New Story: The Spoil Heap

I’m really pleased to announce that my short story “The Spoil Heap” is now available to read on Clarkesworld! It’s an optimistic apocalypse story featuring a novel but effective way of getting rid of billionaires using their own tech.

This one has a special connection with Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop. There’s an old slate quarry in front of the venue, Trigonos, and I would run around the spoil heap for exercise while I was attending the writer’s conference. The week after the conference, I had a dream about that spoil heap that caused me to start writing this story. Read on…

Locus Likes Spiders

My short story for Abyss&Apex, “The Memory Spider“, has got a recommendation from Karen Burhnam at Locus Magazine! Check out the story and the recommendation at the links.

New Story: Memory Spider

Happy new year! My short story “Memory Spider” is now up at Abyss&Apex. It’s about mourning the dead, life with a famous parent, and a giant robot spider (but don’t worry, she’s friendly)

Editor Wendy Delmater had this to say about the story on Facebook:
““This is, to me, a quintessential A&A story. If you want to know what we buy? Study it.”

Click here to read the story for free

Interview on Southside Radio

I’m interviewed for Southside Radio about the Robots of Death, Expressionist movies, and the joys of Zooming with cats! Download or listen to it here.

Robots of Death: The Stage Play

People who’ve read my book The Black Archive #43: The Robots of Death (and if you haven’t, you can buy it at the link), may remember that I talk about a stage adaptation of the classic Doctor Who story which was produced in 2012. Well, as a bonus, someone’s only gone and found some footage of Paul Darrow in the inaugural performance!

Free excerpt: The Robots of Death, D84 and Artificial Intelligence

If you haven’t already bought your copy of The Black Archive #43: The Robots of Death, here’s something else to tempt you: a free excerpt from Chapter Four, on D84, artificial intelligence and artificial stupidity.

 

The Black Archive #43: The Robots of Death

It’s not quite out yet, but my monograph on Doctor Who: The Robots of Death for The Black Archive is now available for pre-order (and will be out on 4 May).   It features chapters on Expressionist design; the literary roots of the story in Asimov, Herbert, Simak and others; themes of class and power in the SF writing of Chris Boucher; the history of colour-blind casting in British television; and the Voc robots’ afterlives in comics, audio plays and theatre. In short, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll love it! Click the link to get your copy.

Here, have a picture

Spending the holiday with friends and family. In the seasonal spirit, here is a picture of a robot playing the trumpet:

Last minute Christmas shopping!

Just popping up quickly to say that Somewhere Beyond the Heavens, a lovely book about Battlestar Galactica that I’ve cowritten an article for, is now out. Click the link to buy in print or electronic forms.

BSFA interview again…

…in another format, just in case you missed the others!