The anthology Midnight Train, published by Static Movement and edited by Dorothy Davies, is now available at Amazon. It is, in fact, here. My story in this book is called ‘A Partly Successful Operation.’
Category Archives: book
Dark Secrets
My story ‘Master Zhang’s Slave’ is included in Dark Secrets, edited by the inestimable Dorothy Davis, which has just been published by Static Movement. It is available here.
That’s half a dozen or so stories I’ve had published this year, which is quite gratifying. I have been too busy to write much fiction recently but perhaps it will be possible in the new year, after catching up with the flood-induced delays.
Dark Deeds in History
The anthology Dark Deeds in History, edited by Dorothy Davies, has now been published and is available for sale. The reason I mention this, of course, is that it contains one of my stories: “Magistrate Li and the Case of the Beggar Monk.”
I will probably mention this again when the book is available at Amazon.
Oil: An Anthology
My second story to be published this year is entitled ‘The Spigot’ and is included in the Marty Ziegler edited anthology Oil, which includes stories about … well, you can probably guess.
More details are available here.
Weird City: An Open Case Is Shut
Announcing the publication of Weird City, edited by George Wilhite and published by Static Movement. Details are here.
My story in this anthology is entitled ‘An Open Case Is Shut.’ It was one of my New Year’s Resolutions to have some of my fiction published this year. QED.
Review of Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994 and, since then, much more of his work has been made available in English and, indeed, other languages. This short novel, his first, was written in 1958 when the author was just 23 and it is an extraordinarily powerful and disturbing work. The narrative focuses on a largely unnamed group of boys and young men who are abandoned in the Japanese countryside in what appears to be the closing days of World War II. The boys, from a Reformatory, find themselves isolated in a village in which plague has erupted. The dead lay around them and the surviving villagers have withdrawn to neighbouring communities.
Read the full review here.
Review of Violence
Slavoj Zizek has developed a well-earned reputation as one of the most prominent and brilliant intellectuals of the day, especially in his areas of principal intellectual endeavour (e.g. philosophy and Lacanian psychology). He is not only profuse and prolific but his particular style, which combines extraordinary reversals of expectations with unexpected and broad use of popular culture to draw examples, is both challenging and rewarding in itself. Whether or not the reader is disposed to agree with any of his ideas or arguments, it is refreshing to be required to construct the intellectual reasoning to meet the challenge.
Read the full review here.
Review of The Russia House
A new generation of spies has taken over from the time of George Smiley and the Circus. Times have changed too, as the Cousins, who were once well-resourced allies at approximately the same level of ability, now bankroll all espionage operations–the Americans now routinely receive all intelligence discovered by the British services while occasionally and perhaps begrudgingly considering whether to release some needful titbit from time to time. Yet there remain times when a person on the spot can circumvent all the technology and resources that can be thrown at an operation: so, when a Russian publisher is looking to pass on a secret manuscript from a friend to a western contact who is not available, she gives it to a substitute whom she is obliged to trust in the hope that he will prove to be a good and faithful person.
Read the full review here.
Review of The Execution Channel
The world is in pretty bad shape: the war on Iraq has been succeeded by a war against Iran, as well as a terrifying flu pandemic and nuclear attacks. As security is replaced by insecurity, government agencies arrogate to themselves more and more power and plot against each other, using the resources that modern technology has to offer. Bloggers find their work falsified and routinely abused by planted false information. However, there are more serious events afoot: some one, presumably (although by no means definitely) some kind of vile foreign terrorist has established the so-called Execution Channel, which broadcasts acts of violence and murder of individuals who have fallen foul of those who are able to wield power.
Read the full review here.
