Archive for June, 2007

Whether you like it or not, whether you think the whole thing is uber-hype or really as good as the hype would have you believe, you can’t ignore the Harry Potter phenomenon. J K Rowling’s success as an author and merchandiser are beyond doubt. Whether you think she’s any good or not, selling three...
Read more »

This is completely unrelated to words, but a bit of nepotism never goes astray. My wife, Halinka, the excellent artist whose webpage you can find in the links section on the left, had an exhibition open last night at MOP Projects. It was a great turn-out and her show looked awesome. Of course, I...
Read more »

Well, I made a promise to myself and I made it a public promise here on this blog too. I said I wanted to have a finished first draft of the sequel novel to RealmShift by the end of June. Just call me Mr Deadline. I wrapped up the first draft today, two days...
Read more »

Some time ago I tried to wrap up just what dark fantasy actually was. Seeing as that is how my writing is most often classified, I wanted to try to answer the question that forever arose: What’s the difference between dark fantasy and horror? You can use the Search box on the right to...
Read more »

If any of you fantasy fans enjoy a good fairy tale, do I have a tip for you. By “a good fairy tale” I’m not talking about some Disney bulldust with singing teapots and happy rodents. I mean real, dark, menacing fairy tales, just like proper fairy tales should be. Pan’s Labyrinth has just...
Read more »

“If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the prophet Muhammad, his act is justified.” Yes, that’s right. Adherents to the so-called religion of Peace are at it again. The quote above was from the Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister, Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq in response to the Knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday honours list...
Read more »

There are a few people that have merged comedy and speculative fiction with outstanding results. The Polish writer Stanislaw Lem was one of the earliest sci-fi writers to get funny with it and some of his work is really worth a look. For anyone that has never heard of him before, I advise you...
Read more »

Remember that Catholic nutter George Pell threatening MPs with “consequences” if they backed a stem cell bill recently? Here’s the post from June 6th. Well, Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has requested a privileges committee investigation into Pell’s comments in order to determine if his they amount to contempt of Parliament. A very fair request...
Read more »

I’m still plugging away at writing the sequel to RealmShift and the first draft is nearly finished. I know I said that before, but it was nearly finished then and it’s still nearly finished now. A hundred thousand words and a hundred and ten thousand words are both nearly finished for a one hundred...
Read more »

The Washington Post Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply the definition of the new word. There have been some excellent entries in the past. Here are this year’s winners. See how many of them you can...
Read more »