Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
August 23, 2015 · 207 words
C’est Moi!
I should actually use a Finnish translation of “c’est moi,” but apparently this sentiment cannot be expressed in Finnish, at least according to every Finnish online dictionary in existence. The closest I can get is “I’m here,” and I think you already know that I’m here, so there seems little point in announcing it. [&h
Read entry →August 20, 2015 · 71 words
In the Giving Vein
It’s not enough that I’ve dropped the price of Angel Station to 99 cents. No! I’m far more generous than that! I want you all to be happy, so I’ve now dropped the price of my Nebula-winning “Daddy’s World” to zero. Yes, it’s free! Download it on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, iBook, Smashwords, and/or Google […]
Read entry →August 20, 2015 · 937 words
News From the Marketplace
Okay, news from the marketplace is supposed to be both good and bad. While the ideal of the marketplace, as Adam Smith remarked, is to increase the world’s store of happiness (by permitting deals that both buyer and seller can be pleased with), the reality is that the market also creates winners and losers. e.g.: Amazo
Read entry →August 15, 2015 · 180 words
Cthulhu Cave
When I was in the Black Hills a few days ago, I paid a visit to the Jewel Caves, which is the third largest cave system in the world, with more than 177 miles of rooms, corridors, and . . . terror? While I saw only a tiny portion of the cave, what I did […]
Read entry →August 15, 2015 · 1,119 words
Reviews Too Late: The Bone Clocks
As a writer, your first success is your Fate. You can write any damn thing you want until you actually succeed at something. If your first successful novel is science fiction, then you’re a science fiction writer pretty much forever, and that’s sort of that. People will break your bones with baseball bats to keep [&hel
Read entry →August 10, 2015 · 301 words
Ride the Now! (For only 99 Cents!)
For a mere 99 cents, you can now purchase my novel Angel Station at Amazon, Google Play, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. It’ll be available at Flipkart as soon as the word gets to India, preferably soon, As always, ebooks I publish myself are DRM free. The sale will run through the 23rd, but […]
Read entry →August 7, 2015 · 257 words
Brisk
The weather got a bit brisk this morning as I went for a sail on the good sloop Amicus, out of Knife River. Half the passengers got seasick, but I was in the other half. The boat was bounding about so much that half my photos are of the sea, the sky, or the sails. I couldn’t keep […]
Read entry →August 5, 2015 · 98 words
Another Meteor
The US Patent Office has approved Airbus’ application for Concord 2.0, an “ultra-rapid air vehicle and related method for aerial locomotion”. In other words, a commercial aircraft capable of reaching 100,000 feet, after which the ramjets will kick in and the vehicle will approach Mach 4.5. The 2.0 will take off vertica
Read entry →August 5, 2015 · 632 words
Behold the Mighty Meteor!
Behold the SS Meteor, at 119 years old the sole surviving whaleback freighter, and now in Superior, WI, moored in, um, mud apparently. (I actually took these pictures a couple weeks ago, but haven’t got around to looking at them till now.) My interest in anachronistic technology led me to view this glorious Victorian c
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