A new survey of the Stonehenge landscape reveals the ancient monument once had two encircling hedges that may have been planted to keep secret whatever rituals took place among the stones.

Archaeologist and Stonehenge expert Mike Pitts wonders if the hedges might have been to shelter the watchers from the power of the stones, as much as to ward off the observers’ “impious” gaze. The full story is revealed in British Archaeology magazine.

A new study of the stones themselves, meanwhile, confirms that the majority of bluestones came from hundreds of miles away, in the Preseli Hills in West Wales. However, doubts still remain over the origin of the largest bluestone, the Altar Stone – its composition reveals it cannot be from the Preseli region.

Also one of the funniest: “THE SILVER SKULL, by Mark Chadbourn, is one of the funnest books we have read. Period.”

So that would be The Silver Skull in the US, or The Sword of Albion in the UK – same book, different title – just to avoid confusion.

Also, I’ve just seen the cover for the US follow-up to this book, and it is truly remarkable. By Christian McGrath once again.

Here’s the new cover for the mass-market paperback edition of Destroyer of Worlds, Kingdom of the Serpent Book Three:

Pretty much the same as the hardback, although the blue is darker, less vibrant. The marketing department felt the more muted tones worked better on the bookshelf. I don’t know if I agree.

Further to recent discussions, I wanted to flag up a book – The Meaning of the 21st Century: a vital blue print for ensuring our future by James Martin – which raises many of the big issues facing us, the great opportunities technology can bring, and then ties it all up in a nice, neat bundle.

Martin is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated author for The Wired Society which was prescient about much of today’s world. In this one, he interviews lots of experts across a range of disciplines and gives a powerfully-stated overview, which is hard to get in such a complex world.

It’s a popular science book, and easily understood, so all you uber-scientists don’t come here complaining that he’s not written it at a thesis level. Worth checking out for anyone interested in life in general, science and politics.

For most of my adult life I’ve been involved in various forms of campaigning across a variety of issues. I’ve worked with politicians at all levels, and advised and consulted. But I’m increasingly of the opinion that the politicians we have are part of the problem, not the solution. We face the greatest crises – multiple crises – we have ever encountered, and the vast majority of MPs are simply not up to the job of tackling those great problems.

For the last few weeks I’ve only sniped and snarked about this across Facebook and Twitter. But I’m starting to wonder if we have to accept this incompetence and inadequacy with the usual British stoicism or if there’s something we can do about it.

While I ponder on what can be done, I am happy to support this initiative by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, a charitable foundation. It’s a small step, but the more people speak up, the more those at the top can be encouraged to listen. Watch the video, then vote for whatever you believe in.

“Wild crows can recognise individual human faces and hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly. This ability – which may also exist in other wild animals – highlights how carefully some animals monitor the humans with whom they share living space.”

What you always feared is true.

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can’t conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee,” says Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal.

His comments were made today as scientists gather in London to discuss the prospect of discovering extra-terrestrial life.

Another perceptive review of the first book in the Swords of Albion series:

“Faeries. British Folklore. Alternate Elizabethan History. Magic. Spies. Political Intrigue. Christopher Marlowe. If these fantastic components weren’t enough to get me excited about reading The Silver Skull, the first novel in the new Swords of Albion trilogy, the fact that Mark Chadbourn is the author sealed the deal.”

The Silver Skull is out now in the US. The UK version – re-titled The Sword of Albion – is out in May.

After futile decades of listening for any signs of a civilisation beyond Earth, SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – is considering broadcasting our own message to the stars.

New Scientist reports that a meeting will be held in Texas in June to discuss if, and how, and in what form, such an attempt at communication should be made.

There is opposition. Our oldest stories tell us that it’s not always wise to let the gods notice you, which is what’s on the mind of SF author David Brin. He resigned from a SETI panel because he felt there wasn’t enough discussion of the potential repercussions from such a broadcast. He says: “I dislike seeing my children’s destiny being gambled with by a couple of dozen arrogant people who cling to one image of the alien”

A friend, the artist Frank Mafrici pointed my attention to a great German documentary on crop circles (with English voiceover).

I’ve always been extremely sceptical about wilder claims for the origins of crop circles. They appear manmade, albeit fantastic examples of landscape art, especially some of the most recent examples. However, I was always slightly troubled by one aspect – I haven’t come across any great art where the artist hasn’t eventually taken credit for it.

Whatever your thoughts, the documentary makes fascinating viewing. It includes details of research by scientists – physicists, chemists, mathematicians – and specifically signs that the crops have been damaged by electro-magnetic radiation. Some stems are blown out at the nodes by escaping steam. There are also changes to the soil, with molten particles a regular feature.

Despite all the received knowledge (groups of hoaxers using planks to flatten the corn at night), one local witness revealed a crop circle wasn’t in the field at 5.30am, but appeared later that day.

And if there are artists at work – using EMF pulse machines – I applaud their attention to cultural memes. One of the crop circles is in the shape of the Mayan calendar, and another shows the position of the planets in the solar system at the end of 2012. Hugely entertaining. Take a look.

Underwater cities. Space stations. City-sized ships.

The stuff of science fiction is just day-to-day business for Jacque Fresco, a futurist who’s come across my radar a few times in the past. He’s a designer and an inventor with a view on where we’re going and what we need to change to survive.

His latest work is The Venus Project – a vision of how to integrate the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society based on both human and environmental concerns.

Click on the link above and you’ll see some absolutely breathtaking art that wouldn’t look out of place on an SF book cover. You can find out more about The Venus Project here:

“Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.”

About time, too.

They can perform quite complex tasks effectively. Unlike Hoon and Hewitt.

Happy New Year everyone. A quick catch-up post as I get my head back into work-mode after the seasonal festivities, during which I saw and enjoyed both Sherlock Holmes and Avatar amid the usual carnage of what is my favourite time of year. I’m definitely a mid-winter person.

I’m currently snowed-in and watching the reports of Britain grinding to a halt (again). I’m afraid to consider how we’ll cope in a real catastrophe.

My work had a good showing among the usual “Best of…” lists, published at the end of 2009.

The Silver Skull (Swords of Albion) appeared in the favourite novels of Locus magazine critic Paul Witcover, SteveReads, Fantasy Book Critic Cindy’s best of 2009 list, and Fantasyliterature.com.

Meanwhile, Age of Misrule was flagged up in the best of 2009 lists of Rob Will Review, Fantasy Book Critic Cindy’s list (again!), and Nethspace.

Thanks to all.

Actress Tamzin Outhwaite on her BBC drama, Paradox:

“Initially I thought it was a sci-fi project…

“Then I read the script and realised it wasn’t. It’s about police officers trying to work out whether there is a worm hole between two time zones.”

Mark Charan Newton, actually.

Over on his blog, Mark has incited a firestorm with the posting “Why Science Fiction is dying and Fantasy Fiction is the future”, which has attracted fierce responses from Charles Stross, Richard Morgan, Adam Roberts and many others.

Here’s my response:

Surely there is no finer sport than ramming sharpened stakes into the cages of the SF community!

So really when we talk about SF vs fantasy, we’re talking about SF vs secondary world fantasy. That undercuts the initial argument even more, because I was told by a publisher very recently that sales of secondary world fantasy are also in decline – slow, certainly, at the moment, but consistent. Fewer secondary world fantasies are going to be bought. The argument then becomes, which is declining faster – “fantasy” or SF, and that’s not a very fun argument at all.

Part of the sales decline is due to the intense, and accelerating, change in society, where communities are breaking down into increasingly small self-identifiable units. It’s something the music and TV industries have already wrestled with – there are no “rock” fans any more, but a vast number of tiny tribes that shelter under the rock banner. Viewing figures for TV shows plummet as the makers increasingly have to micro-target.

The challenge for the big publishers is how they’re going to build a business model that is acceptable to their shareholders when genres continue to fragment (in fantasy, say, to apocalyptic fantasy, heroic fantasy, magic-based fantasy, historical fantasy) with less and less boundary crossing and subsequently a lower ceiling of potential sales (ans: they can’t). It’s an issue that smaller publishers like Solaris and Angry Robot were specifically set up to tackle.

But in this area, I think, SF is better placed to thrive in the long term because its community is broader and more cohesive, and there is much more micro-boundary crossing to keep sales up.

The Ministry of Defence has staffed a desk to deal with UFO reports for the last fifty years – the real-life X-Files.

It’s now been closed, because it has not “revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom”.

I suppose that means we can expect the invasion by Christmas.

It’s Thanksgiving in the US and the start of a retail frenzy that will continue right through the Yuletide season. It’s a brutal time for authors. More books are sold than at any other time of the year. The stakes are high, everyone’s competing for attention so their book doesn’t get lost in the snowstorm. It’s going to be a backstreet knife fight from here on out. Not pretty.

And here’s where I jump into the fray. Look away now if you can’t bear brutal displays of marketing and attention-seeking in a bid to get everyone to notice the first Swords of Albion book, The Silver Skull, which is out NOW in the US. You know the one – Elizabethan spies versus Faerie on the eve of the invasion of England by the Spanish Armada.

And look – new reviews are in. Prestigious site Monster and Critics says “In a year of outstanding fantasies, The Silver Skull may just be one of the best.” Which comes on the back of fantasyliterature.com’s reviewer claiming it’s their favourite book of the year. That sounds like a trend.

That provides a slight silver lining to the book not coming out in the UK until April. UK reviewers can now make it the best book of two years. Go on – you know you want to.

And look – here’s another review, this time from also-prestigious magazine Realms of Fantasy: “Chadbourn’s plot moves swiftly, from London to Scotland to Spain, with surprises galore along the way, and with memorable heroes and villains, especially the Faerie prince Cavillex, who is a worthy adversary for Swyfte, and a promising young playwright and sometime secret agent by the name of Christopher Marlowe. Smart, fun, at times surprisingly moving, and occasionally downright shocking, The Silver Skull is impossible to put down.”

Then there’s the recent review in the – yes – prestigious magazine Locus: “The Silver Skull has such an array of complex characters, deeply involved in their interesting times and guarding so many painful memories and secrets, there’s something here for anyone who wants more than a bunch of cardboard figures going through the motions while the body count keeps rising.”

Sick of all this pimping yet? Get used to it – there’ll be more. Much more…

Courtesy of Kaz Mahoney.

Here’s a first look at the cover to the UK edition of the first Swords of Albion book, out from Bantam in April:

The first reviews of The Silver Skull prior to its US publication are starting to trickle in. Here’s one from Geeks on Fire! – favourite book of the year so far. I’m happy with that.

Also featured on: fantasyliterature.com.

(Usual note: UK publication to follow with a UK-specific edit.)