Something struck me the other day about the nature of academic ethics in New Zealand and some of the people who flourish by exploiting the conceits of that subculture. Check out these two stories – both are true. 1. A few months ago a gang member arrived in a Blenheim KFC where he saw a … More How academics get away with bullying
I am a great fan of science fiction that’s plausible enough to be ‘scientific’, but which doesn’t take the ‘science’ so far as to be boring. In the miniseries that launched the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica a decade or so ago, Galactica took a direct hit from a nuke and survived with near-undiminished fighting capacity. Is … More Sci-fi writing tricks: balancing drama with plausibility
The talented folks at Jalapeno Publishing – who are behind Scaffolding – have issued a cool preview video. Check this out! You can buy the collectable hard copy online from Blurb – and don’t forget to read my article in the first issue – it’s all about typewriters and writing. More soon. Copyright © Matthew … More A cool video about ‘Scaffolding’ magazine
Launched this week: Scaffolding, a quality arts magazine by a US-based publisher. I’m excited. I hope you are too. I’ve got an article in the very first issue, exploring my writing life as seen through my typewriters. My piece begins: In April 1951, Jack Kerouac fed one end of a very long piece of paper … More My article in the very first issue of Scaffolding
OK so I saw Rogue 1. To me it was one of the best Star Wars movies ever made, up there with The Empire Strikes Back. In the specific, it was a sci-fi war movie – pure and simple. And it showed what usually happens in war – where people usually end up dead. It … More Star Wars without the Force – reviewing Rogue 1
Here’s a blast from 2013 about the baddest sci-fi mech ever imagined… ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I posted last week about why huge bipedal fighting ‘mechs’ from sci-fi like Pacific Rim are unlikely, unless the laws of physics change. But that doesn’t mean sci-fi mechs have to be boring. Not at all. More in a moment. First off … More OMG – the baddest sci-fi mega-mech…e-v-a-h! -redux
Last week I retrieved the last of my publishing licenses from Penguin Random House. Yeah, I know. Most authors crawl over broken glass to get a contract with PRH or one of the other big houses. Me? I’ve been asking for my contracts back. I had over thirty of them, all for out-of-print books which, … More Hot titles from my writing past – and they’re baaaaack!
