There is a book in bookshops that has words written by me in it (alongside words written by lots of other people). It exists. It’s in the world. And here it is, in the wilds of Waterstones:

I got asked to work on this last year by Guy Haley (one-time reviews editor of SFX who gave me my first break on the mag), as he was editing this massive book on SF and needed contributors. The Sci-Fi Chronicles was released at the start of this month – it’s a big, picture-heavy reference book featuring tons of infographics, timelines and articles on a whole variety of SF, from books and short stories to TV, films and animation.

I’m responsible for fifteen of the articles – I wrote about Battlestar Galactica, The War of the Worlds, John Carter, Christopher Nolan, George Lucas, Independence Day, the Riddick movies, The Thing, Predator, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Philip K. Dick, Doom, Batman, Cordwainer Smith and Flash Gordon. (The ones on the list that I’m most proud of are the Cordwainer Smith piece, the Philip K. Dick profile, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen article, where I got to do a fictional timeline of the League’s world that was so much fun to write. Flash Gordon, on the other hand, almost broke my brain, as doing a timeline of the original Flash Gordon comic book was more difficult than I ever would have dreamed…)

It’s come out looking very nice indeed, and it’s great to know that there’s a book like this out there that has my words in it. Okay, it isn’t a novel yet, and my words only make up a small percentage of the total word count, but it’s a START, dammit…