Alan Baxter's Blog, page 107

Patrick Stewart knighted

It's a particularly special day when the Captain of the Starship Enterprise is knighted by the Queen of England. From Levar Burton's (Geordie LaForge) Twitter page, we get this exclusive picture:

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Dark Pages preview #2

In the ongoing series of previews from the Dark Pages anthology from Blade Red Press, here's an excerpt from the second story in the collection:

Heart of Ice

by Martin Livings

Lidja sits astride the deacon's sodden corpse as he writhes, his erect penis cold and wet inside her. Sweat runs down the young sorceress' chest, between her small breasts, as she rocks back and forth against the dripping body. Her hair, usually black, sweeps across her eyes in a golden blur. She tilts her head back...

Let's get Peter Watts to Aussiecon

This is a perfect example of what I love about the Australian spec fic community. My good friend and awesome author Cat Sparks has come up with a damn fine plan, and I can only endorse it wholeheartedly. I'll let Cat's explanation stand unedited:

Many of you will be familiar with this story already but for anyone who isn't:

Last year Canadian marine biologist and science fiction writer Dr Peter Watts underwent a terrifying ordeal at the hands of over zealous border crossing guards in Port...

Cabal by Clive Barker

Clive Barker is a horror legend, simple as that. This is the man that brought us movies like Hellraiser and graphic novels like Tapping The Vein (the comic versions of the Books Of Blood). He also wrote the massively imaginative novel Weaveworld. I don't know anyone that's read Weaveworld and didn't like it. Comment below if you can change that stat. This weekend I finally got around to reading Cabal. It was written back in 1988 and is one of those things I've always meant to read but never g...

Book review – Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

I've been reading a lot of short stories over recent months and it's been a while since I got stuck into a proper novel. On deciding that it was time to read long fiction again I turned to this brick of a book I picked up in a second hand book store some time ago. I've heard a lot of talk about China Mieville over the last couple of years and he's clearly something of a flavour of the moment. I don't know anyone that's read his stuff and didn't like it. So when I saw Perdido Street Station

Lost – it's finally over

After six mind bending seasons, Lost is finally over. I'm sure I'm about the slackest viewer there is when it comes to watching this show, but if you haven't seen the finale yet and are still trying to keep any surprises fresh, then don't read on – there will be spoilers in this post.

So was it worth it? Lost was a show that had all the best and the worst of big budget serial television. I don't care what the writers try to tell us, they didn't have a clue what they were doing when they...

For all the writers out there that think they work hard

I count myself among the slackers in comparison to this lot. Writing is an often thankless task, slogging away at improving our craft and, hopefully, eventually developing a decent level of skill and recognition. But I don't think many of us work as hard as the folk listed below. I saw this over on Lynn Viehl's blog and it blew me away. Lynn posted it as a quiz, but I'll just hit you up with the facts*:

1. Officially recognized as history's most prolific novelist for writing 904 books under...

Dark Pages preview #1

Blade Red Press is very proud of its first anthology of dark fiction, Dark Pages. Over the coming weeks we'll be publishing here (and in various other places online) excerpts from all the great stories in this excellent collection. If you haven't got yourself a copy yet, these previews are sure to convince you to buy a copy. You can get a copy directly from us or at Amazon and all other good bookstores. Click here for all you need to know.

Meanwhile, here's the first excerpt. This comes from t...

International Thriller Writers

As a writer, being a part of writers' organisations can be very valuable. Some are more active than others, of course. For example, I'm a member of the Australian Horror Writers' Association or AHWA. That's a great thing to be a part of. We have active crit groups, forums, market hives (so we can find good places to sell our work) and even a very well respected Association magazine called Midnight Echo.

I'm a member of the NSW Writers' Centre, which is another great organisation that offers a...

Ebook formats and the unnecessary fuss

There's an awful lot of confusion and kerfuffle going on at the moment around ebooks. It's not new, as the kerfuffle has been kerfuffling for a while now. And I'm sure it will continue. The primary concern seems to be people panicking about getting their books (be they author, indie author, publisher or whatever) out in as many selling venues as possible. There's the iPhone and the iPad, the Kindle and the Kobo, the Sony Reader and a million other options. Then there are all the various...