An environment that I’m rather familiar with, after all. Just having a beer to quelch my first-time moderator nerves, having a chat with Sandy Auden (my reviews editor at Interzone), and contemplating a last minute cigarette before heading off to the Green Room to meet the panel. Whatever happens, this will certainly be a experience! Dissection later on …

Definitions, descriptions, genres and sub-genres … it looks like the sf blogosphere is unearthing more evidence to demonstrate that the harder you try to put things in a box, the more likely you are to find that the box doesn’t fit.

Continue reading ““Beer-money hard-pulp cyber-opera”, or “Defining the indefinable””

Depending on where you sit, the word ‘literary’ preceding the words ‘science fiction’ is either a handy descriptor denoting a certain flavour of genre writing, or a pretentious label that denotes tedious over-egging of the writerly pudding.

It’s probably fairly plain that I’m a fan of literary sf, but what the hell does that actually denote, anyway? Where is the line drawn? And is it inherently ‘better’ than other forms? Continue reading “A vindication of ‘beer-money’ science fiction”

I’ll admit that I post about some fairly blue-sky inventions from time to time, but here’s one that I’m sure everyone can agree has a genuine use in the real world. Tempra Technology announce the Instant Cool Can, a self-cooling beer can using entirely safe and non-toxic cooling methods.

Link grabbed from TechEBlog.