My Favourite Reads of 2023
Finally hit my target of 50 books this year. Reading is part of my job as a writer, and I aim to do so every evening. I’m not fast and wouldn’t want to be. I savour what I read (when …
Category: Reviews
The Six Best Books I Read in 2021 (and seven honourable mentions)
I got through thirty-one books this year, not including those I read as judge in the Aurealis Awards. Still, less than I would have liked. I try – and usually succeed – to write every day. But as an author, …
Angry Dad Cinema: An Appreciation
When Adam Liaw, an Australian celebrity chef (the only celebrity chef I know, I should add, and I have no idea what he cooks. I came across him because he is consistently funny and sensible on Twitter and perhaps the …
Six Favourite Books of 2020
Read thirty-three books this year, which is below average. The goal is fifty. They said lockdown was a perfect opportunity to catch up on reading and hobbies, to learn an instrument, compose a fucking aria, all that bullshit. I spent …
The Importance of Reader Reviews (for authors like me)
Word of mouth still matters. It matters a lot, to pretty much to every writer who a) isn’t famous, and b) doesn’t have a major publisher willing to spend a fortune on marketing. Even for those, it still damn well …
The Twenty Best Sword Fights, Ever
I developed a fascination with sword fights after taking up Kumdo (Korean sword fighting) a year or two back. Not that I didn’t quite enjoy a good duel already – especially if it was dynamic and revealed character, moreso again …
Neon Leviathan is out now – and the reviews are excellent
The day has come. My short story collection is now out in the world.
I’m not sure how to do soft sells or hard sells, or anything in between. So let me say 
this: buy it you bastards, and read …
Six Favourite Books of 2019
Read about 30 books this year, which is below par. I aim for around fifty. I think it was a combination of finishing my PhD, which was mentally exhausting (a good reason), and because I allowed my free will to …
The Thanos Conundrum
This isn’t a ‘Thanos is right’ article. There were a proliferation of these hot takes in the aftermath of Endgame a few months back*, and I doubt I could add much. Rather, this article is about the consequences of halving …
Rutger Remembered
Electric, terrifying, charismatic, complex. Roy Batty was everything a cyberpunk antagonist should be: morally ambiguous, ultra-violent, flawed, philosophical. And if there’s a difference between cyberpunk protagonist and antagonist, well, those differences are too small to contemplate here. 
Roy Batty embodied …