THE PREPOSTEROUS BOLLOX OF THE SITUATION

“Music and the visual arts are central to the way he approaches his literary craft. It was while touring nightclubs (“a ridiculous concept now of course, but at the time it was something that people did”) with authors from the rave-lit anthology Disco Biscuits, for instance, that he hit on his future direction. Listening to a reader before him, while he waited to go on stage, he became aware that techno music from the next room was “pumping away – doosh doosh doosh doosh, four-to-the-floor – and it was interfering with the reading in quite an interesting way. It suddenly came to my head and I turned to Sarah Champion [the anthology’s editor] and I said: ‘I wonder if you could do a dub version of a story.’ I couldn’t get that idea out of my head…”

“The regrettable reasons for the decline in SF by women this year don’t change the fact that the best books were by men.

“As a feminist, I am opposed to including women writers in shortlists just because they are female: the work has got to hold its own in its field: we can discuss whether that field is a level one or not, but when you’re judging a work, you’re obliged to deal with what you’ve got, and to me, that means regardless of any ideological criteria…”

“With the Evil Dead remake on the way, Ryan looks back over the unholy history of its forbidden volume, the Necronomicon…”

“Author Iain Banks has revealed that he has late stage cancer and is unlikely to live for more than a year.

“The Scottish writer posted a message on his official website saying his next novel The Quarry, due to be published later this year, would be his last…”

“Barnes & Noble Inc. has sharply reduced the number of Simon & Schuster titles it carries in its stores as well as the promotion it gives those books as a result of a financial dispute between the two companies, say people familiar with the matter.

“The dispute, which one publishing executive likened to a blackout of TV channels by a cable operator, reflects tensions created by the shift to digital reading and the impact of online discounting, which are shaking up publishing.”

“James Herbert, one of the UK’s most popular novelists and writer of bestselling horror books including The Rats, The Fog and The Survivor, has died at his home in Sussex aged 69.

“His publisher, Pan Macmillan, said Herbert, author of 23 novels published in 34 languages that sold more than 54m copies worldwide, died peacefully in his bed…”