Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 377

One Less Place To Read A Book

Sp eighty of London's stations are to get free Wi-Fi in time for the Olympics, which means that our last refuge from being emailed and texted is about to vanish.

I relished my time spent reading on the tube, until TfL decided that we need to be alerted by the driver every time a train stops [...]

The Writing Rulebook 2

Blake Snyder wrote terrific books on screenplay construction that I feel apply equally well to novels. His attitude was far less pretentious that most, and supersedes those volumes by Syd Field that now only seem to apply to 1980s action flicks. His book 'Save The Cat!' and its sequels sum up a lifetime of work [...]

Goodbye Encyclopedia Britannica

So, the paper version of the EB has reached an end. after 244 years, dozens of editions and more than 7 million sets sold, no new editions will be put to paper. The 32 volumes of the 2010 installment were the last. Future editions will live exclusively online. Wikipedia English has 3.9m articles. The Britannica [...]

The Writing Rulebook Part 1

I'm sure someone must already have put out a writing app that allows you to access writing advice, but if they haven't, I've been gathering writing tips from all over the place, and plan to put a few up here. I ran some at the end of 'Paperboy', so let's start with some amendments to [...]

Farewell to the Airtight Garage

So France has lost the brilliant Moebius, AKA Jean Giraud, one of the world's finest graphic artists. He drew for more than 50 years under various names, but was most widely known as Moebius. His graphic work was a game-changer, and highly influential around the world. He also worked on design concepts and storyboards for [...]

The Return Of British Food

It's off-putting eating a strawberry when you know it's been flown all the way from Israel to be on your plate. Yesterday I made a tour of my local farmers' markets to see what was on offer, and was told that a lot of very British food was returning, from samphire, salsify and sorrel to [...]

The Long & The Short Of It

In the last few years bigger has come to mean better; longer films, larger food portions, BOGOFs, fatter books. But with the credit crunch as a wake-up call, this thinking has developed its opponents.

It has made economic sense to consume larger amounts because we are simply being sold more, no matter that the price seems [...]

A London Frost Fair

It has been a mild winter here in London and now trees are budding fast, although my father, born on the first of May, always said he was 'born in a heatwave, christened in a snowstorm.' So who knows what might happen yet?

In the winter of 1815, following an immense freezing fog, the Thames solidified. [...]

Where Are The Black Genre Writers?

It's depressing to read that half of the young black males in Britain are unemployed, so the question must be asked even though the answers are probably obvious – where are Britain's black genre writers? Is it that the history of horror, edge, SF, crime and fantasy books is weighted against ethnic readership? SF was [...]

Be Afraid, Readers

Just when you thought you were safe from any new Fowler-related products coming your way…

'Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood' US edition (mauvey!) and the UK paperback (lush!) are here. And my first e-story for Transworld outsold John Grisham (blimey!) Also, there's renewed interest in my mad-as-an-old-man's-trousers novel 'Plastic'. Older readers may recall [...]