Jeff VanderMeer, Hal Duncan, and Jane Austen. Not at the same time, obviously...

Back from my rambling in Yorkshire pretending to be Heathcliffe across the moors, my rambling continues in digital form.

Jeff VanderMeer interviews Mr Hal Duncan, author of Vellum and Ink. I'm in the middle of Vellum now, and have to say it's one of the most terrific fantasies I've read. A truly brave piece of publishing, because it defies catagorisation. It's the sort of thing that you know many traditional fantasy readers aren't going to like, but you think, it's so damn good it has to be published. For the sake of the genre. For such a complex book, I'm blazing through it; mainly because I'm high on the prose. If you haven't checked out Hal's blog then do so, for a wonderful and in depth and trippy analysis of just about anything.

Both Jeff VanderMeer and Hal Duncan will have stories in the forthcoming Solaris Book of New Fantasy.

In other matters, Jane Austen gets a much needed makeover. If you can't stand her being trigger-happy with semi-colons, or the fact that she ignored the ever-so-slightly important Napoleonic war in her books because ladies were too busy swooning over dreamy men, then perhaps this will get some obviously much-needed £$£$ into her estate.

—Mark N