

The Narrator & Central Station
These two wonderful books, by Michael Cisco and Lavie Tidhar respectively, set me thinking about the role of a protagonist.

Dead Astronauts & Postcapitalist Desire
Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer is hard sci-fi. There’s no space opera grandeur here, it’s far more profound. It offers a tender and bleak vision of how humanity changes and fails.

Epic Iran
(Gold model of a chariot, 500-330BC) In the book I’m writing at the moment, the main character finds themselves torn from their ordinary life in my hometown of Barry. I wanted them to find an ally and mentor to help them navigate their conflict and keep them alive.I wanted this character, who I ended up…