Peter Pan is Not a Vampire
…but I have a Peter Pan book and a vampire book. Just not at the same time. The statue, by the way, is the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park. Review: Forgotten...
Farpoint!
By the time you see this, I’ll be at Farpoint. If you’re there, here’s my schedule: Books to Movies - Friday 4:00pm - Belmont Scary Stories to Tell at the...
Ooh ooh ooh?
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.1 “Pilot” I’m tired of the trend of titling pilot episodes pilot. It was amusing the first few times, now it just feels lazy. This...
What Tech Level is Your Fantasy - Part 2
Covered wagon in Tombstone, Arizona Okay, so moving on to some more thoughts on tech in traditional fantasy. I apologize for splitting this across platforms,...
Slow Reading Week
Just one this week, and unfortunately it wasn’t to my taste. I’m now reading “Forgotten” by A Gural…which is definitely better, but still not to my taste....
Welcome Subscribers - Test Message
A swan in a parking place. Okay, so. I apologize for the double email, but this is a test message to make sure the migration worked and for me to get used to...
You Can Never Go Home
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew 1.1 “This Could Be a Real Adventure” So, I do have an issue with this show right from the start. I get it, this is an MG show, and...
What Tech Level Is Your Fantasy? - Part One
Traditionally, secondary fantasy worlds have hovered somewhere between late Medieval and early Renaissance, depending on whether the author or designer wants...
Maybe I Need To Attach A Content Warning...
The first book of the three has parental death and the second lots of animal death. Sorry, guys, just the way it worked out. Next book on my list is called...
Just Letting the Creativity Flow
It’s finally not quite the arctic here. Somebody just showed me a photo of the Baltimore Inner Harbor frozen over. This doesn’t happen particularly often,...
Highway Robbery!
Renegade Nell 1.2 “Tracks Less Well Trod” Nell commits her first act of highway robbery…stealing the stage coach and the people in it’s luggage. At least one...
"Neigh" to Trying This At Home
I’ve been watching Renegade Nell, which has some great horse action in it. Other movies, not so much. So, I decided to go through some stuff you might see in...
Echoes of Waystation
Just one this week. I’m currently working on another YA book, Dragons of Frost and Fang by Rowan Silver. It’s a bit of a tome. Review: Val Vega: Secret...
Winter?
No, the swan didn’t pay for that parking place…I finally got to look at some of the photos from my last trip to the U.K. That’s also not the swan who walked...
Horses Don't Neigh When They Run
The Acolyte 1.5 “Night” This episode has a body count. We meet Mai’s Sith master for real…including seeing his hidden face. There’s lots of lightsaber...
The Mystery of Sleep
Humans do it for 8 hours. Horses do it for 4. Koala bears do it for as much as 22 hours a day. Sleep.Most animals on this planet need it, and we still don’t...
Elephants and a trip to Mercury
Review: The Sun Runners by James Bow I’m going to start by saying I did enjoy this book, but I have three nits to pick. 1. Okay, so the Earth is in full...
Snow and Hot Chocolate
It’s been a hot chocolate kind of week here…the storm wasn’t that bad (Kansas City got nailed, though), but given the quality of snow clearing around here…...
Evil Twins?
Agatha All Along 1.7 “Death’s Hand in Mine” This is the tarot episode I was told about. From my knowledge of tarot, they got it pretty right. My knowledge,...
When Did Humans Start Breeding Mules?
The “humble” mule is living technology. An intentional hybrid between two related species that, ideally, gets the best traits of both. Mules tend to be...
Is it real life or...
Review: It’s Real Life by Paul Levinson This is an expansion of a short story. Here’s where I confess one of the ways in which I’m a bad Brit. I’m not a huge...
Welcome to 2025
Book four is out! Ebook and paperback, and I will hopefully have copies for Farpoint. Book five is finished. I just handed the blurb over to my cover artist...
Witchy Stuff!
Doctor Who: Joy to the World “And even in your world, that is not what a star is, only what it is made of” – Aslan, the Dawn Treader. The Christmas special...
“Ritual Purposes” – How We Misunderstand the Technology of the Past
My degree is in archaeology. It’s remarkably useful for a science fiction writer, because at its heart is the intersection between culture and technology and...
A Selection of Strangeness
Review: The Catalyst by Nat Bickel I’d call this paranormal romance, but the fantasy elements are honestly pretty light. It mostly reads like a contemporary...
Happy New Year
My standard New Year’s blessing is this: May 2025 be better in all ways than 2024. I know quite a few people for whom that is a sadly low bar. Seems that...
What Have You Done, Wanda?
WandaVision 1.7 “Breaking the Fourth Wall” Or rather, the wall around the Hex. Hello, Photon. I’ve been waiting to meet you. Hello, Agatha. I was wondering...
When a Color Gene is a Defect
The latest news on the animal genetics front is that we have found the gene that makes orange cats orange. It’s a deletion mutation (and they all have the...
Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy Hanukkah. Blessed Yule. You get the picture. Every society that has to deal with winter has some kind of midwinter...
Just Who Is Piotr, Really?
WandaVision 1.4 “We Interrupt This Program” This episode takes place almost entirely outside poor Wanda’s fantasy world. As I suspected, Geraldine is Monica...
“Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire” – the Holy Roman Empire and the Idea of Elected Royalty
This one is for you Medieval-ish fantasy types. I was thinking earlier today about elected kings. An elective monarchy is often seen as a contradiction in...
Let's Go Fantasy
Review: Shadows of the Sorcerers by Joan Marie Verba This is in the same series as Secrets of the Sorcerers, which I read in the past. It’s a pretty standard...
Sorry, Not the target Audience
Review: The Working by BrightFlame I’m going to be honest. Religious fiction seldom does it for me, regardless of the religion, and The Working is very...
Smashwords Sale!
The Smashwords End-of-Year Sale is on. I have all of my books set to a 50% discount if you want a DRM-free .epub that you can update if the text changes....
All Superhero Channel
Superman & Lois 4.6 “When The Lights Come On” Okay, Lex, that’s at least a three stress flashback (sorry, Blades in the Dark reference, not sorry). When did...
Queer Visions: What is a Queernorm World?
If you read my reviews you might stumble across the phrase “queernorm world.” If you aren’t caught up on queer SF/F, you might not know quite what that...
Is This MilSF or Portal Fantasy?
Just one this week. Review: The Runes of Engagement by Tobias S. Buckell and David Klecha So, this is military portal fantasy clearly written by D&D people....
Winter is Kind of Here
Well, yes and no. It’s not snowing. They did promise us snow showers, but I didn’t see so much as a flurry. On the other hand, I did have to get out my hat...
X-Men Go Dark
X-Men 5.7 “Old Soldiers” This episode punches Nazis. Actual Nazis. It’s a flashback to a mission Logan went on with Captain America during World War II, and...
A Little Bit Wicked
A “Wicked” Moment No, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I have tickets. What I did have the privilege to watch was the stage play on the West End. Wicked has...
A Fun SF Thriller
Reviews: Absent Stars by Christopher Charlton and Disavowed by John E. Stith
Happy Thanksgiving
Thankful for life, health, and ponies. Don’t forget when Small Business Saturday shows up that most authors are small businesses! Buy a book. Ideally from...
Lifemate, Warlock, Really?
X-Men 5.1 “The Phalanx Covenant Part 1” I’d forgotten what Phalanx (and Warlock) look like. Let’s not get assimilated here. By the end of part one it’s...
Consent and Reader Buy-In
What’s your least favorite trope?Mine is “All a dream.” (And its variants “All a psychotic delusion,” “All a VR simulation”) When I was eleven years old, a...
I Want a Flying Saucer
Review: Parallax: Origin by Matt Conant and Lauren Cipollo Humanity has spread out to the stars. Finding only empty worlds with no complex life forms, they...
At Philcon
By the time you read this I’ll be at Philcon. A reminder of my schedule: Friday, 6pm - Climate Change Fiction vs Climate Change Reality Saturday, 11am -...
Don't Double Cross Magneto
X-Men 4.18 “Beyond Good And Evil Part 1” Uh oh. Pockylips has his hands on a time machine. And is lending it to Sinister. All kinds of bad things are bound...
Seeking America's Hidden Treasures
I love to travel. I’ve traveled to a number of National Parks, but here’s the thing? Everyone goes to National Parks. People have lists of them. People try...
Weird, Experimental...
Review: Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov Barsukov is an excellent writer, but I didn’t need this book. Why? His award-nominated novella...
I'm Not Here
This post is being queued because I’m attending my aunt’s wedding. In fact, this post will probably go out while we’re partying. Philcon is next week! I will...