So I'm here to wipe some information off my profile.

But as I'm here, I thought I'd post a blog. I've been reading Fairyland by Paul McAuley. I really like it. I picked it up it was one of the books bought out by Gollancz under their 'Future Classics' margue, Some of the other Future Classics are book I really like: such as Altered Carbon and Hyperion, others are books that I really want to read: like Blood Music.

The think is, though Fairyland is good, it is the first time I have read 1990s SF and found it dated. In the way that 1980s SF is dated - with the big hair, mirror-lensed cyberpunk, or 1950s SF with it's vision of rocket packs.

So why does 1990s SF date? - well it's trying too hard to be dystopian. The future England of Fairyland is so fucked by climate change and Sellafield going up in smoke and all the rest of it, that I'm surprised there hasn't been a revolution. And half the dystopia is ripped from the headlines of the day: e.g: homeless mentalists wandering with sponge-like brains because they have CJD. (Though it was wierd to read about the Trans-European Express departing St Pancras station in the week that St Pancras International opened, Mr McAuley does get Nostradamus points for that).

 The lesson seemeth to be: don't be too dystopian: give your grey cloud of a crumbling future civilisation somd kind of silver lining; and don't base your future on scaremongering straight out of the Daily Mail.

Anyway, I haven't finished the book yet and overall it is very good. Just ... 1995 is now a long time ago.