Radiant Attack is back! I needed to take a little break after christmas from blogging. It seems so long since I’ve posted something. But here is a little tidbit from my recent trip to New Zealand. Read more

On the weekend I attended a draft swap meeting run by a dear friend of mine, Jan Cornall. Jan’s a great facilitator, she’s led a number of wonderful authors from first concept to publication, one of them being the award-winning fantasy author Margo Lanagan. Read more

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Charlaine Harris’ novels, ever since Alan Ball (creator of Six Feet Under) turned her books into a TV series. TrueBlood has been described as ‘trailer trash vampires’, so I decided to take a look at what the fuss was all about. And I can tell you, it’s a lot of trashy fun. Read more

It’s that unlucky time of year again when the number thirteen happens to coincide with Friday. Especially creepy since it’s a week after Halloween. For those of you who haven’t had their fill of horror, why not try these movie suggestions? There’s more than a few scares on this list. Read more

So after what seemed an eternity of fucking around (see below), this year’s Christmas gaming bonanza has finally begun, and I’ve had a chance to play the two big-name co-op shooters of the year.  Which is better? Heir to the throne of zombie-slaying game perfection, Left 4 Dead 2? Or new contender– comic-booky, post-apocalyptic, RPG-hybrid thingy Borderlands? And more importantly, which game’s launch caused me the least misery? Read more

Kat Clay got talking to Eirik Gumeny, author of Exponential Apocalypse and editor of the Jersey Devil Press. In his own words, the book is “the tender, heart-stirring tale of crappy jobs, a slacker cult, an alcoholic Aztec god, reconstituted world leaders, werewolves, robots, and the shenanigans of multiple persons living after the twentieth-aught end of the world.” Sounds fun? It is. Read more

I’ve been going through a Victoriana bingefest lately – Wilkie Collins, Bram Stoker, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen… Read more

I’ve sat through the ridiculous banning, modification, un-banning of games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3, and I’ve been grumpy. I’ve written form letters of complaint, along with thousands of others, but I’ve never really got up, never really shouted at the top of my lungs against the hideous injustice of it all. Read more

I have a problem. Every time I go to buy a fun, distracting book, I come home with a handful of depressing, literarti treatises on the misery of life. It’s not my fault. It’s just my natural persuasion; on my bookshelf As I Lay Dying sits next to Rape: A Love Story. When it comes to holiday reading, I really have to stop myself and think. Do I really want to read In Cold Blood relaxing in summery Japan? Read more

I live for stories. This doesn’t make me particularly unique – since humans stumbled into language, we have always used stories to describe and examine ourselves and the world around us. From myth and religion to the novel and cinema, we have constantly looked for new ways to describe what it is to be us. Stories mean a lot to us - they can entertain us, move us and fundamentally shape who we become. Read more