There is a moment, every Thursday morning aboard ELLE4, that Martal Strand considers his. Not officially – nothing in his job title lays claim to it. But in the hours before the Eastsun ignition lights the habitat’s false dawn, before the Agricultural strip stirs into another working day, Martal initiates the cloud cycle. He watches […]
Meet Martal Strand: The man who makes it rain Read More »
I like to think of myself as a process-driven plotter. On paper, I am. I sit down at the beginning of a project and map the larger architecture: the opening movement, the midpoint shift, the ending. I sketch character arcs, turning points, structural beats. I build what looks like a solid framework from start to
Fixing the foundations Read More »
Every reader knows the feeling. You close a book, sit with it for a moment, and think: I need more of this. Not just more pages – more of that specific ache. The enclosed world, the moral weight, the sense that something vast is pressing in from all sides. If any of the books below
If You Loved These Books, Judgement Is Your Next Read Read More »
If you’ve read much science fiction, you’ll have bumped into the idea of people plugging their minds directly into computers. It’s a staple of the genre — from the gritty cyberspace of Neuromancer to the neural jacks of The Matrix. It tends to feel like a metaphor, a cool idea that lives comfortably in the
Your Mind, Their Network: The Real Science Catching Up to Science Fiction Read More »
During my years in the UK Fire Service, I saw some of the very best, and the very worst, of people’s behaviour. From two men literally having a brawl on the bonnet of a car we were trying to rescue a casualty from, to the quiet kindness of people towards neighbours who had just lost
The Story We Tell Ourselves Read More »
AKA: How a Three-Word Sentence Became Judgement Every writer has an origin story. Some are dramatic – a dream at 3 a.m., a conversation overheard on a commuter train, a headline that stops them cold. Mine is quieter than any of those. Judgement began with an unfinished sentence and a small piece of psychology. I
A Germ of an Idea, Followed by a ‘What If?’ Read More »
What is an O’Neill Cylinder? Imagine looking up and seeing a river winding across the sky, green fields curving overhead, and sunlight streaming across streets that stretch for kilometres. Welcome to life inside an O’Neill cylinder – one of the most compelling visions for humanity’s future in space and the setting for my novel Judgement.
Living among the stars: O’Neill cylinders Read More »