The Skiffy Thing

I've been reading science fiction and fantasy since my early youth - like a lot of people, I was probably first led on to the stuff by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. (Fireball XL5, if you must know, though I suspect that the related TV21 comic was far more intelligent and powerful than Anderson's cut-down puppet-plays, and did more to warp my childish mind. And talking of blasts from the past, either people will understand why I put a pointer to a Hugh Walters page here, or they won't.) Furthermore, like a lot of SF readers, I've been led to take the occasional stab at writing the stuff. While I don't currently find as much time or energy for reading or writing fiction as I might like, I retain an enormous affection for the field.

Actually, I've had three short stories published professionally - specifically, in Interzone magazine, and I've now put these up on this site. The titles are:

I also had a story - The Matter of the Cadi, the Dervish, and the Ghûls - in issue 14 of the semi-prozine Scheherazade. (It actually came first in a poll concerning stories people had liked in the magazine; nice to know that people do like this stuff sometimes. Be warned that, for various reasons, the link takes you to a graphical scan of the story, in the form of a 1.5 meg PDF.)

Further, just for the hell of it, I've put a few of my older written efforts on the 'Web. There's:

This site also a page of assorted Steampunk bits and pieces that I assembled at one point. Also, I regard my enthusiasm for SF as closely linked to my hobby of role-playing games; see my RPGs page.

Other SF Stuff: News and Gossip

Other SF Stuff: Writers

Other SF Stuff: Counterfactuals

I have a fondness for Alternate History as a branch of SF. Fellow fans of the sub-genre might wish to keep an eye on the newsgroup soc.history.what-if. They may also obtain brief amusement from a collection of Alternate Headlines. Oh, and both Jim Rittenhouse's Alternate History page and Ian Montgomerie's Alternate History Page have lots of interesting-looking links; Ian also has some juicy material of his own creation. And I rather like these four alternate Canadas.

There's also a fun page on the possibilities for a Balkanized North America, and some travel guides for alternate histories.

Oh, and this site now plays host to Alison Brooks's essay on the problems with Operation Sealion, which was originally posted to soc.history.what-if.

Other SF Stuff: Media

Other SF Stuff: Criticism and Academia

Other SF Stuff: Graphics and Artists

Go to my main page.