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.
April 24, 2014 · 708 words
Happy 450th, Mr Shakespeare
Today is the day we traditionally celebrate the birth of “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere,” as he was referred to in his baptismal records. It may not be his actual birthday, but what the hell: Let’s celebrate anyway! There’s a kind of bad literary scholarship that we might refer to as “spot-the-influence,” in whic
Read entry →April 18, 2014 · 521 words
Dinosaurs
For the last couple days I’ve been watching a new water well being drilled on my property, so I’ve had to hang around and throw circuit breakers, and otherwise make sure the house didn’t burn down. The result is that my self-publishing efforts got a boost, mainly because there was nothing else to do but […]
Read entry →April 17, 2014 · 734 words
Surfacing Surfaces Again
My Hugo- and Nebula-nominated novella “Surfacing” is now available for your love on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Baen, and Smashwords. It will appear on other sites in the next few days, and is a mere $2.99. You have my permission to spend freely. The book is set in the same future as my novel Knight […]
Read entry →April 15, 2014 · 56 words
Walk This Way
The art collective Kreativiteket has created a Silly Walk Zone in the border village of Ørje, Norway. I was tempted to begin this post with “Following in the silly footsteps of Monty Python . . . ” but something restrained me. This is from the country that gave us Lillyhammer. What’s going on up there?
Read entry →April 11, 2014 · 671 words
Crashing Carriers
I saw the new Captain America movie the other night. Which I liked just fine, it’s one of the best of the Marvel film adaptations, and it avoided several obvious pitfalls (like forcing Cap and Black Widow into a romance). I don’t feel the need to analyze it. There are plenty of analyses elsewhere, and […]
Read entry →April 8, 2014 · 714 words
CounterIntuitive
Recently I’ve encountered two counterintuitive, if not outright heretical, arguments about history and culture. The first belongs to New Mexico’s own Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill, both biologists, who have marshaled evidence to support their theory that culture, including political culture, is a function of the di
Read entry →April 6, 2014 · 199 words
Rolling Deep
More proof, if one were needed, that reality is taking Deep State as a template. USAID— a branch of government that normally gives humanitarian aid— tried to undermine the Cuban government by setting up an social media project funded by the US government, but routed through third parties in Spain, Nicaragua
Read entry →April 2, 2014 · 1,318 words
Mr. Poe Requests the Honor of Your Presence . . .
. . . at a great big ol’ war. Which is all by way of saying that my novella “No Spot of Ground,” featuring the Civil War adventures of Edgar Allan Poe, is now available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords. It will appear on other forums presently. And it’s only $1.99! Less […]
Read entry →April 1, 2014 · 854 words
Enter the Dark Pool
Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and Moneyball and other fine works about money (and who owns it and how it moves), has a new bestseller in Flash Boys, about a few brave souls who discovered that the U.S. stock market was rigged, and who decided to do something about it. What did they do? They started their [&hell
Read entry →April 1, 2014 · 217 words
Taos Toolbox: the News is Good
Recent news from graduates of Taos Toolbox has been pretty darn good, if I say so myself. Graduate Fran Wilde has a story, “Like a Wasp to the Tongue,” in the April/May ASIMOV’S. She’s also sold three books to Tor, one of which was workshopped by the Toolbox gang. Graduate Gail Strickland has sold the […]
Read entry →March 28, 2014 · 748 words
WTF, Turkey?
Crikey, the news out of Turkey is just insaaaaane! For one thing, two major forces for modern Islam are trying to destroy one another. Prime Minister Erdogan— who leads the “moderately Islamic” AK Party— is now doing his best to destroy his former allies, the organization of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen
Read entry →March 27, 2014 · 622 words
For Your Downloading Pleasure
My longish novelette, The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid, is now available for download via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Kobo seems to have some kind of complicated problem with the file, and despite my turning the air blue with curses, this is not at present resolved. I’ve been trying to get serious about
Read entry →