Monthly Archives: October 2021

Redshirts: The Tor Essentials Edition is Out Today

Surprise! I have a book out today! It’s the “Tor Essentials” edition of Redshirts, my Hugo and Locus Award-winning novel about a doomed spaceship crew trying to change their fate. What’s different about this edition from previous editions? 1. Slightly updated cover graphics! 2. A kind and lovely introduction by my friend (and Hugo, Locus […]

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The Big Idea: Marjorie B. Kellogg

As anyone who has ever written a near-future novel will tell you, the problem with that sub-genre is that “the future” keeps catching up with you in unexpected ways. Marjorie B. Kellogg can attest to that; while writing Glimmer, the world kept reminding her that the story she was creating was all too close to […]

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Yet Again, My Annual Unsolicited Endorsement of WordPress

In October of 2008, after years of dealing with site software that was less than stable and had difficulty handling the load of traffic, I switched Whatever over to WordPress, both as software and as hosting. Since that time, the site’s been down maaaaaaaybe three or four times, and never longer than a couple of […]

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The Big Idea: A.M. Muffaz

In her debut novella Finches, author A.M. Muffaz looks at marriage in a way many of us here in the United States might have never considered, and the damage that can be done when promises assumed and made are broken. A.M. MUFFAZ: There’s never a good way to find out your father is cheating on […]

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Someone Got His Flu Shot Today

Spoiler: It was me. They were having a little clinic at our local library, so it was convenient to do. The shot itself was painless, and now I’ll have a day or so of feeling vaguely crappy and then I’ll hopefully be substantially flu-resistant through the end of the flu season. Also, in an era […]

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The Big Idea: Joshua S. Levy

For Eighth Grade Vs. The Machines, middle grade author Joshua Levy decided that there was a certain concept that he wanted to put at the core of his middle-school-in-space tale. Was it action? Adventure? Laser Hamsters? (Also, how cool would laser hamsters be?) No, something even more fundamental than that, from which those other concepts […]

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The Great Facebook Collapse of October 4 2021 and What It Can Teach Us

Facebook and its associated services Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus went down for several hours yesterday, coincidentally after a damning 60 Minutes interview with a whistleblower on the service. While this afforded a few hours of schadenfreude for many, myself included, others noted that there are lots of folks who actually rely on Facebook and its […]

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The Big Idea: Caitlin Starling

There’s a central, motivating emotion at the heart of The Death of Jane Lawrence, and despite what the title may imply, that emotion is not “fear.” No, it’s something that, under the correct set of conditions, can be much worse. Here’s author Caitlin Starling to reveal and explain. CAITLIN STARLING: The Death of Jane Lawrence […]

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The End of a Tree

I mentioned before that the crabapple in front of our house had reached the end of its life this year; today brings the actual end as its (mostly already-dead) body is taken out and a new tree is brought in to take its place. I’m sad to see the crabapple go because for many years […]

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Get Signed, Personalized Copies of “Kaiju” Through Subterranean Press

First: Hey, look, I got an ARC of The Kaiju Preservation Society today. Here it is with cat for scale. It’s always cool to get ARCs of one’s book, because it’s a nice physical representation of it. It’s convincing proof it doesn’t just exist in your head anymore. And yes, I’ll probably do an ARC […]

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The Big Idea: Stephanie Burgis

With a title like Scales and Sensibility, you might be forgiven if you thought that you knew the primary influence on Stephanie Burgis’ new novel. But, as it turns out, you’d only be scratching the surface. Burgis is here today to help you dig deeper. STEPHANIE BURGIS: It is a truth universally acknowledged that Regency […]

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View From a Hotel Window, 10/2/21

I don’t necessarily post hotel window picture when I’m doing personal travel (because when I travel for myself, it’s not the Internet’s business), but this one is kind of fun: A full-blown construction site, with people working industriously and everything. Actually not all that loud — I suspect the windows here are well-insulated, and that […]

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