Sir Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, the Discworld my favourite series, and the City Watch books my favourite subset of those novels. Snuff, therefore, had a high bar to …
Book Review: Snuff (Discworld #39) by Terry Pratchett
Fiction
Book Review: Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter
Let’s just start with a little context setting, given that this is book III in the series. If you’ve read my review of Horus Rising, you’ll know what first enticed …
Book Review: The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden
Stories really are a funny thing, aren’t they? It’s thanks to stories like The Warm Hands of Ghosts that I can vicariously experience some of the worst things that have …
Book Review: False Gods, by Graham McNeill
False Gods had a big set of shoes to fill. The sequel to Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising continues the story of Horus, the Warmaster, as he struggles under the weight …
Book Review: The Puzzle Wood, by Rosie Andrews
I’d like to start by apologising to any other books I may read this year, because The Puzzle Wood has set the bar incredibly high. This fast-paced gothic mystery kept …
Should Spines be getting authors’ backs up?
Spines came to my attention born aloft on a wave of anger. This new publisher has claimed they will ‘disrupt’ the publishing industry using AI. Obviously, the authors I follow …
Writing…just for the hell of it
The other day I was playing with my daughter. She had instructed me to help her lay some Paw Patrol playing cards in a path across the house. I have …
Protect your drive to create at all costs
Trying to write a book? Well I hope you’re not committing any of the writing sins on this list as long as my leg. And I trust you’ve remembered the …
In defence of being ‘wordy’
Our screen-addled brains can’t cope with more than two syllables, right? ‘Use short, simple sentences’. ‘Never use an uncommon word when a common one will do.’ This advice is everywhere. …
What makes a good opening sentence?
‘It was the day my grandmother exploded.’ I haven’t gotten around to reading Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory yet, but that opening line (read somewhere else) will stay with me …