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Now that my Open University studies are over for another year I've been doing a little ctaching up with some of the movies I've missed this year. And I have to say, I've been pretty disappointed with the lot of 'em. 28 Weeks Later was great - for the first ten minutes, but the rest of it left me cold. Okay it did expand on the original but only in terms of a slightly larger scale. There were some nicely unpredictable moments (the reconciliation scene between Robert Carlyle's character and his wife certainly didn't go the way I expected!), but on the whole it just seemed like more of the same, and with a lot of characters I couldn't really care about. I know sequels are generally all about 'more of the same', but maybe because this was a British effort I expected something more substantial. Next up was Eragon . Eek. Tiresome, plodding, oh-so-predictable, and ultimately pointless, with a lead actor so unconvincing I wanted to reach into the film and ...

Just sold my very first piece of artwork to Fiction magazine and it’s gracing the cover of the current PDF issue. Check out the magazine here: Fiction Also, my ‘military sf’ story Halls of the Tollomai is scheduled to appear in the November issue. How chuffed am I? Very.

If you go down to the Whispers of Wickedness website today you will find my latest little shocker, The Witch is Dead . This is my third piece to be published by Whispers (the other two being Nan and Brain Food , still available for reading in the Whispers online archive section: just click on Story Store). I love Whispers . Not only is it a good place to find well-written dark fiction, it is also a thriving writer’s community. The forum there is very active and very friendly, and the editors occasionally throw little get-togethers open to all new and established “Whisperers”. I attended the last WhisperCon earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed it (see earlier blog entry on that subject). They are also kind enough to provide author pages for every contributor, and I’ve just had mine updated, as much has changed since I submitted my first story to them back in late 2004. So if you like your fiction dark, go take a peek. You will not be disappointed.

Just had my story The Midnight Men published in the first issue of Niteblade Magazine . The accompanying artwork and the general layout of this brand new ezine is very impressive. I even have my own "author page", with some info about me and a link to this blog. Editor Rhonda Parrish has done a cracking job, and on the strength of this premiere issue the future of Niteblade looks very bright indeed. Here's a little teaser: The Robinsons were the first to go. It was the all-pervading purr of a powerful motor engine which dragged me from a deep and blissful sleep. The LED display on my alarm clock said: 12:03. It wasn’t unusual to hear cars on our street at that time of night--people being dropped home after a night out; nightshift workers heading off--but something about the drone of that car whispered to my subconscious. Something was not quite right... Other News Deeply frustrated at the moment. I have three writing projects on the go at the moment, two of them so c...

It's been a long time coming but the latest issue of that gorgeous-looking small press magazine Revelation has just been published. It contains my short story, The Man Who Ate Planets (one of my personal favourites), just one of the four pieces to feature in this issue. If you would like to purchase a copy, then hop over to the site for a little Revelation . Also imminent is the publication of my story 'Pleasure Units' in the latest issue of Twisted Tongue . This is my second story to be published in their hallowed pages. The first was 'Death's Head', back in issue 3. The PDF versions of this magazine are now free, and print copies (available from Lulu.com) only set you back around £4 or £5.

Right now, I am sixty-odd pages into my steampunk novel (and trying to contain my enthusiasm for it), and I was thinking about drawing some of the steampunk machines which are used by the main characters in the story. Typing the word Steampunk into Google, I came upon this site, rather helpfully titled How to draw Steampunk machines . Great stuff.

After almost two months without home internet access (thanks to Sky!), I was much relieved to be back online this last week. So much catching up to do, not least with the story submissions that have been out of circulation, etc. On the plus side, I have been working feverishly on a new steampunk novel, the first in a series, which I am very excited about. I'm also trying to hammer my novella The Hotel Galileo into shape ready for submitting somewhere. No new short stories of late, but I've got a couple of tales making appearances very soon: Pleasure Units is to appear in the August issue of Twisted Tongue. The Midnight Men is due to appear in Niteblade, issue 0, coming in September. There's also the imminent appearance of The Man Who Ate Planets in Revelation 4:1 (been waiting a year for that one!) and the possible future publication of Halls of the Tollomai in Fiction. Fingers crossed there. All in all, things have never been more exciting. I have a plan for the near futur...