GIRDING UP

The renowned and redoubtable Charlie Stross is off on his travels - therefore offline. I'm honoured to be guest blogger, along with Karl Schroeder et al, at the fabulous Charlie's Diary. Join me there!

Here's how I'm going to be introduced, I think...


John Meaney is the author of ten SF novels - Paradox, Bone Song and Absorption among them - including one of the Daily Telegraph Books of the Year, and an Independent Publishers Novel of the Year. He has been shortlisted three times for the British Science Fiction Award.

In order to write full time, he lives in exile in a Welsh valley, surrounded by sheep.

His first degree was in physics and computer science, and he is belatedly completing graduate work at Oxford on a (very) part-time basis. His long IT career culminated in working as a trainer, often abroad, combining hard tech with applied psychology and stand-up comedy... making use of his training in hypnosis.

A black belt in shotokan karate and graduate of a world-famous dojo, Meaney has been training in martial arts for nearly four decades, and considers "thug" a compliment.

His heart melts at the sight of a cat, and for a bar of dark chocolate, he is anybody's.