#speculativefiction

They called it progress at first. The city didn’t grow like cities used to. It didn’t sprawl outward with noise and messy human intention. It expanded upward, inward, and clean. Streets recalculated themselves

Jenny visits her uncle’s house in the country, where a magical clock banishes a haunting born of pain.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer represents the fifth Philip K Dick book I’ve read in a row. I have to say, that this one was the most work. It was the last he’d write before his death, and arriving

Philip K Dick has an obsession with diseased, ill, dying women. They've featured in each of the recent books I've read. Last time, it was cancer, this time, it is MS. They're (both times) used as motivating

Home was an apartment. It was up three flights of unforgiving, weathered stairs – if the lift was broken. His had a single bedroom. Cold in the winter. Hot in the summer. Dark at night, somehow, still

Billboards ran through sequences of marketing that was vapid and uninspiring, for products nobody needed. They illuminated the halls of the train station with their rainbow light, as he scurried along

He sat in the café. He looked at his laptop bag, and back to the cooling cup of coffee. Steam quietly drifted upward in the cold winter day. His job interview had gone well, he thought. It didn’t feel

Nothing screams safety more than being stopped by armed guards when you attempt to enter a location. This is exactly how Safe and Sound opens. A girl and her mother are coming into the city, and it abundantly

A few weeks back, when I was visiting my mother, I went to go examine the bookshelf that I had put together for her. Nothing fantastic, just a little Ikea shelf. It was full of the books she's been buying

Somewhere in the universe, there is a central star. Close to it, there is an unfathomable cascade of material rich asteroids, dust, and clouds. Somewhere else in the universe, roughly equidistant of this

Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams maintains surprisingly good production values throughout - even if "The Commuter" starts with a great snapshot of contemporary, budget British life, with Tesco

Ubik is a charming novel. Philip K Dick is so good at building worlds, and the metamorphosis that the world in Ubik undergoes as you turn through it pages, enthralled, is a complex delight. With a cast

Carol and Bob Carol and Bob were new neighbours. They enjoyed walks in the wilderness, together. At least there was still the wilderness. Nature flourished under their watchful gaze. No one could encroach

Previously, I published some thoughts on the opening tale of Cixin Liu's anthology, Hold Up The Sky. Now that I've finished the whole thing, it is time to share some more thoughts about the remaining stories.

Having finished the series "Remembrance of the Earth's Past" by Liu Cixin (author of the Three Body Problem - on which the recent TV series was based) - I noticed in my library's app that there

That didn't take me very long to get through. I've been re-reading through the Rama series, and this is the furthest I've gotten. My review of Rama II, and of the first book in the series are previously

Many years ago, there was a local character who spent most of his days collecting rubbish and carrying it about on his ancient bike. Not being a local, I had no idea what his story was, but I always thought

The Dark Weird Stuff launch has been frustrating and challenging.The hard copy version of the book was ready to go way back in early December. Some formatting issues with the eBook necessitated that the

When I was hungry for success, I used to rise at 5.00 am and write for 2 hours straight before getting ready for my paid job. There was no shortage of material. I had a bottomless dark well from which