Refreshing Firmware... Please Stand By

Hello, everyone.

An ominous lack of tweets over the last few days, not to mention the legion of email I've yet to address - apologies if you're waiting for a reply; it'll be along shortly - might have clued you in on the fact that there's been lots going on behind the scenes of The Speculative Scotsman. Enough, to be perfectly honest, that it's all rather overwhelmed me.

But this isn't a LiveJournal, where I burble about all the insignificant goings-on, good and bad, in my life. In that spirit, then, let it suffice to say that a couple of things have happened recently that have knocked me for six. Even now I'm not quite back in the saddle, but I've got a foot in the stirrup at the least; things are well on their way to being back to normal. A lovely thought indeed.

Anyway. After nearly three months of blogging every day, I just couldn't let a day go by without posting something, but I'll keep this little update as short and sweet as I can.

Here on the blog, the next few weeks are already packed full of reviews and features and commentary. Before March is out, you'll have heard what I thought of Alexey Pehov's Shadow Prowler, not to mention Kat Falls' Dark Life and Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett - one of which (you'll have to stay tuned to see) drove me to distraction while another has to be the best thing I've read this year.

At the moment, on the rare occasions when I find myself with time to spend, I've been reading Spellwright, Blake Charlton's absolutely bloody charming debut and returning time and again to the first volume of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. You can expect coverage of both in the very near future.

Then there's Under Heaven.

And Ian McEwan's newest novel, Solar.

Presuming everything goes as planned, the next few weeks here on TSS are going to be positively bursting at the seams with some very fine content - if I do say so myself.

Not only that, your very own Speculative Scotsman has been asked to participate in a few projects outwith the borders of this humble blog. To begin with, I'll be writing a little something for the Sci-Fi Appreciation Month Mark Chitty is hosting on the excellent Walker of Worlds throughout April; add to that an ambitious essay entitled "Faster, Zombies, Kill, Kill" for The Living Dead blog to tie in with George A. Romero's forthcoming first novel, and that's not to mention a new resource I - alongside a veritable Justice League of fellow bloggery sorts (a heads-up to Jon Weir for that rather appropriate nickname) - have been scrabbling away at in our off-hours. More on that terribly exciting development soon, you can be sure of that.

So that's that. Lots to come, eh? I know I'm looking forward to getting back to it after the unfortunate waste of the last few days. Here's hoping you'll all stick around to see what I come up with.