Revenge of the Mutant Algorithms - Universal Soldier Bin


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

I gently lowered my face into the autoshave. A hundred AI blades started re-sculpting my beard into this month's mandatory fashion. The snug rubber vacuum seal held tight against my skin while the microbots collected the discarded hairs and applied antiseptic to the few areas where the blades had misfired. Johanna, my partner, thought they […]

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Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms - The Myth of the Fall of Icarus


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

Throughout November I'll be releasing new weird sci-fi short stories. Each one is a campfire horror yarn, with a technological twist. Your feedback is highly appreciated. Everything you read is possible - there's no magic, just sufficiently advanced technology. Chapter 2 - The Myth of the Fall of Icarus Icarus had quarrelled with his father […]

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Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms! Are Memories Made Of This?


Book cover. A distorted Kraken appears on an old fashioned computer screen. Several hands type on distorted keyboards.

Throughout November I'll be releasing new weird sci-fi short stories. Each one is a stand-alone story. Think of them as technological campfire horror yarns, each with a little twist. Your feedback is highly appreciated. Everything you read is possible - there's no magic, just sufficiently advanced technology. Chapter 1 - Are Memories Made Of This? […]

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Book Review: The Intergalactic Omniglot - Jenni Fleetwood (1988)


Paperback book cover. A UFO rises behind a young man. The Boy is holding what looks like a foldable Gameboy.

Turns out, you can just relive your childhood for £2.99 on eBay! I was exactly the right age when this book came out, and I was the perfect target audience. A boy in a sleepy suburb finds a mysterious device which allows him to understand every language. Could it be… Aliens?!?!?! It's all biking to […]

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The Bite


3D printed jaw with resin scaffolding.

A glistening pool of blood gently wept from the body. Crimson gore sparkled under rapid flash photography as it loosely clung to the wounds. So many wounds. Too many for this to have been an accident. "Bite marks," said the forensics officer. "A lot of bite marks." The detective peered at the ragged corpse. It […]

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Book Review: Dystopia X - A.E. Currie


Book cover.

Another one in the Panopticon series. Bouncy sci-fi which scattershoots its plots all over the place. VR, Mission to Mars, evil AI, underwater cities, eyeless technomages - this has it all. It probably has a little too much crammed in. But, hey, it's a great ride. A cliffhanger every other chapter, vaguely plausible science, and […]

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Book Review: Relic - Alan Dean Foster


Book cover - a human stands on a desolate moon looking at the Earth.

This is a decent slice of sci-fi. It's the sort of story that probably could have been written any time in the last 100 years. The sole survivor of the human race is picked up by friendly aliens and spends his life as a specimen of scientific and cultural curiosity. And then... events occur! It's […]

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Book Review: The Terraformers - Annalee Newitz


Book cover showing a towering structure covered in plants.

This is a fascinating story told on an almost geological timescale. It is a tantalisingly glimpse, into a much larger world. It is a story of contradiction - there's an epic universe, but we're stuck in a parochial backwater. It is full of un-human creations - yet its politics are firmly a reflection of the […]

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Movie Review: If You Were The Last


Movie poster. Two astronauts lie next to each other looking up at an unforgiving sky.

The 2016 film "Passengers", with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, is a gruesome study in "because of the implication". JLaw's character wakes on a spaceship to discover that only Pratt's character is alive and has prematurely roused her from her slumber. She has, in effect, been murdered and the only way she can pacify this […]

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Book Review: Sea of Tranquillity by Emily St. John Mandel


Book cover. A person floating in the sea with a large moon behind them.

Is it possible to write a time-travel story which makes sense? Probably not - but this comes close! It's a bit of a slow-burn; not revealing its secrets until it is good and ready. If you've read a lot of time-hopping sci-fi you won't find anything too surprising; nothing can escape the long shadow of […]

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