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Category Archives: Authors
From the Wasteland looking at the stars – Steve Aylett’s Smithereens
Steve Aylett is a singular author and Smithereens, his latest (and possibly final short story) collection centres on the idea of originality. Or perhaps that is just my misprision of it. I’ll come back to this. A word of warning: … Continue reading
Approaching God – Stephen Hunt’s Secrets of the Fire Sea
Stephen Hunt‘s Secrets of the Fire Sea is a mash up of a Dan Brownesque thriller, steampunk and adventure. I don wonder if there is a little Jules Verne in there as well. Hunt continues mashing up genres in the … Continue reading
The carnival of realities in Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s children’s books
The carnivalesque, a theory of folk humour developed by Mikhail Bakhtin, is a time of collapse and overturning of conventional boundaries and norms of the world. It is essentially a licensed time of revelry and excitement which the ruling classes … Continue reading
Pratchett talks about Aching
Just a short note. Aida Emariam in the Guardian has an interview with Terry Pratchett. He talks about I Shall Wear Midnight and the right to die. In a way I’m happy that this is the last in the Aching … Continue reading
Two faces of Artemis Fowl
Artemis Fowl is happy. Very happy. Unnervingly so. His latest scheme is to reverse global warming and save the world. He’s being heroic. Its unnerving. He keeps taking and counting in multiples of five as well. Holly Short notices the … Continue reading
Jeepers, Blyton’s jolly japes to be updated
Alison Flood in the Guardian has a piece on the reworking of the language in the Famous Five books which Hodder, their current publisher, are publishing in August. They will still publish the originals but the contemporary range will modernise … Continue reading
A reader responds to Bath and Mayne
The news that the children’s author, KP Bath, had been sentenced for the possession of child pornography has (rightly) sparked a debate on children’s mailing lists. It has reminded me of William Mayne whose writing career was ended by his … Continue reading
Restoring the World – Ken Macleod’s The Restoration Game
I’ve just finished Ken Macleod‘s The Restoration Game (Orbit, £18.99) and I’m still slightly agog. Lucy Stone is asked by an unknown agency to go back to Krassnia, a small Russian republic in the Caucasus. Her mother, Anna, created the … Continue reading
Call for Papers on Mervyn Peake
The Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy has issued a call for papers for their conference on Mervyn Peake next year. It certianly a conference that I’ll be trying to attend, even if I don’t contribute a paper.
Gaiman’s checks in Jack Benny
Just listening the repeat of John Lloyd’s Museum of Curiosities with Sarah Millican and Neil Gaiman. Gaiman has just checked in The Jack Benny Show (archives appear to here) into the museum as a way of showing the power of … Continue reading