Tag Archives: dystopia

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)

Launch event for Fluence

Fluence was published just over a month ago and after a fortnight of interviews and reviews the official launch took place on 21 July in a packed Primrose Hill Community Library.

I was really pleased that people took the time to come along on a sunny evening and I certainly enjoyed meeting them, reading extracts and talking about the inspiration behind the novel. The most enjoyable part for me (apart from the pub afterwards) was the Q&A at the end.

All the questions were thoughtful and wide-ranging, including Continue reading