Category: Blog

"In the lawless regions of the galaxy, Confederation rule has dwindled. Now the gangsters and smugglers are doing their best to make a quick buck, and maybe just survive.Knox, a disgraced Confederation officer, is hired by a mysterious woman to escort cargo across dangerous territory. It's a payday better than anything he's ever seen...but there's… Continue reading Fool’s Gambit

Two less successful collaboratorsCollaborators usually get a bad rap. The term has generally negative connotations in everyday use, and no-one ever talks about Vichy France with misty-eyed nostalgia. Recently, however, I decided to put all that to one side to try working with Bernard Schaffer (check out his new website http://www.bernardschaffer.com) on Fool's Gambit, a… Continue reading Literary collaboration: three reasons why you should consider it

Image © Rachel BjerkeThe beast that roamed in from the moors that night was mad with hunger and painted black by myth. It took the children by the ruined forge, and when they found the bodies at the stone trough they wished they hadn’t.By then they’d pushed the wolves out into the wild and empty… Continue reading The Last Wolf

I wrote recently about book covers (and Slavic pimps), and ended the blog post with the tantalising threat that I would write more about what I thought makes a good book cover in this confusing modern era of ebooks and online retail.So this is me doing that. As I see it, a modern book cover… Continue reading A melange of pixels and what makes a good electronic book cover

The mushrooms first appeared at the bottom of the garden by the bleached wood fence. They prodded up through the carpet of dead needles and spread their bone-white caps for a week before sinking back into the earth.That was the first year. The second year they reached the tree, the third year the washing line.It… Continue reading 100WC – Mushrooms

A draft cover for Something In The WaterI just finished designing a cover for an ebook by the Tunbridge Wells Writers - Something In The Water, an upcoming collection of "unreliable biographies" of historical figures related to Tunbridge Wells - and it got me thinking about how cover images work in an age of electronic… Continue reading Book covers, Slavic pimps and a dystopian horror carnival

The disused railway cut through the wood from Hob's Cross all the way to Wykeham before it disappeared into the tunnel. They said it was bricked up, but you'd never meet anyone who'd been in far enough to confirm it.People walked there, at weekends. Families on bikes whirred alongside the tracks. On weekdays teenagers played… Continue reading 100WC – Tracks

Every Wednesday I take a sentence or paragraph from something that I've written in the last week and post it entirely without context. This week: I recognise that what is recounted in these pages might draw claims of “fake!” and “charlatan!”, and even among those who would not venture so far I have no doubt… Continue reading Out Of Context Wednesday: Fake and Charlatan

It would be many years before Dr Fong would develop a treatment, but by then it would be too late. The sea would be black, the sky would be bruised, and all the oil would be rotten.The folks at Exxon would be as hungry as the rest, and they’d look back on the day that… Continue reading 100WC – The Crystal

Every Wednesday I take a sentence or paragraph from something that I've written in the last week and post it entirely without context. This week: So, without further ado, or rather with only a relatively small amount of further ado – honestly, so little further ado as to make no difference – in fact so little… Continue reading Out Of Context Wednesday: Further Ado