Thursday, June 28, 2018

Cover Reveal: A New Look for The Spatterjay Series

Neal Asher's Spatterjay series is getting a makeover with some brand new covers by artist Steve Stone. The new editions are scheduled for release on 29 November.




While I'll always prefer the truly amazing covers Jon Sullivan did for the series, these look pretty darn good. I'm not a huge fan of the taglines on the covers though (even if they do earn bonus points for sneaking in a Game of Thrones riff on the cover of The Voyage of the Sable Keech).

What do you guys think?

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Reading slumps, a plague and losing the spark

It's been a while ages since I last posted. Over the last two months it just seems that I've completely lost the spark. My brain just couldn't focus on reading, at most I managed to read a couple of pages and just lost interest. Trying to blog was also an effort in futility. I sat for hours staring at a blinking cursor while it taunted me with its smug superiority and the words just wouldn't come...

I guess the changing seasons and increasing workload just sapped all of my energy. Like Opportunity stuck in a Mars dust storm I just couldn't muster up the drive to do anything productive. I'm not sure if it's the lack of sunlight, the cold (I'm not much of a Winter person) or work stress that has left me so drained. The best I could manage was to crawl into bed and fall asleep as soon as I got back from work.

In the middle of June I had a week of vacation leave scheduled . A glorious week which would've been the perfect opportunity for me to recharge my batteries and get back into the swing of things. Alas, it was not to be. On my very first day off I developed a dose of flu which could give the plague a run for it's money. My week was spent in bed, feverish and just too weak to even pick up a book and before I knew it the break was over and not a single page was read. My only memento is a persistent cough that still refuses to go away. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm still here. I'm struggling to rekindle that lost spark, but I can see a faint glow of life in the embers. I might not have lost it after all.

There are some glorious books waiting to be read and I will get to them... it might just take me a little longer than normal.

Happy reading!