Fellow humans, I will be a guest of Multiversecon 2019, October 18-20 in Atlanta, GA, USA. You should come.
I’ll most probably be talking about writing, and I’ll have a new book as well: Boss Fight and other stories, a collection of 18 tales of aliens, parasites, architecture, and pillows. More news on that as it develops, but my artist is already putting together the cover and it looks great.
My far-future space opera story “Return to Waypoint 5”, first published in Black Denim Lit, has been turned into a pretty amazing full-cast audio production.
This was actually published back in early August, but I’ve been a bit sidetracked lately with work and such.
Here’s an update on what’s going on in the world of my writing:
To those of you who keep checking back: thank you. I’ll try to do some more updating when I have more to update you on.
My scuba-diving sci-fi short-story “113 Feet”, which first ran on Escape Pod, has been reprinted in the new collection The Chronos Chronicles. Time travel enthusiasts should check it out at some point in the future.
Get it?
No? Just me? Oh well. Read it anyway.
If you’d seen my work schedule this week, you’d know that I don’t even have time to post this on the site. But I’m taking a moment because my wife spent a lot of time working on a guest column for me about nerdy recipes, and you should read it.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine returns this Sunday, and in celebration, here are six of the best of their cold opens. They all have something in common. Guess what.
When I first got a car with Android Auto, I was super-excited to use it. But the more time I’ve spent in the application, the more problems I’ve had with it. At this point I’ve given up and gone back to using my phone, which is now mounted above my infotainment system. Here’s why I did that.
I was finally convinced to watch Doctor Who. It’s good. Not the best show ever, but good. Good enough for me to have a top-six list of David Tennant episodes.
I haven’t written a column about music in about a year and a half. Time to change that.
(There’s also a small rant about Girl Scout Cookies at the end.)
I’ve stayed in 13 hotels in the past two years. That’s an average of one hotel every two months (not including the one I stayed in twice). That’s given me quite an insight into ways hotels could improve things… or, in some cases, stop improving them.
If you manage to get to the end of my long-ass, picture-filled column, you’ll find an actual recipe at the end… just like a real recipe website!
It’s a conspiracy. You may not think it is, but it is. Maybe.
By the way, did you check out my new story, “Thoughts and Prayers”, over at The Arcanist? You should. It’s only 1000 words; shouldn’t take you long to read.
Out today in The Arcanist: my flash fiction story about the gamification of tragedy, “Thoughts and Prayers”.
I first wrote this in November 2015, after a mass shooting (I think), when I saw the outpouring of “support” on social media — especially from the government, who did absolutely nothing, and continues to do absolutely nothing… except send thoughts and prayers. At this point the phrase has become rote, and while I know there are people out there who are genuine, it’s really more of a “do it on social media so everyone knows how much you ‘care'” thing. I’m a cynic, yes, but there’s a reason for that.
The whole mess has only gotten worse since 2015, as the disasters somehow get worse and the platitudes somehow get emptier. And yet the first dozen publications I submitted this story to passed on it. One said “not speculative enough” (which, okay, the speculative element is slight), another called it “too message-y”, and another said I didn’t push the concept far enough. But I was telling the story the way I wanted to tell it, and The Arcanist was my lucky 13.
Here’s hoping you enjoy the story, and that if it comes true, you find a way not to participate. But if you’re forced to… well… my thoughts and prayers go out to you.
(And yes, I know there was an amazing episode of BoJack Horseman that covered this same topic. I highly recommend it.)
I don’t buy expensive stuff as often as I would like, because… well… it’s expensive.
Last year about this time I wrote a column about what I thought the six best movie sequels coming out in 2017 would be. Now it’s time to see if I was right or not.
Instead of doing a boring “six of the best columns I wrote in 2017”, I decided to present my yearly best-of in a slightly different fashion.
Even when The Orville isn’t great, it’s still pretty good. And since I ended 2017 with six of the best episodes of the show, it’s only fair that I start 2018 with six of the worst of them.
When you write a weekly column that is a list of six things, a TV show with only 12 episodes fits neatly into the format… which is why I’m ending 2017 with a look at The Orville.
I’m also starting 2018 that way, but you’ll have to wait a week for that one.
Medical customer service is often not great. I came up with six ways to improve it.
I watched a lot of streaming TV this year, including many original shows. Here are six of the best of them, in no particular order.
Josh Roseman: Writer, Voice Guy, Dad, Human 