Wide Angle Writing

I hated history at school. Except for the drawing. I liked some of that, especially the diagrams of motte-and-bailey castles. I was utterly bored by the endless lists of English monarchs, the sleep-inducing accounts of meaningless wars, tedious revolutions and labour marches within which no one thing related to anything else, much less to my … Continue reading Wide Angle Writing

Revisiting Cinefex (31): Spaceballs, The Witches of Eastwick, Masters of the Universe

Want to see a Winnebago zooming through space? Just park yourself in front of Mel Brooks's 1987 sci-fi parody Spaceballs. Alternatively you could take a look at the front cover of Cinefex #31. The celestial camper in question goes by the name of Eagle 5 and is in fact a detailed miniature photographed on Apogee's … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (31): Spaceballs, The Witches of Eastwick, Masters of the Universe

The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Cheddar Caves

My novels might be fantasy, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 3 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. In chapter ten of of Dragoncharm, a dragon called Cumber is tasked with finding a waterfall hidden within a labyrinthine … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Cheddar Caves

The Storyteller Eternal

Nobody knows exactly when the first stories were told. I'm going to stick my neck out and pitch in at 250,000 BC, but only because it's a nice round number and I don't have a time machine. It feels like a fair guess. The "Out of Africa" theory of human evolution suggests our early homo sapiens ancestors may … Continue reading The Storyteller Eternal

The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Mount Teide

My novels might be fantasy, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 2 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. Every good quest story needs a final destination. In the case of Dragoncharm, it's the Plated Mountain, an ancient volcano … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Mount Teide

The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Kimmeridge Bay

My novels might be fantasies, but many of the locations in them are real. Welcome to part 1 of this handy travel guide to a mythical world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. The opening scene of my fantasy novel Dragoncharm is set in one of my favourite places on the globe: Kimmeridge … Continue reading The “Dragoncharm” Travel Guide – Kimmeridge Bay

Revisiting Cinefex (30): Little Shop of Horrors, The Gate, The Golden Child

Ellen Greene's looking worried on the front cover of Cinefex #30, and why wouldn't she? She's face to face (or is that lips?) with carnivorous space-plant Audrey II in a scene from Frank Oz's 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors. The voracious vegetable was created live 0n-set by Lyle Conway in a tour-de-force of puppetry. … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (30): Little Shop of Horrors, The Gate, The Golden Child

Revisiting Cinefex (29): Star Trek IV, King Kong Lives, Top Gun

It's hardware all the way on both the front and back covers of Cinefex #29. Up front is the Klingon 'Bird of Prey' spaceship swooping under the Golden Gate Bridge in Leonard Nimoy's 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The back cover shows a missile strike on a MiG fighter from Tony Scott's … Continue reading Revisiting Cinefex (29): Star Trek IV, King Kong Lives, Top Gun

“The Frozen King” – 2nd Draft

The Frozen King* is a novel I've been writing, on and off, for about eighteen months. I finished the first draft in the spring of 2012 and, thanks to my agent's tireless work, it soon found its way to the desk of an editor who, after reading it, returned it with a whole host of … Continue reading “The Frozen King” – 2nd Draft

Around the Solar System in 90 Seconds

In 2005, I worked on an in-ride film called Apollo 3000 at the Earth Explorer science centre in Ostend, Belgium. The ride is one of those drop-tower affairs. Visitors enter a space capsule, which launches at high speed to the top of the tower, at which point the film runs. The ride mechanism delivers various jolts and … Continue reading Around the Solar System in 90 Seconds