Mark Charan Newton

Most people know by now about the suicide of Thomas M. Disch.
I only ever read two books by the guy, Camp Concentration, and his collection of essays on the genre, On SF, enough to know he was a man who wrote with intelligence, style, and passion. A rare beast indeed.
Share: [...]

[Read more →]

Driving slowly through the rush hour traffic, sun leaking through thick clouds, a little humid and the kind of weather where fumes don’t seem to go anywhere. I paused to let a car pull out in front of me. The woman driving must have been seventy years old, easily, in a clean little red sports [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve just been invited over to a cracking little social network for those interested in fantasy fiction.
Wonderlands. Pretty nifty thing, I have to say.
If you want to add me, I’m http://wonderlands.ning.com/profile/MarkCNewton. See you there.
Share: [...]

[Read more →]

Interesting post on the Guardian website about what hitting the big four-zero does to male writers.
Perhaps the most complete accounts of midlife crisis come, as ever, from Shakespeare. Few would question the autobiographical nature of the The Tempest, in which an ageing Prospero breaks his staff and turns his back on “this rough magic”. It’s [...]

[Read more →]

That’s Kylie Minogue OBE to you.
Rumour has it she was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to the gold spangly hot pants industry. Although you would like to think it was for her stirling charity work and inspiration in her recovery from cancer. As well as the spangly hot pants.
You need to [...]

[Read more →]

I have returned form the Yorkshire Dales, and should hopefully have something interesting to say soon. I’ve been finishing my marathon re-read of The Book of the New Sun sequence, by Gene Wolfe, surely someone who deserves a mighty heavy and shiny medal for services to literature. No way I can review it, or have [...]

[Read more →]