Articles from May 2008

Apparently according to Survival International there are 100 uncontacted tribes existing still in the world – mostly in the area of Brazil and Peru. I found the story over at TED. It makes you think doesn’t it!? Also I was wondering about the possibilities of this as a story idea? The problem is most people [...]

Spotted at SF Signal, Pravda interviews Harry Harrison, who calls the USA a fascist state. While he may have a point it’s a bit rich coming from Russians isn’t it? I wonder if his comments were taken out of context though or maybe they missed out a bit where he also criticized Russian autocracy and [...]

There’s a new Elric story in the current issue of Weird Tales. Looks like a great issue – also features an interview with China Míeville, H.P. Lovecraft and Dune. I might subscribe! Elric was one of my favourite fantasy anti-heroes when I was a kid – exactly I think because he was an anti-hero – [...]

I found this story from The Economist interesting about a new research project into the biological basis of religion. As part of my world-building exercise this is quite a fascinating subject as I come to grips with the cultural background of my world’s peoples, which includes their religions. In fact I have decided that religious [...]

I am currently working on the creation of a fantasy world for an upcoming fantasy novel. Having surveyed a lot of the literature and websites regarding world creation I found the following most useful: Creating an Earthlike Planet – this really takes you through most of the process of creating geography, weather and climates. In [...]

Imagine my surprise when I realised the last story in Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly seems to be about a lesbian vampire who is the guest in an Austrian castle high in the wooded mountains of Styria. Very hammer horror in dead. Le Fanu lends the scene where we first guess at the [...]

Like something out of a Jules Verne book or King Kong, this is a pretty amazing picture of Dinosaur tracks! These tracks were discovered in Yemen recently.

Another interview with Terry Pratchett discussing Alzheimer’s, this time on Radio 4. John Humphrys talks to best-selling author Terry Pratchett, who talks about being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and its effect on his life and work. More on Alzheimer’s

Below is an article by me that was published in The London Magazine many years ago now. I don’t believe it is available anywhere else and certainly not on the internet. Should be of interest to anyone interested in Iain Banks’s first book! The Influence of The Tin Drum on Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory The [...]

Deep Genre have a good link to the freebies currently available from Tor Books, which includes the whole of Kate Elliot’s Spirit Gate (Crossroads) book. This is becoming very common now amongst publishers, and may seem like a bit of a rash uncommercial move. However, as Cory Doctorow comments, people don’t want to read a [...]