(Picture from here.) I don’t usually talk here about shenanigans on the public stage. But today, I’m going to make an exception. I had a troubling phone conversation with a friend the other night. We’ll call her Brenda and her … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) I’ve been reading several alternate world stories lately. Spinrad’s The Iron Dream, Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Tidhar’s Osama. Not sure why these have shown up but that’s the way it is sometimes. These are … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) This is regarding the original 1962 film with Angela Lansbury and Frank Sinatra. The later remake sort of answers the question, “what if we rebooted The Manchurian Candidate without any of the understanding, humor, and themes of … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) The 1978 Clarion Workshop Rules for Writing: Use other words In a different order, too Oh, yeah. Characters. A while back I talked a bit about my writing process. I left out how I create characters. Sure … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) A little context. Iron Man, the first entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, came out in the USA in May. Hancock, Will Smith’s superhero movie, came out in July that same year. No one knew at that … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) Spring in New England is a shambling walk to summer. Warm days stumble into light snow, fall over into rain reminiscent of November, stagger back upright into warm sun. Rinse. Repeat. It doesn’t stop the flowers. … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) Let’s wander back into the SF stories of the 50s and 60s. This was the age of the competent protagonist. Engineers were good at what they did. The world was pristine and pure—surely nothing as lovely as … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) Recently, a friend of mine lamented that he’d fallen into a particular way of writing books. He didn’t like it. He found it inefficient. The conversation left me wondering how I write books—or any fiction, really. I … Continue reading
Up here in Massachusetts, we haven’t had much in the way of winter for the last couple of years. I mean we’ve had winter. There are days of below zero cold. The ground freezes. The heating bill goes up—we’re always … Continue reading
(Picture from here.) Back when I was in college, I worked briefly at the local food co-op. The co-op was the sort of shoestring business you could expect. A mix of volunteers that had different agendas such as the quality … Continue reading
