Years ago I first read Alan Moore’s early work, and I recall the visionary intensity of it, the structural and narrative ingenuity. Miracleman, Swamp Thing, V of Vendetta, Watchmen — I’m a big fan of these. His later work, for me, lacked the same vitality, and somewhere along the way I stopped reading him. For […]
Read more +Lovely, huh? Well, it’ll be nicer when the beautiful front covers are on, but still!
Read more +Dark Tides From the author of Unwrapped Sky, Rjurik Davidson Forthcoming from Twelfth Planet Press in July 2017 Dark Tides collects together the short fiction of award winning, Clarion South graduate Rjurik Davidson. Dark Tides will be available in both print and ebook. Twelfth Planet Press is delighted to announce the acquisition […]
Read more +A lyrical and evocative novel of ancient magic, minotaurs and myth; of dreams and nightmares, sacrifice and redemption. Highly recommended. Garth Nix Rjurik has a brilliant, fecund imagination, and I absolutely love the setting and the sense of place in the book. Caeli-Amur is one of the more memorable cities in recent fantasy. Hannu Rajaniemi […]
Read more +And here’s the UK front cover, which I think is rather wonderful and the opening bit, for those interested. A revolution is a festival of the oppressed. Caeli-Amur was alive with color and energy. Demonstrations coursed along the thoroughfares. Chants reverberated among the buildings. Everyone seemed involved in that carnivalesque atmosphere. In the crisscrossing alleyways, […]
Read more +Selections from Political Writings by Antonio Gramsci My rating: 5 of 5 stars A fascinating collection of Gramsci’s writings from the time of the split from the Italian Socialist Party and the foundation of the PCI. It includes Gramsci’s theorisation of fascism (a petit-bourgeois movement to destroy worker’s democracy), his slow transition to the ‘united […]
Read more +The Enigma of Capital: and the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is an excellent introduction to the question, “Why is capitalism so crisis prone?” Harvey begins with the events of the 2008 financial crisis and then moves to more abstract considerations such as the widely accepted need […]
Read more +Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason My rating: 4 of 5 stars As a teenager, I was very much into Pink Floyd. There were a number of reasons. First that they had, pretty much, ended their careers by the time I discovered them and so had the exotic feel of […]
Read more +Selections from Political Writings 1910-1920 by Antonio Gramsci My rating: 4 of 5 stars Gramsci has been going through something of a renaissance recently, especially in the Anglophone world, due to a combination of factors. First, there’s the fact that he’s been wildly influential on the Greek left and the Spanish left. The version of […]
Read more +As I recently finished a novel set in 1890s Australia – called The Rusted Earth – with surviving megafauna, I became obsessed with the thunder birds, or Dromornithae. In particular, I very much love the Dromornis Stirtoni, one of the oldest, and the largest of the thunder birds, measuring at 3 metres tall. Why am […]
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