I had an unexplained bump in the sales of a seven-year-old book, and on checking I discovered that the U.S. Navy had bought 1555 copies of my novel This Is Not a Game.  To which I had a number of responses. Whoa, this is awesome! What’s the heck is wrong with the other services? I’d kind of […]

The Turkish government is now using last week’s coup as a bridgehead toward complete control of the country’s education system.  1500 university deans have been ordered to resign, and the licenses of 21,000 teachers have been revoked.  These teachers mostly worked at private institutions, many of which had been founded by the Gülen organization as […]

So a couple days ago there was a military coup in Turkey. And that coup has failed. Which is the worst possible result.  Much worse than if the coup hadn’t happened, worse than if the coup had succeeded. Prior to the election of Erdogan and his AK Party in 2003, Turkey was under the thumb […]

Today is the release day for my friend David D. Levine’s first novel, Arabella of Mars.  The story features the Napoleonic Wars fought between planets by a sailing navy, and showcases a young heroine described as “a Patrick O’Brian girl fighting a Jane Austen world.” David talks more about the book and its concepts over on Scalzi’s […]