Tag Archives: dystopia

A whole month of special features

I was very pleased to be the Special Featured Author during May for the fantastic b00kr3vi3s blog.

Over the course of the month there were five different features, including an exclusive story co-written by me and the (very) young Ash Creedon.

It was fun to do, of course, and because I wasn’t constrained by the typical format of a generic Q&A I could explore topics in a little more depth than usual. Although, not in great depth so don’t be put off from reading them.

You can find the five features here:


Photo Credit: Jigsaw postcard via photopin (license)

Reading in the Clock Tower

Recently, I had the privilege of reading the first chapter of my latest novel, Fluence, at Novel London – a literary event with an intimate audience that’s held once a month in different venues around central London. Take a look at the photo above and the video below to get a sense of the location and the lofty position the authors occupied.

It was a significant evening for me in many ways. Partly because it’s the first recording of me reading from Fluence, but also because it was held in the St. Pancras Clock Tower which used to be a dilapidated building and top of my list of places to squat.

Whenever I read in public it always strikes me that although I love reading to an audience, I enjoy signing books and chatting afterwards as much and this was no exception. All in all it was a great event and the readings, the tower, the wine and the audience all added up to a friendly and enthusiastic evening. What more could you ask for?

I hope the first chapter will give you enough of a taste to make you want to read the whole book!


detect deceit and delete

I came across these two stories last week – there’s an algorithm that can detect deceit in your social media feed and Twitter has been telling people they don’t exist.

This led me to ponder what it would be like to be in charge of a social media company with a conscience.

Imagine you’re uncomfortable with providing a platform from which people tell lies that are stored for future generations as the accurate record of our social history.

If your algorithms can detect deceit and detect it more effectively than human beings – that’s the claim – then would you consider it your moral duty to find the lies and delete them all? Of course you’d have to trust the algorithms, and their creators, to not deceive you.

Would you delete everything that appeared to be a lie, no matter how big or small?

I wonder if Twitter is temporarily suspending accounts while it cleanses them.

Have you checked your social media history recently?

Maybe you should…


photo credit: 000109 via photopin (license)