Mark Charan Newton

From the Guardian.
When we look at a book, its cover tells us what to expect. A pink paperback featuring a smiling young woman is most likely a female-centric summer read, whereas a gun on a black background is probably a murder story. A few simple aesthetic rules narrow our options, make life easier and ensure [...]

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Awesome post over on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s blog about reading in the genre.

A genuine ignorance of the genre is possible. If you simply don’t read it, fine. However if you claim that, and then write this, people may ask how come, since you reinvented the wheel, all those spokes, the hub and the rim were just [...]

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Last night I sketched a map. A secondary world map, for Nights of Villjamur. There are some who may think this stretches into true nerdism, and you may be right, but I can’t deny it felt good. Can’t have a fantasy without a map, many say.
There’s something thoroughly satisfying about putting the world I [...]

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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.
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Nice little interview with J.G. Ballard at the Guardian website. There really is no one quite like him. A couple of years ago I read a few of his books in the usual author flings I have, where I buy up lots of their books and proclaim them the best thing that ever happened to [...]

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Sweet lord, M. John Harrison has returned to the blogosphere. That lunch hour doesn’t look so dull anymore. Now let’s just wait for him to wind some people up and have them barking at each other.
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I read this post on SF Signal, a top genre blog. Basically, some dude has had it with the bickering etc that goes on in the genre.
This isn’t just about the blog comments, e-mails and forum posts of the last week. This is about the blog posts and comments, emails and forum posts, editorials and [...]

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I’ve received the first chunk of the edit of Nights of Villjamur from Peter Lavery. It came with a slip saying “Hope it’s not too much of a shock”. I looked at the manuscript. I laughed.
Time to lose the ego.
It’s funny, because I’ve seen interviews where Neal Asher talks about Peter’s scary pencil. I sent [...]

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Not content with a mention in today’s Guardian newspaper, I’m quoted in this article on fantasy fiction in the Daily Telegraph no less, by genre author Mark Chadbourn. This appears to indicate even more that the establishment is wanting more genre. And that is fine by me. It’s a cracking article aimed at those who [...]

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For what it’s worth, I’m giving a few opinions on SF and Fantasy publishing, and Solaris, over at Speculative Horizons blog…
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