Culturing flavour

The world of ‘elite food’ raises certain questions. It would be easy to write off entirely, from a social justice … More

Speculative non-fiction

In the interests of easing myself gradually into research, I’ve continued my investigation of historical bread-baking with quite a modest … More

Root access

When I was young, reggae was a central part of pop-music—everyone had heard it, and although it wasn’t the most … More

In black and white

Having dipped into Kim Stanley Robinson’s work at intervals during his career (whether retrospectively as here, or contemporaneously), I’m starting … More

Periodic themes

My two main topics of research for my soon-to-be commenced fantasy novel are baking and medicine, since they’re the activities … More

The not done

The Beastie Boys landed in the public consciousness with Licensed to Ill, an album of spoof hip-hop over cartoon metal … More

Babylon to Chorleywood in thirty-two pages

Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introduction series has staked out a territory for concise introductions to a bewildering variety of … More

A parabolic parable

I will freely admit my ignorance on all matters bandes dessinées. My first comics were Asterix and Tintin in French … More

Warts and all

I’m on a long-term project to read all of Michael Moorcock’s classic fantasy-fiction, which comes together under the general rubric … More

No hubris

Having loved Snow Crash a long time ago, and having decided after reading Anathem in 2012 that Neal Stephenson is … More

I waited thirty years for this holiday

I used to play tabletop role-playing games, teen nerd-punk that I was. This was the 1980s, when RPGs enjoyed a … More

Read this now

We don’t live in a temporal silo, separated from the past and future by an impermeable barrier. Indeed, when you … More

Menacing angles

Certain times in certain places almost produce stories by themselves. Post Second World War Vienna was one such, a city … More

Beautiful movement

Running has been a part of me since I was in my early twenties—not competitive running, but thrashing along rural … More