The Road, a review.
Hi all, I was attracted to The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, for a few reasons. Those who have followed this blog will realise that I an a fan of apocalyptic fiction and films, so that was the main attraction. Secondly, the Road won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, and I have been concentrating on reading […]
comments
Hi all, I discovered last week that readers of this blog would not take anonymous comments, and a person would have to go to all the trouble of getting a google password if they wanted to say something. The day after I rectified this someone made an anonymous comment. I wonder how many comments I […]
Review – How to Build a Time Machine
Hi all, I finished the non-fiction book How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies a few weeks ago, but I have not had time, until now, to write a quick review of it. It is a short book at some 135 pages (excluding the bibliography) and would be even shorter if some of […]
New Scientist – Favourite Science-fiction book/movie
Hi all, New scientist wants people to vote for their favourite science-fiction book and film. I voted for George Turner’s The Sea and Summer for the book – still tossing up what film to vote for.
Print-on-demand arrives in Melbourne.
Hi all, Print-on-demand has finally arrived in Australia. An article in the Age gives details. I would stilll, like most writers, prefer being selected by a reputable publisher than take the self-published print-on-demand route, but for writers who are good at marketing themselves and have a big web or blog following, print-on-demand might be preferable […]
Harlan Ellison wants to be paid
Hi all, Harlan Ellison Rants about being paid.
The Australian book market
Hi all, I’ve just read an article in The AGE (3rd of August) that had some encouraging things to say about the Australian book market. Firstly, sales increased by 7.5% in the past financial year to 1.25 billion. If the lastest installment of Harry Potter is removed then sales rose by 5.2%. Overall 63 million […]
The world without us
Hi all, I’ve just finished reading the non-fiction book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It’s a book which posses the question: what would happen to the world if humanity suddenly disappeared? It seemed the world would do pretty well without us until I got to the chapter on nuclear power plants. The author […]
Australian Science Fiction
Hi all, I thought about how to do my comparison of Australian Science Fiction that I had read to that of the rest of the worlds. A list that ranked them all would be a bit too complicated so I have started with a ranking of the novels and anthologies by Australian authors. In the […]
good bye to self censorship
Hi all, I apologise for this post as it is probably going to wander all over the place, just like a rant usually does. For the past few years I have been trying to intergrate myself into the Australian speculative fiction writing scene. I have been doing this for a few reasons: most importantly to […]