The Rise of the Super-reader
Reading has become a more stratified activity than ever. Imagine a Healthy Food pyramid, but instead populated by readers. At the bottom, sadly, are people who don’t read at all. I’ll leave analysis of whether this section of the community is growing or not to people with massive research...
Buy Books and Save the Planet!
I took a break from my latest Work In Progress and started thinking about how I could save the planet. As you do. I swivelled away from the computer, hands behind my head, tossing up between instituting a utopian regime and formulating a plan to maximise innate human...
YA/Teen Robot Reading List
In the lead-up to the publication of Machine Wars in April, I thought a little pre-reading might be in order. Helped by the intelli-swarm via Facebook and Twitter, here’s a range of books that feature our mechanical friend, the robot. For Younger/Middle Readers Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot – Isaac...
Top Language Secret Revealed!
Actually, I didn’t discover it because it’s been there all the time and I’ve just learned about it. And I’m sure that no linguistics professors want to keep this rule a secret; I just wanted to have one of those clickbait teasers suggesting a great conspiracy to keep language...
The Future According to the BBC
For those who’ve been inspired by 10 Futures and who are constantly thinking about the future, here’s a thought-provoking site from the BBC. Logging on directly from your brain, anyone? ...
‘Year’s Best’? Perhaps not …
It’s that time of the year again, and I’m not talking about the festive season. I’m talking about the end of year musing that gives us the parade of ‘Year’s Best Books’ lists or ‘Holiday Reading Guides’ that are starting to feature in the arts pages and corners of...
‘Think Ahead’ at Scienceworks
Scienceworks, Melbourne’s science museum, has just opened an amazing new long-term exhibition called Think Ahead. The launch was on 4 December and I was lucky enough to be invited along because my association with this extraordinary project goes back to early 2013. Not long after 10 Futures was published,...
1920 Style and Elegance
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s a selection from the glorious 1920 editions of La Gazette du Bon Ton. Style, elegance, grace, panache and whimsy. ...
Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis
On this fiftieth anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, I thought I’d bring some of his writing advice to you. This comes from a letter that Lewis sent to a young correspondent in 1956, but the suggestions are eternal. Always try to use the language so as to...
Five Top Hard SF Books
I was inspired by Linda Nagata’s thoughtful article to write this one. Hard SF can be a hard sell. Of all the multifarious and diverse aspects of Science Fiction, Hard Science Fiction is the one most likely to get non-readers recoiling in horror. It’s the SF sub-genre most parodied,...