Remembering Montségur

Montségur, the last major Cathar stronghold in the Languedoc, surrendered this day in 1244. I was going to quote from my book The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy of the Middle Ages (I wish we'd gone with a better subtitle...), but can't actually find a digital copy... must check the haunted wing of the WD drive. Anyway, the book is now available on Kindle. See below.

Black Death in the news again

The Black Death is in the news again. A plague pit has been discovered in Charterhouse in London containing bodies thought to be from the early days of the pestilence (1348).

More info on the greatest demographic disaster in recorded history can be found in the tome below (available as hardback, Kindle and audiobook):

Alastair Reynolds reviews Dreaming at Baikonur

Leading British SF maestro Alastair Reynolds has given the anthology Rocket Science a good review in Vector (issue 217, Winter 2012). He has singled out my story, "Dreaming at Baikonur":

There are no bad stories here – even the clunkiest … has the saving grace of being likeable, which is no mean achievement. But perhaps the best story in the book, and the one that closes the volume, is the piece most clearly fixated on the past, Sean Martin’s ‘Dreaming at Baikonur’.

Well, that's a gotten the week off to a good start...

Happy Birthday, David Lindsay

Today is the anniversary of David Lindsay's birth, in 1876. I shall be raising if not a glass, then a Violet Apple.

Drawing: Garen Ewing