Monthly Archives: February 2020

View From a Hotel Window 2/27/20: Chicago

An okay view if you like skyscrapers. And also, hello, Chicago, I am back after not too long — I was in fact in town about a month ago or something called ORDCamp, and this time I’m here for C2E2, at which I will be doing panels and interviews and signing books and stuff. It […]

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The Return of the Prodigal Laptop

Someone, I’m not going to say who except that he has the same hairstyle as me and lives in the same house and also goes by the same name, left his laptop at the Burbank TSA on Sunday — he forgot he’d taken the laptop out of his backpack, and thus just collected his luggage […]

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Back to Reality

Which is to say, back to Ohio. Admittedly California is just as real as Ohio — I should know, I spent roughly half my life there — but these days when I go there I spend my time in places like what’s in the picture here, and having meetings with people who may or may […]

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The Big Idea: J.R.H. Lawless

The thing with satire is that it has to have a relationship to the world we live in — and if we’re not careful the line between the two becomes blurred. As J.R.H. Lawless notes, in this Big idea for his novel Always Greener. J.R.H. LAWLESS: The Big Idea of this novel is, unsurprisingly, a […]

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Still in LA

This photo is in many ways a perfect encapsulation of LA: A calm, serene pond with landscaping and trees, and directly behind it, as you can see through the aforementioned trees, a freeway, jammed with cars. Which I then had to get on at some point to get to my next meeting. It was a […]

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The Big Idea: Michael R. Johnston

History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it can inspire writing of the future — as Michael R. Johnston discovered as he started writing the series of which his latest novel, The Blood-Dimmed Tide, is part. MICHAEL R. JOHNSTON: Some years ago, apparently unconvinced that being a full-time high school teacher, husband, and father (with a […]

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Meanwhile, California

Oh, look, it’s the Pacific. They do keep that here, don’t they. Part of it, anyway. Yesterday I took a meeting in Beverly Hills, probably walked past Brent Spiner (who was staring intently into his phone) on the street, saw a bit of an upcoming movie in an editing bay (it looked great) and then […]

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The Big Idea: K.S. Villoso

Who is the bad person? What makes the bad person bad? And how different are they, really, from you and the people you love? As K.S. Villoso observes in this Big Idea piece for The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, the lines might not be as clearly cut as one might hope. K.S. VILLOSO: Monsters hide in […]

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Tour Dates! Tour Dates! Tour Dates!

Hey, wanna come see me on tour for The Last Emperox? Sure you do! And now we have dates for all of the events, courtesy of Tor.com, whose listings I am totally cutting and pasting right here and now: April 14 Boston, MA Brookline Booksmith @ The Coolidge Theater April 15 New York, NY The […]

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The Big Idea: Una McCormack

On the occasion of The Last Best Hope, the first novel associated with the Star Trek: Picard television series, author Una McCormack muses on Star Trek, the future it imagines, the present we live in today… and how it all comes together. UNA McCORMACK: At the end of last year, I visited CERN. Yes, that […]

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And Now For Valentine’s Day, This Perfect Cover of “Perfect”

Which, for the record (heh), I think is a better version than the original, not in the least because the instrumentation is more on point for the song, and also for whatever it is that Miss Sunny Holiday is doing over there in the corner during the song (yes, I know about the Sheeran/Beyonce version. […]

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McClatchy in Bankruptcy

So, this story makes me sad: McClatchy Co., one of the nation’s largest newspaper publishers, filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday, another harbinger of America’s deepening local news crisis. The Chapter 11 filing will allow the Sacramento-based company to keep its 30 newspapers afloat while it reorganizes more than $700 million in debt, 60 percent of […]

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The Big Idea: Kelly Braffet

One of the cliches of the writing life is the writer in their cold garret, scribbling furiously onto pages. As Kelly Braffet tells us in today’s Big Idea, in her case this cliche is not entirely wrong, and also, it led her on the long and strange journey that resulted in her latest novel, The […]

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New Book FAQ

Whenever I announce or talk about an upcoming book, I often get asked these following questions. I’m answering them here in one place because I get tired of typing the same answers over and over. Now all I have to do is post the URL to this piece! Everyone wins! When will the book be […]

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