Today's big media event is obviously the repeat of my Iain M. Banks adaptation 'The State of the Art' at 2.15pm today on BBC Radio 4. It'll be on the iPlayer afterwards (for which I'll provide a link in a new post) and yes, those abroad will be able to listen. I'm told we can expect a global audience of several billion.

As you can see from the book covers in the right hand margin,Voices from the Past is now available to pre-order, and will be out tomorrow. It's an e-book SF and fantasy anthology, which you can download for either 99p or £2.99, for an absolutely identical edition, the only difference being how much you want to give to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Every penny of the proceeds goes there, and all the authors gave new stories for free, myself included. SF fans may rejoice at the presence of Alastair Reynolds, Jasper Fforde, Kaaron Warren, Juliet McKenna and Mary Robinette Kowal. Comics fans will be delighted by the presence of Bill Willingham. Doctor Who fans can be gleeful about the appearance of Andrew Smith, Cav Scott, Jac Rayner, Joe Lidster, Paul Magrs, Rob Shearman and Toby Hadoke. And there are many authors I haven't mentioned. My story is called 'A Map of Lychford' and that's all I'm going to tell you about it. It really is a fantastic collection, and well worth your donation.

As you can also see on the right, I'm delighted to be part of Vertigo's upcoming Strange Adventures anthology comic, which also features a story by newly-crowned Clarke Award winner Lauren Beukes. It's her first comics work, and my first work for Vertigo.

Every now and then I'm sent a book to review, some of which make it to the blog and some don't. This one I read at high speed, and was very pleased with.

The Man who Invented the Daleks by Alwyn W. Turner isn't quite a biography of Terry Nation (we hear, for example, only two things about his wife). Rather it's a very detailed story of the working life of a television writer, at a time when the medium was at its height. It puts his work in a finely-drawn sociopolitical context and demonstrates the accidents and hard work that create success in the business. I don't quite buy its offhand assertion that Nation was a proud socialist, given that so much of his work seems to stare at libertarianism and ask desperately what the problem with it is, as if an answer might be a great relief. This especially since there are no political quotes from the man himself. Statements concerning the lack of ideology in his scripts will also come as a surprise to Doctor Who fans, Nation having long been seen as one of the few writers from the classic series to display a point of view. It's almost as if including such things might make a man for whom we gain great sympathy in the course of the book (chiefly because of the amount of failure any successful writer endures) scary. Nation was also either never rewritten, or always rewritten, depending on which script editor you talk to and what they mean at the time. But that's always been the case with any TV writer. But I'm starting with negatives, when my overall impression was vastly positive. It's a story of failure (Nation being seen as the man who finished off Tony Hancock's career), turning, through the grabbing of a single opportunity and luck (well, the luck of having Beryl Vertue for an agent) into riches. Nation did all his best work in the space of a year, and spent a lucrative decade towards the end of his life getting almost nothing produced in the USA. But he clearly knew an opportunity when he saw one, was the personality that you wanted in your office, managed his own image and pursued finer artistic goals after the Daleks made him wealthy. Doctor Who fans always approach a book like this assuming they'll know more than a non-specialist researcher, but not only has Turner really done his homework, with every Who-related moment portrayed in the proper context, but he's unearthed several gems that I'd never heard about: the fist fight between Nation and David Whitaker, for instance! He's particularly good on what Nation drew upon from the science fiction he read and adapted, on Nation as an SF writer in dialogue with the genre (though again, the prologue worryingly denies Nation was an SF writer, once more as if we might be scared away otherwise). Turner isn't quite aware of how big a genre SF is, or what defines it, and sometimes guesses that Nation might have learned from texts that he might never have encountered, but in general it's a serious and thorough attempt by a writer outside the genre to examine how it applies to a working writer, and should be applauded. Threads such as Nation's Welsh identity (all those names: Davros! And of course he married a Grant), his need to have a series with his name on it, and his shying away from conflict and the studio floor, are explored in satisfying depth. The book might well make Terrance Dicks sigh, since he and several others lived just such an interesting work life, without having Beryl strike through that one line in the BBC contract about merchandise rights. But that was the cruelty of the game, and it still is. Nation was from Llandaff, where the new Doctor Who was also born, a series which is now run by Beryl's son-in-law. If Nation was still with us, he'd have got to go to some great parties, and might well have had a one line story idea in his head when he did. The Man who Invented the Daleks is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how television works, and the life of a working writer, and I heartily recommend it.

I'm looking forward to Illustrious in Birmingham, the Eastercon on the weekend after next. I'll be hosting the BSFA Awards, and also appearing on the following:

9pm, Friday, Space Over Time: 'How changes in our understanding of astrophysics and astronomy have changed the depiction of space in SF.' (It's great to be on a physics/lit panel.)

12pm, Saturday, Mirror Universe: 'Star Trek has its mirror universe but what would, say, the Paddington Bear mirror universe be like? Our creative panel discusses TV shows/books mirror universes nominated by the audience.' (Sounds fun.)

9pm, Saturday: A panel about audio SF.

10.30am, Sunday: A panel about comics for beginners. (I'll talk and talk.)

10.30am, Monday: And, just for a change, I'm playing rather than hosting Just A Minute!

And, date for your diary, my radio adaptation of Iain M. Banks' 'The State of the Art' will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on 29th April.

Anyhow, that's me for now, and until Eastercon, Cheerio!