Oryx & Crake a kind of review

As a writer I often feel awkward writing reviews of established authors in case it looks like sour grapes but there’s more to praise in this book than gripe about. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood is another post-apocalyptic story. Good, I like those. Heck, I’ve...
Fact catching up with Fiction?

Fact catching up with Fiction?

Is it fiction coming true? In ARIA: Left Luggage I had an alien virus on the International Space Station bringing an apocalyptic infectious amnesia to Earth. No immunity. Now something like it is happening as reported in this month’s New Scientist. All right it...
New book by Mark Iles!

New book by Mark Iles!

Here we go, have you seen this? Of course not. Not yet anyway. I turn my back for a few minutes and author Mark Iles leaps in with a section of his blog tour. You see he’s written a new novel and up-and-coming UK publisher Elsewhen have published it. Really, Mark Iles...
Dragons & Princesses riveting read

Dragons & Princesses riveting read

I am so busy writing and editing my own nonsense and committed to reading two books a month for two book groups in which I poke and mutually laugh, cry and enjoy novel, that I rarely find time to read extra.However, I couldn’t help myself be drawn into buying The...
True Horror Ticking in Prague

True Horror Ticking in Prague

  A few years ago Gaynor and I visited Prague in the Czech Republic and fell in love with the city – its buildings, especially Kafka’s house and the still-working, centuries old Astronomical Clock. The latter is fascinating. Huge, accurate and clockwork. Then I...

A hole in a hole?

My dad’s favourite sitcom was Last of the Summer Wine. As old as the Yorkshire hills they were set in – Holmfirth – Cleggy, played by Peter Sallis, uttered a profound astronomical observation in episode 5, season 6 (1982). While relaxing on a grassy hillside, he said...