Numbers are a powerful way of strengthening a message - and when we see a statistic that backs up a strongly-held belief, it can be very easy to share it without thinking too much about it. But all statistics benefit from a quick check before use - and it's doubly important to do so when they tell us what we want to hear. A couple of days ago, I saw this message on a friend's social media. (I've removed the name at the top and added the words in red - otherwise it is unchanged.) The message is stark. But a couple of things worried me about it. Firstly, that subscript of 'Bristol for Europe' seemed a bit odd. It's clearly not part of the original post, and how exactly could the information come from both the BBC and a pressure group? But more importantly, the exchange rates quoted didn't feel right. I was sure sterling suffered as a result of Brexit (or, rather, BREXIT - being shouty is another flag that checking of data is required) - but a change like this ...

Of all the flavours of fantasy novels, I only really enjoy those set in the real world (often described as urban fantasy, although some, as is the case here, are mostly rural) - whether it's the intricate cleverness of something like Gene Wolfe's Castleview , or when it's mixed with the police procedural, as in Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London , Sarah Painter's Crow Investigations or Paul Cornell's Shadow Police . That meant I was delighted to discover Mark Hayden's King's Watch series. In many ways it's great, though it has proved to be something of a curate's egg. The good news is that Hayden does some things brilliantly. I love the idea of rather than a police tie-in, it's a quasi-military one linked to the Tower of London, with a group originally set up by King James I (the aforementioned King's Watch, headed by a Peculier Constable). Hayden's magickal (sic) world and its political complications are beautifully imagined - wheth...

Image from Unsplash by Todd Pham  I was very impressed with the first series of Amazon's show The Boys - the idea that superheroes would be used for commercial gain is such an obvious fit with America's culture. I wasn't thrilled by the level of violence and gore, but still enjoyed that first series, tolerated the second season and gave up pretty quickly as a result of the even higher level of ickiness of the newly released episodes. But before I did stop, I witnessed a character who could become tiny being carried in a bag of (ahem) white powder. Humans with the ability to shrink have been a common feature of sci-fi and superhero fantasies for ages. (I say sci-fi rather than science fiction, because of the dilemma I'm about address.) We've had The Incredible Shrinking Man (probably the best of the bunch), Fantastic Voyage, Honey I Shrunk the Whatever, Ant Man and more. But while I accept that SF has to be flexible about the science, in the tradition of Larry Niv...