My Books – Where to Start Reading
Every time I’m guest at a Comic-Con or equivalent, someone will walk past my desk, see my array of cyberpunk books, and ask me where they should begin.
My short answer is always this: anywhere you like. They are …
Tag: The Escher Man
When a Character is a Weapon (Featuring Chrome Lin Vu)
I recently watched a thoughtful, interesting YouTube on ‘Writing Characters Who Are Weapons,’ by Tim Hickson. He’s a New Zealander who runs the channel HelloFutureMe, which deals with both writing as a craft and analysing pop culture. He’s got some …
Ditmar Awards voting is open (and you can nominate)
Ditmar Awards Voting is open. For the uninitiated, the Ditmars are the annual Australian peer-voted awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.
What does peer-voted mean? Well, that you are either attending the National Convention (or have in recent …
BookTube Interview – Five Sci-Fi Novel Recommendations
I recently did an interview with Jonathan, an Australian BookTuber who runs a channel called Words in Time. He’s got some great content, so I recommend you go and check it out. I’ve embedded the interview in this article, …
My Favourite Reads of 2024
Hit my target of 52 books read for the year. As I keep saying (because it’s true) reading is part of the job of a writer. I put aside a couple of hours every evening to do so. When I …
Five Pieces of Awful Writing Advice (from the masters)
- Don’t keep a notebook (Stephen King)
“I think a writer’s notebook is the best way in the world to immortalise bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around.”
Terrible advice, …
Three ways to write a novel: The Odyssey, The Fever Dream, and the Fix-Up
The Escher Man took me ten years to write. Aliens: Bishop took five months. Ghost of the Neon God was a short short story, then two short stories, then a final expansion into a novella. Three books, three radically different …
Well This Sucks (how Amazon screwed my new novel, and what to do about it)
Preorders are, apparently, a big thing. Publishers place huge importance on them.
As far as I can tell, there are three main reasons for this: 1) They are a way to gauge future interest in the book, and therefore inform …
Year in Review – Awards, Book Deals, and Incandescent Rage
Big year. It started relentlessly, and never really gave up. January kicked off with my finishing a tie-in novel, Aliens: Bishop.
Never thought I’d write a tie-in novel, never thought I could write any novel in 4.5 months, never …
Two Book Deal
Fuck yeah.
I have more than one novel* in me, apparently. At least two more, to be precise, after signing a new deal with Titan Books (UK).
The first is The Escher Man. It takes place five years after …