Magic is hard. There’s so much magic in fantasy that sometimes it’s used to define fantasy (although that’s an oversimplification) but the fact remains – Magic is hard. There are many books where the magic just doesn’t hang together, or where the reader is bogged down in the minutiae of the cleverly-worked-out magic system that the… Read More
Author: John
So many books, so little time
There’s an article on Medium.com about the number of books people read in a year, which prompted me to have a look at my records. Since 2004, I’ve been keeping a list of the books I read in a spreadsheet. Yes, yes, I know, what a geek. But it’s interesting to look back and see,… Read More
The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean, by Lindsay Littleson, was the winner of the 2014 Kelpies Prize. And no wonder. It has engaging characters and an exciting plot that zips along at a cracking pace – I read through it in one session last night after it automagically appeared on my Kindle a week earlier… Read More
Othergirl, by Nicole Burstein, is a superhero book. Superheroes – known as Vigils – are real, and can fly, or shoot flames out of their hands, or have superstrength, or any of the other usual comic-book powers. So far so conventional. For most people, the Vigils don’t have much of an effect of their daily… Read More
Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans is the latest book by Gary Northfield, the multi-talented cartoonist best known for Derek the Sheep, Gary’s Garden, and my personal favourite, The Terrible Tales of the Teenytinysaurs! which was one of my favourite books of 2013. It’s the story of Julius, who’s definitely not a horse, and is… Read More
(Part one here.) We drove up to Dundee the day before the ceremony. It’s nearly 400 miles from Leicester to Dundee, but I’ve done the trip dozens of times before – Sandra’s family still live in Dundee, so we go up to visit them every year. I didn’t get an awful lot of sleep that… Read More
I’ve been writing for more years than I care to remember, but it’s really only been the last three years that I’ve applied myself wholeheartedly with the aim of seeing my work published. I’m not sure how many works-in-progress I’ve got cluttering up my hard drive – books I started, then came to a crashing… Read More
Yesterday, the winner of the Great War Dundee Childen’s Book Prize was announced at a ceremony in the Central Library in Dundee. There were dozens of children from schools across the city present, and the ceremony was presented by five pupils from Braeview Academy – two acting as masters of ceremonies, with one championing each… Read More
It’s the final countdown
One week today, it’ll all be over, one way or another. The results of the Great War Dundee Children’s Book Prize are announced next Wednesday, the 25th of March, and either I’ll have won, or either Joe Lamb or Lindsay Littleson will be getting their book published by Cargo Publishing instead. It’s all getting very close… Read More
I could read and write before I went to school – my Mum taught me using comics, I seem to recall, and I remember writing my name in big bold capitals – JOHN – before my aunt, who was a teacher, told my mother off for not teaching me to write lower case letters first…. Read More