A thank you note is due to Gail Jamieson and the SFSA, for making available Probe 140 from earlier this year, to be made available for download alongside the other earlier issues from the Downloads page. There are some very interesting items in 140, including an interview of Zoran Zivkovic by Michael Lohr. Please support ...

The latest addition to the SF in SA series of essays is - as previously mentioned - a socio-historical overview of South African speculative fiction, recently published in the November 2009 issue of Locus Magazine and republished here with due acknowledgement to Locus as SF in SA 10. If there are any glaring omissions, please ...

So, on into November and for most of the years of my past that would be a welcoming thought, with a view to the hotter and dryer Cape summer months ahead. Now, of course, the opposite holds true - the nights lengthen and it gets colder, wetter and darker - with a lot more bite ...

A few items of note this month - firstly, for an interesting take on World SF have a look at SF Signal's online interview with Lavie Tidhar: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/09/interview-lavie-tidhar/. Again, I would recommend you support Apex's venture to showcase SF writing from across the globe: http://www.apexbookcompany.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=86. Secondly, this month's (October) issue of The Psychologist includes ...

There has been an interesting post by Nnedi Okorafor, who has been mentioned in these pages previously with regards to her African YA sf&f works Zahrah the Windseeker and The Shadow Speaker'. Nnedi is American resident but with strong Nigerian roots and her works so far - yay!- have been invariably African based, in a ...

This is a brief update to mention that I've uploaded my story Thirstlands onto this website (click here) so that it is freely available for all to read, now that it is a year since it has been published in Subterfuge. In addition, in the spirit of the 40th Apollo 11 Moon-landing anniversary, I have ...

Lauren Beukes' Moxyland has launched in the UK under the imprint Angry Robot on July 1st and has already garnished a good review by Blue Tyson at: http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/07/moxyland-lauren-beukes.html Moxyland will be released in the US and Worldwide at the start of September - good luck to Lauren; this is a polished, snappy and truly South ...

I may well need to update my bio sketch now, as I am no longer writing a series of stories about a man torn between the calling of his ancestors and Mars. I have indeed finished this and submitted it to a publisher, with a provisional title of Lunar Voices, Ancestral Steps or Phulani Matlala, ...

This month I'm pleased to report that Escape Velocity, issue 4 is out, available from Adventure Books of Seattle here. As can be seen on the front cover, my article on Psychological Factors in Space Flight is included within the issue. This is a good magazine which has picked up favourable reviews from The Fix ...

As reported previously I've finished reading Lauren Beukes' book Moxyland, a feverish, high paced near future sf book set in - wait for it - Cape Town. In some ways it reminds me of Cory Doctorow's sharp and much lauded YA politico-techno thriller Little Brother. Moxyland is a gradually increasing inter-locking narrative told from the perspective of four main ...