My short story An Open Letter To Any Impressionable Young School Leavers Who Are Considering Joining The Space Corps appears in this week’s issue of Nature.

Hiking in the Wicklow Mountains with the brother last Monday, we spotted this impressive cairn atop Seefin.

The entrance faces directly north.

Apparently it was opened up and examined in 1932/33 but whatever remains it once contained had already been pilfered.

Also spotted this escapee from The Quatermass Experiment …

from: somethinkfun

Unlettered. Top notch work as always from Jim Boswell, who has made me promise not to write any more crowd scenes.

Went to the Nick Cave gig in Vicar Street last night.  Fucking superb.

Picked up a signed copy of the new book and even snagged some free sachets of Bunny Munro brand hand cream on the way out!

A brilliant, brilliant gig. So good that it couldn’t even be ruined by the caustic Australian woman who, during the extended Q&A, rather rudely asked Cave whether he thought his new book was misogynistic or not, before being forced to admit that she hadn’t in fact read the book at all, but, not to be outdone, then tried to back up her misogyny accusation by referring disparagingly to the projected backdrop of a fully clothed woman dancing.

Cave was very polite, but eventually told her that he was “fucking offended” by her accusation. She continued to caterwaul from the balcony for a few more seconds before eventually being booed into silence by the crowd.

I was a bit drunk . . . but I’m almost certain this actually happened.

You can read my story In The Beginning There Was The Machine in the latest issue of Flurb, edited and published by the mighty Rudy Rucker.

Plenty of other good stuff in there too.  And all for free!

I signed contracts with Insomnia Publications last week to write an original graphic novel based on the life of Aleister Crowley. This has meant I’ve had to crawl around the attic like some kind of giant, malformed silverfish to gather up all my old Crowley books.

It will be done in a similar style to Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s  magnificent From Hell – as much as possible based on historical fact but with some fictionalised elements to provide a framework for the story and to really make it sing. Crowley wasn’t averse to fictionalising his own life anyway, so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind too much.

Crowley – Wandering The Waste will be published under Insomnia’s Vigil line of historical graphic novels, probably in 2010.

Not sure yet as to who the artist will be.

I heard from Nic Wilkinson at Insomnia that Robert M. Heske was putting together an anthology book featuring both comics and short stories based around the 2012 myths.  He specifically wanted a short story about what would happen the day after the cataclysmic events of the 21st of December, 2012 . So I knocked up a story and he’s bought it for the book.

The Seeds Of Time will appear, along with an accompanying illustration, in 2012: Final Prayer.

Due out sometime towards the end of the year. Should be a good book.