The journal

January 29, 2017 · 472 words

Can’t Escape the Damn Eagles

So I went with my gracious hosts to the aptly-named Todos Santos over on the Pacific side of Baja, and I found myself visiting this hotel, which allegedly inspired the Eagles song. Which song I’ve been unable to get out of my head for days now, so thanks a lot. Jimmy Buffet was supposed to have […]

January 25, 2017 · 374 words

Spot The Fish In This Picture

Here amid the scattered wreckage of the lost German freighter Lunderberg lies a highly toxic fish. You don’t want to touch it or step on it lest it inject neurotoxin through its spines, which are designed like little pressure mines, the more the weight, the more the venom. Lunderberg went down in 1954, surrounded by th

January 25, 2017 · 127 words

Good Numbers

So my 99-cent sale on The Rift has generated good numbers, and it is now officially an Amazon bestseller, or as they call it, Best Seller. Its Amazon number was 28 this morning, and they’d probably declined overnight from an even better number. (For some reason these sales seem to generate their best numbers in the ear

January 23, 2017 · 224 words

I Am In Cabo

I have rather unexpectedly found myself in a Mexican resort. I’m sure this is the sort of thing that happens to you all the time, right? So over thirty years ago I visited Cabo San Lucas with some friends, and had a very pleasant time in a small seaside village with all of four hotels. A […]

January 20, 2017 · 405 words

Post-Apocalypse

In an apocalyptic mood for some reason? (I can’t imagine what that reason might be.) In that case you should take advantage of the 99-cent sale on my bestselling ebook, The Rift. The Rift was intended as a breakout book, in which a larger-than-usual audience would be exposed to my Walter-y goodness. In the event, the [

January 20, 2017 · 0 words

Burning It Down

January 18, 2017 · 32 words

Sulawesi

A little over two years ago, I was right at this spot, seeing these exact creatures. I set the climax of Impersonations here, thinking perhaps of camouflage and how to maintain it.

January 18, 2017 · 106 words

New Year, New Career

I just want to remind everyone that the submission period for Taos Toolbox, the master class for writers of science fiction and fantasy, is far from over. There are still places available, and if you take your writing seriously and want to move in the direction of having a writing career, sending in your application [&

January 14, 2017 · 29 words

Spot the Fish in this Picture

It’s a crocodile fish, known less descriptively as “de Beaufort’s flathead.” It’s also an ambush predator, so if you happen to be a small crustacean, don’t get too close.

January 12, 2017 · 905 words

Revisiting the Classics: The Man in the High Castle

With The Man in the High Castle premiering its third season on Amazon, I thought I’d seek out the book on which the series was based. I didn’t want to see the TV version before re-reading the book, because I wanted to see how well the original material was adapted. It took me a while, but […]

January 10, 2017 · 52 words

Wild Cards x 5

If you haven’t tried Wild Cards yet, here’s your chance. Tor has bundled the first five Wild Cards books into a single ebook, and put it for sale at Amazon and their own MacMillan site (which has links to other retailers). Check this out. Lots of good reading for cold winter nights.

January 4, 2017 · 663 words

Padding

I’ve complained here and there about stories that don’t actually seem to get anywhere, or which get lost in a detour for a few hundred pages before finding the path again, or that can’t seem to work out what they’re about. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of television with much the same problem. Original Netflix [&hell