I blame The Coward's Tale by Vanessa Gebbie

I used to think I was indecisive...

I am chewing my fingers to the bone with indecision and it's all Vanessa Gebbie's fault.

You see, this morning the postman brought me Vanessa Gebbie's latest book, The Coward's Tale. Yay!

But I haven't quite finished Jonathan Pinnock's hilarious first novel Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens. Doh!

I'm also dipping in and out of Tania Hershman's excellent short story collection The White Road and Vanessa's equally excellent collection Storm Warning. Double doh!

On Monday, following a discussion on SF at UCL, I purchased The History of Science Fiction by Adam Roberts, and began reading that on the train home. Triple, doh!

And… this morning's post also brought me a copy of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, a book I have been meaning to read for years. Doh, ray, me, far, so, la, tee, DOH!

The very worst of this situation, and the part for which Vanessa Gebbie is entirely to blame, is that having read the first chapter of The Coward's Tale I am utterly hooked. Unfair, Vanessa, so unfair of you to write such mellifluous and addictive prose. It was clear from the opening sentences that not only was The Coward's tale going to be a book I would relish, but that it is one destined to achieve heights and accolades to which few other books and authors can even aspire.

Hear me, people, The Coward's Tale is going to be BIG.

Now, I suppose I shall simply have to go cold turkey for a few hours, sustained perhaps by a final heady fix of Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens, with perhaps just a smidgin of…

Hang on a moment. Wasn't there something else I should be doing? Ah, yes. I'm a writer, allegedly.

Just one more chapter? Oh, please?

Damn the woman, why can't she write take-it-or-leave-it rubbish, like me?