At the Telegraph, a list of the top 100 books published since 1982, according to a survey of Waterstones staff.

A few undeniable genre works have made it in:

• Neuromancer (Gibson, William)
• Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, Margaret)
• Watchmen (Moore, Alan) [a graphic novel, forsooth!]
• Northern Lights (Pullman, Philip)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Clarke, Susannah)

And a few “oh no, I don’t write science fiction” jobs:

• Girlfriend In A Coma (Coupland, Douglas)
• Time Traveler’s Wife, The (Niffenegger, Audrey)
• Cloud Atlas (Mitchell, David)

Plus two of Iain Banks’ non-sf works (Crow road and Wasp Factory natch). I’ll bet our Banksie is pleased as punch to be on the same list as Sophie Kinsella …

… but I see via the BBC website that some other folk have been having a high old time in it:

That’s just priceless.

(But the owner of those instruments is going to discover that the necks won’t agree with the temperature one little bit.)

It’s a brave move to launch a print magazine devoted to short genre fiction in a climate where everyone seems to be trumpeting the decline of the scene, and that is exactly what the producers of Hub magazine have decided to do – a paying market for both fiction and non-fiction, in glossy (if small-format) magazine quality (as opposed to small-press chapbook). I’ll leave the debate as to whether they can last the course without trimming back on writer’s fees or magazine quality for those who know the industry better than I, and report from the reader’s perspective. Continue reading “Magazine Review: Hub #1″

Of all the news I expected to encounter this evening, a report of the launch of a new UK sf magazine was the least likely, but that is what I got. Continue reading “The new mag in town”

Interzone #207 manages to sustain the high standard of fiction content that #206 set, despite having a very different collection of work between the covers. Continue reading “Magazine Review: Interzone #207″

Remember my despairing posts about the decline of UK libraries? Thanks to Tim Coates, a man who has campaigned against the decay of the service to the point of losing his livelihood and home due to being blackballed by the industry, here are some figures that illustrate the number of books that UK libraries have loaned out, compared with the amount of money spent on the services, and the percentage of that amount spent on books over the last decade: Continue reading “UK libraries update”

Good news via Torque Control … there may be an Eastercon after all, despite the collapse of the Convoy bid. Contemplation 2007 promises to be a ‘lightly programmed replacement’ for Eastercon. That may not be what everyone wants to hear, but it sounds good to me – what I’m after is a chance to have a social with some other sf heads again. I’m still new to cons, and the sense of community is enough for me (though obviously having some notables about would be a bonus).

Continue reading “Eastercon back on again?”

The days get shorter and the air gets colder as another year nears its end…

Continue reading “Friday Photo Blogging! Autumn in Velcro City”

OK, so there’s nothing clever or interesting (or even masquerading as clever or interesting) to read here today. What can I say? It’s been a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and I’ve had other demands on my time that didn’t involve hammering at this keyboard. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow – in the mean time, I’m sure you’ll grant a guy who doesn’t actually make any money from writing having a day off from posting on his blog.

Oh, you won’t? Well, that’s me told off…feel free to call me all the bad words under the sun in the comments. It’s been a while since I attempted to throw an open thread, anyway…

What did you all get up to this weekend, if you weren’t at the WorldCon in LA?

I’ll admit to feeling a little smug when reading the rash of recent creationism/ID scare stories from the US recently. “Well, us Brits might not be all we’re cracked up to be,” I thought, “but at least we don’t have those problems over here.” Turns out I may have been making false assumptions. Continue reading “Creationism in the UK education system”