Literary SF

A friend on Facebook has asked to make a few suggestions of Speculative Fiction that straddles both mass market and literary audiences. I thought the answer might be of more general interest, so here we go… It’s a good question. As I suggested last week over on The Guardian, while SF is generally perceived asContinue reading “Literary SF”

Your chance to argue with Damo

So. This coming Saturday I will be talking about Speculative Fiction, and why it deserves the broadest possible respect and recognition, as part of the States of Independence publishers fair at De Montfort University in Leicester. I’ve been shooting my mouth off about this subject for some time, and now I’m going to do thatContinue reading “Your chance to argue with Damo”

This is not a recession, it is the end of an era

UPDATE : WordPress.com won’t let me embed the Prezi, so you’ll just have to make use of your opposable thumbs and click the link. If you haven’t discovered Prezi yet, you really should. It’s one of the most powerful communication tools on the interwebs, and possibly a minor-revolution for the written word. But this isn’tContinue reading “This is not a recession, it is the end of an era”

The SpecFic books I read again and again

John DeNardo challenged a number of writers to think about the speculative fiction they return to again and again. My response is bellow. I would love to see a similar challenge for the nonSF books that Sf writers are influenced by, that would be fascinating. Also, I seem to have declared the death of ScienceContinue reading “The SpecFic books I read again and again”

Reality is for people who can’t handle Science Fiction

It’s all too easy to dismiss science fiction and fantasy stories as escapist nonsense. But there’s ultimately something despairing about the charge of running away most readers of these genres encounter at some point. It tends to come from an authority figure of some kind – a teacher, a boss, a parent. It is oftenContinue reading “Reality is for people who can’t handle Science Fiction”

Cory Doctorow Interview

Willing Science Fiction into Fact Activist-novelist Cory Doctorow explains to Damien G Walter how he hopes his writing will change tomorrow’s world. Cory Doctorow’s office lies behind a featureless, black security door in a north London side street, deep in a converted post-industrial warehouse, down echoing corridors and concrete stairways. It’s an appropriately “underground” headquartersContinue reading “Cory Doctorow Interview”