So, here's why I haven't read many books so far this year: Because I've read fifteen volumes of Schlock Mercenary, a web comic turned graphic novel. Did I like it? Well, I'm on my fifteenth volume, so there you go ( Read more... )

 Okay, so check this out: As I'm sure all of you remember, back in 2021 I had a short story, "Everybody Knows Your Name", published in East Of the Web, an online fiction magazine. The original short story is here:

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/EverKnow1183.shtml


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 Five teens who otherwise have little in common bond over a shared tragedy: Five years earlier a steel mill exploded in Splendor, Ohio, leaving the surviving townspeople grieving ( Read more... )

 The Earth is dying. Isn't it always, in today's YA dystopian novels ( Read more... )

When a novel begins with the total destruction of Earth and everyone on it ... where do you go from there?

In God's Bolt, Ron Forsythe goes to the only survivor: scientist Helen Southcote. Alone on a United Nations sponsored space station, she has to witness the asteroid impact that destroys the world, and live with the knowledge that she's the ( Read more... )

Writing instructors, editors, publishers, they all say the same thing: When writing a piece of fiction, start at the beginning; go to the end; then stop.

Don't pad it. Don't be too sparse. Just make your story as long as it needs to be, no longer. It's good advice.

It's also wrong.


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Rikk Deckard is a bounty hunter in a futuristic city, who flies his hover car around while on the hunt for escaped androids who need to be "retired".

Gosh, that sounds an awfully lot like the plot of the movie "Blade Runner", doesn't it?

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", by Philip K. Dick, was first published in 1968, and was indeed the ( Read more... )

 My science fiction short story, "Everybody Knows Your Name", is available to read on the East Of the Web website:

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/EverKnow1183.shtml

It's about a scientist whose invention doesn't cause the problems most people think of ... instead, he finds an entirely new worry.

Remarkably, it only took about a ( Read more... )

This seems to have unintentionally become short story month on my blog, which is ironic considering how very long April has been this year. What the heck: Here's the full story of the magazine publication I mentioned earlier, and why it's a big deal for me.
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To understand ( Read more... )

After mulling it over in my mind for some time, I wrote a short story the other day, then revised and polished it. I was really proud--it was one of my better short stories, clever and fun. I was so sure of its quality that after giving it another go-through I sent it to my favorite SF periodical, Asimov's Science Fiction, at about 5 a.m. the ( Read more... )