THE SKINNER

The usual caveats apply here for SF first published in 1954. Cameras with film in them, laying out prints to form maps of the surface of a ...

Heh. Old SF that brings home that often what is imagined can be limited by what is. It's not possible to write SF that will stand the t...

Two Americans are chosen by a Maasai Laibon to help him close an opening breach into the 'out of' because the shetani are coming ...

As I said in the previous post, during lockdown I wrote a few novellas. Well, I’ve been sporadically writing novellas for a while – very of...

We’ve been in lockdown now for three months. When this started I was immediately sceptical because it seemed a hysterical overreaction,...

Another classic read. It's a familiar story of a quest to find some powerful alien artefact and a bit of a romp from start to finish. W...

A classic and still as enjoyable now as the last time I read it, however many years ago that was. Told from thr POV of Ryo (mostly) one of ...

I'm sure I've encountered 'the magic comes back (or is revealed)' after some catastrophe many times before, ...

Enjoyable old SF stories of variable quality. I wonder if it is because they are so old that's what makes it possible to enjoy them. Th...

Terry Pratchett once took the piss out of 'quantum' in that it explains everything and it can do anything. Another one for modern S...

This cover is amusing - you couldn't make one that's more irrelevant to the story inside. I imagine that with Van Vogt being an ...

Yes, there are anachronisms in these stories, like paper records, the need to get to a phone when spaceships are zipping round the solar sy...

Another Amazon UK Kindle deal: Gridlinked for 99p for this month!

This one round about the publication date of Dark Intelligence. Amazed to see, down at the bottom, I was still using my Virgin Freespace we...

Since being taken on by Macmillan I’ve published getting on for 30 books, but not all of them are from that publisher. I’m not a writer w...

Here's one from way back before I was taken on by Macmillan, so interesting for new writers climbing the ladder. Perhaps they will real...

More and more frequently now people ask me, of my books, ‘Where do I start?’ I guess it can be a daunting prospect now I’ve published getti...

Interview from way back in 2004.  Hello Neal. What made you want to be a writer? When I was a school kid, I would one day be taki...