Deceived by Stephanie Flint

Flint draws upon the combination of rebellion and naivety in the normal teenage mind to create a science-fiction conspiracy that provides emotional complexity without requiring byzantine convolutions. While this novella is set in the same universe as Distant Horizon and events happen shortly before that book, it is an independent narrative rather than a prequel. …

The Call of the Void

Rather enjoying the cosmic dread in The Call of the Void podcast. Set in modern day New Orleans, the story follows Topher, a young man trying to save his father from a mysterious condition affecting him physically and mentally, and Etsy, a young woman who must confront a dark past and overcome the destructive forces …

My Dad is a Mad Scientist by Matthew S. Cox

Cox demonstrates that accessible prose and cinematic action don’t have to come at the cost of emotional depth, creating superhero fiction that will appeal to readers of all ages and power levels. Life is hard if you’re a nine-year-old who loves maths, especially if you’re smart enough to skip a grade. Kelly Donovan’s parents tell …

Where the Heart Is

As most of you probably know, the (not very) United Kingdom officially left the European Union on Friday. As many of you also probably know, this was not my preferred option. I have plenty of thoughts about it, but perhaps the strongest is irony: those of the Leave camp who are not indulging in triumphalism …

Termination Shock by Gillian Andrews

Andrews mixes space opera tropes with fresh ideas to create science fiction that escalates sharply from personal to galactic without seeming superficial. Ryler Mallivan expects mandatory military refresher to be a short break in his life as the owner of a space freighter. However, when his training ship is caught in the middle of interstellar …

Caterwinning

This struck me as a slightly different take on Lovecraftian audio books: a female narrator reading in modern voice. https://youtu.be/A6hBiue2q-o One of the biggest barriers to immersion I experience listening to audio versions of Lovecraft stories is Vincent-Pricing; while I love the performances of Vincent Price and can see the similarity in archaisms, the slightly …

Harlem Smoke by James Champagne

Champagne blends psychogeography and philosophy with pop culture and torture-porn to create a post-modern collage of Lovecraftian dissonance. Nearly a decade ago, Isaac Grimalkin (under the name of the Reznorian pseudo-group ‘Dunwich Posse’) released “Harlem Smoke”, a Lovecraftian horrorcore hip-hop album. Abandoning his burgeoning music career when murderers and suicides cited his work as “inspiration” …

…With More Feeling!

Thoughts on double-plus good writing are double-plus good. This morning, I discovered some notes I'd made years ago, which included this quote from Cliff Seal: "No one has ever been offended by proper grammar or proper sentence structure. No one has ever emailed you to say I really wish you would use six more exclamation …

Emma and the Weeping Spirit by Matthew S. Cox

Cox reframes the classic haunted house trope for middle grade readers without sacrificing the complexities and uncertainties of spectral visitations. This is the fifth book in Cox’s Tales of Widowswood series. Potential spoilers for previous volumes lurk past this point. When a harpy attack drives ten-year-old Emma deep into unknown forest, her experiences help her …

Edge Cases

I came across this video earlier today—ironically, not while doing research for the Legend of the Five Rings game I've just started. There's a pleasing combination of athleticism and humour from both combatants. However, one thing did seem very wrong; wrong enough for what appeared otherwise to be a great short film that I spent …