The Shield Road was my final read of 2022. I blasted through it during that nebulous span of days between Christmas and New Year where time has no meaning and the human body subsists on the excess snacky bits we over-bought before the festive season. I’ve seen snippets of Dewi’s work before on Twitter, and - seeing the sheer quality of his prose - I knew I would have to pick up The Shield Road as soon as possible.

It took me a while to get through Children of Dune, not because it’s not good - because it is, very much so - but because November and December are heavy months for me, and I didn’t find the time nor the inclination to read very often. So it took a lot longer than I would have liked, and in fact, I finished it just before Christmas. There’s a lot about Frank Herbert’s writing that’s really grown on me as I’ve continued through the series…

You all know by now how much I adore Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing, so it comes as no surprise that I would be over the moon about the prospect of learning more of the art of writing from her. Steering the Craft is a fantastic short guide packed with lots of great insights and writing exercises across a range of different aspects of the craft. Mainly aimed at the kind of writer who’s been doing this thing a little while and wants to hone their craft, it’s an excellent resource for both lone and group work. As such, it doesn’t go over the basics like how to create characters, build fictional worlds etc… But focuses more on style.

The experience of selling signed copies of my books for the first time at craft fairs. At the end of October I bought a stall at the Fairkytes Arts & Crafts Market in Hornchurch. I’d never done anything of the sort before, though I had seen other crafty people in my family exhibit at them. It was certainly a learning experience, so I thought I’d share that with you. I became aware of the Fairkytes Arts & Crafts Market entirely by chance when a family member happened to mention they had seen it advertised on Facebook.

Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama has been recommended to me a lot over the last year or so, and for good reason. It’s one of the heavy-hitters of classic science fiction, one many would consider an “essential” read. I’m not so prescriptive as that. Even though I fully believe in the benefits of reading widely, and of having a mixed repertoire of the classic and modern - especially as a writer - I also believe that people should read whatever they want to read, and not to be made to read something that doesn’t suit them. That said, Rendezvous with Rama is one I would highly recommend…

It’s 1st November, and that means it’s the turn of From the Grave of the Gods to have its book birthday! Two book birthdays in a year? Surely not! Now I’m just hogging all the celebrations. But it is true, From the Grave of the Gods, my first ever full-length novel made its way into the world one year ago today. It’s hard to believe. So much has happened since, and so many of you have welcomed my humble series starter with open arms, following along with Commander James Fowler’s remarkable journey. I’m honestly blown away by the reception.

It’s been a while since I last dipped my toes into the Earthsea Cycle. The Farthest Shore was the end of an internal trilogy, and it felt like it brought things to a close, but the story didn’t end there. In Tehanu, we revisit Tenar, twenty-five years on from her escape from The Tombs of Atuan, and we watch Ged wrestle with the consequences of his sacrifice in The Farthest Shore…

I’ve been interested in reading Neuromancer for a while, so you can imagine I was thrilled when my wife’s cousin lent me her copy of the book. It’s sat on my shelf for a while though, because, y’know, TBRs be like that sometimes. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went in to reading it. I have encountered the cyberpunk aesthetic minimally - mainly through movies like Blade Runner, or games such as Cyberpunk 2077…

Launch day has come at last! The third book in the Augment Saga is now available to purchase. I am pleased to announce that The Flight of the Aurora: An Augment Saga Novella is out now and available to buy in ebook format from Amazon for £1.99, and in paperback from all retailers for £6.99. It is also available to read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited! From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you who have supported me in so many ways, whether that’s through pre-orders, reviews, sales, shares, likes, retweets or beta-reads. You’re all amazing, and I truly appreciate you…

Before I started reading Accretion, Dianne warned me on Twitter to “buckle up”, and… Oh boy, yeah. It’s been a wonderful journey going through this space opera saga, and I’m looking forward to reading its conclusion with Luminiferous. Apologies to everyone for the delay in putting out this review. I recently reviewed Gareth L. Powell’s Light of Impossible Stars and About Writing, and for some reason my brain was adamant I only had two reviews to write, not three. So when I did the previous two reviews…

Well, here’s a first for the blog: a review of a non-fiction book! I recently read the new expanded edition of Gareth L. Powell’s About Writing. As a writer myself, I’m keen to learn more about the craft and improve. One great way to do this is simply to write (this is, in fact, the most important way), another is to take advice from established writers. For new (and not so new) writers, there’s so much rich knowledge to be gleaned from those who have been immersed in the industry for a long time…

It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally read Light of Impossible Stars. Last time - when I reviewed the second book in the series - I said I wouldn’t leave it too long before reading the last book, but it took more time to get to than I had anticipated. Having now finished the trilogy, I can say with confidence that it is an absolute masterwork. Carefully and meticulously crafted, there’s not a word or phrase used idly. Before I dive into the review proper, I wanted to talk briefly about the prose in a broad sense across the whole series…

Here we go again, another impending book launch! I am pleased to announce that the third entry in The Augment Saga, The Flight of the Aurora: An Augment Saga Novella, will be releasing to the world on Tuesday 20th September 2022. It is a real honour that so many of you have read and enjoyed my books thus far, and it is my joy and privilege to present this novella to you: another step in the epic sci-fi adventure that’s been rattling around in my brain for decades.

Very unusually for me, I went straight into Ephemeris immediately after finishing Heliopause. I have so many books on my TBR that I tend to like jumping around, like sampling everything at a buffet. But this time, I went straight from book one to book two in the same series! Ephemeris has an odd description: it’s a prequel, sequel and concurrent companion piece to Heliopause all at the same time. This kind of out of the box thinking is one of the many reasons I have come to love indie publishing.

Once again, I’ll be partnering with Narratess for another mega sale, this time for #IndieAugust, celebrating independent speculative fiction authors. August 6th and 7th, the ebook of From the Grave of the Gods will be discounted for the sale hosted by Tessa Hastjarjanto of Narratess.com. As in April, I'll be running a Kindle Countdown Deal for the US and UK marketplaces at 99p/99¢, and dropping the price in all other marketplaces as much as I can.

As with all the books on my TBR, I’ve been meaning to read the Questrison Saga for a good long while now, ever since I first saw J. Dianne Dotson pop up in the Twitter writing community, and now here we are: Heliopause, the first book in the four-part space opera series. In many ways I’ve felt like Dianne’s passion to create this universe that’s sat with her for a long time has parallels with my own approach to the Augment Saga. And that’s intriguing.

Science fiction and futurism are not exclusive to any one culture, and often we find ourselves - in the white western world, at least - reading all our SFF from the same cultural sources. However, we are enriched both as readers and writers when we diversify the types of stories we read in our beloved genre. It makes us more understanding, gives us greater empathy, and broadens our scope for ideas. There are wonderful stories out there from people writing from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and early on in my renewed reading journey, I decided…

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a full year since the world was first introduced to Seventeen and the crew of the Qesh’kal, kicking off the epic story of The Augment Saga; a whole year since I became a published indie author! Since then it’s been a wild ride through many unknowns, with new experiences, new friends in the Writing Community, and facing new challenges; an emotional roller coaster of heartache, pride and joy, frustration and relief…

This was a tricky book to review. I had been meaning to pick up Faraway Sky, Ocean Deep for a long time - ever since Alan announced he had completed his first NaNoWriMo project, in fact, which is an amazing achievement all its own. Writing over fifty thousand words in a single month is mind boggling to me, and I absolutely applaud his determination and discipline in getting it done.

My next novella in the Augment Saga, The Flight of the Aurora, has returned from its beta reading phase and I am busy implementing the changes. I am immensely grateful to my beta readers for looking through my work and providing their invaluable feedback. Thankfully, there’s nothing major to adjust, so after another couple of editing passes, I’ll commence work on typesetting the thing - a process that ought to be easier this time around because I will be using my file for The Re-Emergence as a template.