My former colleague Andy is in Lebanon right now and is keeping a blog whilst there. The writing there is top-notch; do check it out. I hope he makes a swift and safe return to these shores; until then, I hope he manages to keep writing. I know I’d be terrified.

Self-promotion again: over at Pixelsurgeon, a review of the latest Castlevania game, Dawn of Sorrow. This time round, the series moves onto the Nintendo DS. It comes with a huge recommendation for me – the review will explain more, but basically, it’s invariably fun to play, has lots of longevity (and some killer bonuses I didn’t have space to write about), and harks back to a slightly bygone era. Fun to write, too. I’m really looking forward to having the chance to write more about games. Up until now, I’ve mainly been biting people’s ears off about them, so this new outlet will no doubt please those unfortunate enough to have listened to me droning on.

Another piece of writing in the New Statesman; this time, a review of the Le Placard international headphones festival.

About 40 people are sprawled on the floor, or on an array of battered chairs and sofas. Along one wall is a row of desks and tables, behind which sit a handful of unshaven young men, backlit by Anglepoise lamps, fiddling with laptops, mixing desks and a wind-up shortwave radio. Naturally, I can’t hear any of it. So I sit down at a table and try to plug in my headphones.

Read the whole article.

“The games press is often painted as corrupt, lazy and – as I mentioned – fundamentally stupid. This is because we tend to be corrupt, lazy and fundamentally stupid.

It’s not entirely our fault.”

Kieron Gillen has put up a full transcript of his talk from Free Play, a conference in Melbourne. In it, he explains to independent developers how to leverage the power of the gaming press – who, after all, really care about indepedent developers, whatever it may look like from the outside. It was probably a great talk. It’s certainly a great piece of writing, if only because it clearly explains the hectic, rushed, pressurized world that is magazine publishing to an audience who – whilst they might not understand publishing or journalism – certainly understand hectic, rushed, and under pressure. Well worth reading.

I’ve got a small feature in this week’s New Statesman. It’s a short essay piece on Victorian terrorist literature, namely, the lost genre of the “dynamite romance”, along with some history about 19th century anarchists and their bombing campaigns against London. The quotations I found from records of the time were most powerful:

“An explosion on the Metropolitan Railway, near Praed Street. Three carriages sustained serious injury, and about 62 persons were cut by the broken glass and debris, and otherwise uninjured.”

You can read more on the New Statesman site [one article free per day, no registration required].