It's folly to imagine that any people will look up at the planes bombing their homes and schools and killing their children and say, "Do you know what? They're right!"

Finally finished reading Palaver by Bryan Washington. Great read, generous and big-hearted and yes, I love anything set in Japan. New entry added to the Writing Bucket List (WBL): Write a story where the main characters are not named.

It's a head-tilting, what-the-hell-are-you-looking-at kind of caturday.

I've hardly heard any western media talk about the sectarian nature of the war. Iran is a Shia theocracy while the US regional allies are Sunni-led (although not all Sunni majority). In the Middle East, religion IS politics and vice versa. 1/3

Happy World Book Day, World! Hope everyone is reading some good world books 🫡

the two phases of writing: (1) writing and (2) wandering aimlessly like an unmoored ghost and complaining about not writing

In the 1940s, when did everyone generally realise that they were living through a second world war? Asking for a friend.

(In Obi-Wan Kenobi) "Hello there."

"If stories that represent me aren't [set] in the future, then something terrible must have happened to me in the present.” THE REPUBLIC OF MEMORY 🚀 is out in May with @sagapressbooks.bsky.social & @gollancz.bsky.social

Trying to write when everything feels on fire is a WHOLE MOOD

Regime change never works. Even when it succeeds, it fails.

Just me, gazing into the far-flung sci-fi future, on the front page of The Bookseller 🚀

Greens win Gorton and Denton by-election and new MP Hannah Spencer gives victory speech saying: “My Muslim friends and neighbours are just like me: human.” That this even has to said in 2026 is so troubling.

Christian Bale and Leonardo Di Caprio in Heat 2? YES!!! But whose going to play the cop and whose going to be the robber?

Aspiring global majority authors based in the UK, if you write SFF check out this year's Future Worlds Prize before it's too late. It could change your life!

Just finished @mahmudelsayed.bsky.social's the Republic of Memory, which is absolutely sublime. Basically the Arab Spring on a generation ship. I love the way it explores the tensions between the new and the old society on a ship where every resource is severely curtailed. Can't wait for the sequel

It's the 20th anniversary of Danny Boyle's adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. I love both versions but the Gravity Rainbow inspired toilet-diving scene was only in the film 🚽🤿

Ramadan Mubarak 🌙

My book, THE REPUBLIC OF MEMORY, is available for request on NetGalley. "When you speak a different language, you become another person..." bit.ly/4rTIGgE

UK: 6.5% of the population is Muslim. Monaco: 76% of the population are foreign-born. 20-30% are millionaires or billionaires, including Jim "we are being colonised" Ratcliffe. Jog on, mate.

Apologising for someone being offended by what you said is not the same thing as apologising for what you said.

Can't wait for this! "A great day comrades. We sail into history!"

Finally finished the latest Dresden Files and Twelve Months is the best yet. A deep meditation on loss and grief and keeping going. I can't think of any series that has undergone this kind of growth.

What do you call the masculine urge to run your hand through waist-length wheat or grass and imagine that you are dying a hugely noble sacrificial death?

The view from my writing desk today.

You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

Me: Are you really going to kill off this character? Really?1? Also me: He has to go blud, he has to go!

Here's CLINGING TO THE STONES, inspired by Syrian history & mythology: 🌟A broken philosopher-warrior seeking a legendary spear. 🌟An imperial mother must extract her son from an impregnable fortress. 🌟Their paths are about to collide. #QuestPit #Q #A #F #agentsguide

"Blah blah blah" by Some Guy Just me putting placeholder epigraphs at the start of chapters

Bartender: Would you like ice in that, sir? Me: Fuck ICE!

"Freeeeeeeeeeze! BFBI!" (Also, Shabana Mahmood is really making me hate my name!)

You are a regular character, you can enter a scene. You are a regular character, you can make that plot point. You are a regular character, you know when the chapter ends. You are a regular character, you know what it means to be you.

That's right, REPUBLIC OF MEMORY is also a secret hardboiled detective novel (thanks to the ahem joys of multi-pov). Now ain't that a kick in the head? crimereads.com/10-speculati...

The speakers in the British Library's Humanities 1 reading room play an unassuming white noise-y shhhhhhhhhhhhhh sound and now I can't write without it.

Just used the term "it's spitting" to describe a particular kind of rain only to be met with a look of disgust. Is this only a UK thing?

Finally deactivated my twitter (ugh X) account. Enough is enough. I'm only here and on Instagram now.

What an amazing list, including my own lil THE REPUBLIC OF MEMORY. 2026 is set to be a great year for sci-fi!

Watching the Iranian protests and wondering, "Do we never learn?"

It's-a-me, Mahmudio. (It seems my novel is so dangerous, dogs attack it on sight lest it spark a spate of pro-feline revolutionary zeal 😂).

So it goes

We asked @mkhardywrites.com for their best books of '25, the books they'd love for Xmas & their anticipated reads of '26. Read on https://geni.us/SolarisBks2025 to find out why they picked @buehlmeister.bsky.social @mahmudelsayed.bsky.social @cj-dotson.bsky.social & more! https://geni.us/needfire

The one, the only: the ✨UNMISSABLE SFF of 2026✨ list! 🎆 🎆 🎆 🎆 🎆 aka all the fantasy and sci-fi that should definitely be on your tbr, how are these not on your tbr already??? you poor unfortunate soul, let's fix that! buff.ly/IWTR8A6

A final front page for my father who sadly passed away this week. Permanence is for God alone.

The google translate scene between Carol and Manousos on Pluribus was top notch translatorial comedy. "A bug?" "Insecto?" 😂

The days after Christmas but before New Year's: A liminal space, a peripheral time, circumjacent nothingness. What even is time?

Reader: What's up with this POV chapter? It keeps skipping between different genres. Ugh, why can't you just write something normally, Mahmud? Me (yes, doing the voice): Theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated.

Me: Yes, of course I've got the whole story meticulously plotted out. Detailed notes. Character sheets. Scene breakdowns. A world building bible. My pantsing days are over, I swear. I'm a plotter now. Look! Just look at my notes! My notes:

Odysseus negotiating with Circe: I don't want fop, goddamnit. I'm a Dapper Dan, man!

What a better way to start a Monday than with the second part of "A Jam's list to 2026 releases"? Second part of my most awaited titles for 2026 and that I hope to cover in the blog (depending on review copies and all): jamreads.com/articles/a-j... 💙📚