Review of The Method – a dystopian science fiction novel.
Juli Zeh’s The Method is a very believable dystopian science-fiction thriller. It is a different take on themes explored in novels like 1984 and Brave New World. The novel is set in a future Germany, not too different from the current version, except society is controlled by a strict set of rules known as “The […]
ebook Piracy
I’ve been doing a bit of research into ebook piracy, and I have concluded that any author who is worried about their book being pirated should worry about something they can actually do something about. Almost every published ebook seems to be pirated on multiple sites right now. Spending time trying to track down all […]
Review of Holly Childs’ No Limit.
No Limit is a book about hip young things doing hip things and wanting the world to know about their hipness via social media. The novella is set in Auckland, New Zealand, in December 2012, which is important because the world was supposed to end then due to the Mayan calendar running out. To add […]
My Writing Efforts in February.
In an attempt to motivate myself, I decided at the start of this year to write a monthly blog post about my writing efforts for the previous month. Novel Writing. I am still writing Branded, a science fiction young adult novel. In February, I added 4841 words, 25 words more than in January, and in three […]
Review of Lauren Beukes’ Novel Zoo City.
How did Zoo City win the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award? Not that it’s a bad book; it is a enjoyable, imaginative, and well-written novel. The problem is science does not drive its plot, so it is not science fiction. If anything, the book is fantasy, as its plot’s two main drivers are magic and […]
Australian, UK, US, fiction bestsellers 2014.
A request on my blog’s Facebook page asked if I could follow up my last post with lists of the bestselling fiction books of 2014. As I write adult and young adult fiction, I decided to include both in the following lists. Note: I could only find the top nine bestsellers in Australia. Australia The […]
Australian, UK and US bestselling books 2014
The 2014 top ten bestseller lists for books in Australia, the UK, and the US point to a book-buying world dominated by movies, games, children and teenagers. Top ten bestsellers in Australia. The 52-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (232,900) The Long Haul (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book Nine) by Jeff Kinney […]
January: My Writing Efforts.
In an attempt to motivate myself, I have decided to write a monthly blog post about my writing efforts for the previous month. Novel Writing. I am currently writing a young adult novel, Branded. I wrote the first chapter as part of a writing for young adults subject in a Master of Creative Writing I […]
Analysis of 2014 Goodreads Science Fiction Choice Awards.
For the second year in a row, I have done a simple analysis of the Goodreads’s Choice Awards for science fiction novels. Members of the Goodreads website vote on the awards. Fifteen books were nominated based on their review ratings on Amazon, and five more were nominated by readers. The concept part of my analysis is […]
My Writing in 2014.
I wrote a bit this year, but nowhere near enough. My Fiction Writing. I began the year by finally finishing the first draft of my 215,000 word epic, Jack Logan: Astronaut. I then spent a lot of time redrafting an 8,000 word short story and 23,000 word novella. It wasn’t until November that I got […]