email conversations with Amber Fox about one of my works in progress, The Three Guineveres. In re-jigging the Arthur / Guinevere material and trying to make a workable version of my own (the movie credit would read “inspired by”), I’m wandering into some difficult areas that could give the reader the impression that the fictional character’s thinking is my own – and as it’s not very flattering thinking, I’m … Continue reading

Sunday 29th January, 2012

Well, I finally remembered to put something up here. I think we can safely say I haven’t done anything that would interest the website audience in the intervening period. (3 weeks; I’m a terrible correspondent; sorry)

It’s traditional to excuse oneself when you’ve been caught in the wrong, so here we go:

  • The desktop computer has had a fit and died. Which will only get me so far as most people realise that being a … Continue reading