Some Links to a Radio National Chat and the Launch

The Launch at Avid is up on Youtube.

And you can listen to me and Bram Presser on Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh's wonderful Radio National programme the Bookshelf here

I've been on the Bookshelf a few times now, and it's always so much fun. This time I was talking about Martha Wells' wonderful Murderbot Diaries series, focussing on her newest The Network Effect. I don't think I sell it nearly well enough, it's one of my favourite series of the last few years. Murderbot is certainly one of the great characters of that weird thing known as the SF Cannon, and very much worth your time. Start with All Systems Red, and you'll be hooked.

I also mention Elizabeth Knox's magnificent The Absolute Book, which may be the best book I have read in a few years, definitely one to add to the great books about fairies that Trent loves, including Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (with which it shares a lot in common in an odd way, because they are very different books) and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (who has a new book out this year, hurrah!). But it is also one of the great modern books about magical portals, of which there have been a few lately including The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, and Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea both of which are an absolute delight