"There's No Way You Can Talk Back to a Gun": On Psychological Warfare
For the past few years, my partner Annalee Newitz has been learning all about the history and theory of psychological warfare. The result is a stunning book,...
Three Science Fiction Stories That Reveal the Truth About Meritocracy
Meritocracy is our modern religion. It's a just-so story for the just-world fallacy. We want to believe that wealthy, powerful people deserve all the power...
Shakespeare's King Lear Had a Happy Ending for 140 Years
First, some quick announcements: The latest episode of Our Opinions Are Correct is about America’s proud tradition of psychological warfare. Promises...
Don't Believe the Hype about Young People and "Peer Pressure"
Lately I’ve been thinking about Blind Tom. (Who am I kidding? I’m always thinking about Blind Tom.) I learned about Blind Tom from my mother, who’s a...
What Women Want: Mel Gibson's Creepiest Movie?
First of all, some housekeeping... Voting is now open for the Hugo Awards, which includes the Lodestar Award for young adult fiction. For the third year in a...
Some Like It Even Hotter: An Incomplete Guide to Gender-Flipping Comedies!
I used to have an obsession with films where the main character changes gender, for reasons which might be kinda obvious. There's a huge and somewhat bizarre...
Star Trek: Discovery Is My Favorite 21st Century Star Trek
Hey, before we get started — this is the day! The paperback of Promises Stronger Than Darkness is out today! The legendary Captain Argentian, the galaxy's...
The Incredibly Risky Scheme that Bill Gates Keeps Pushing
Climate change keeps getting worse: 2023 was the hottest year on record, and it's not even close. Despite increasing investments in clean energy and other...
Writing Trans Stories For Fun (and Liberation)
The Trans Rights Readathon is going on right now. Roughly a thousand people are reading trans stories and celebrating trans narratives, while raising money...
Prestige Creates a Permission Structure for Experimentation
I absolutely loved the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace when I read it back in the day. I devoured it, forcing myself to read all of those bloody...
I Stopped Loving Captain Kirk
I used to look up to Captain Kirk, Star Trek's fearless leader, when I was a kid. When I was seven or eight, I had a homemade Starfleet captain shirt, which...
My Favorite Comedy Films of the 2020s (So Far)
Last week, I told y'all about one of my favorite comedy TV shows, Extraordinary. (The second season is out now on Hulu, or on Disney+ outside the USA!) And I...
The Funniest TV Show You're (Probably) Not Watching
One of the frustrating things about loving television is the extent to which a small number of shows seem to suck up all of the attention — and if you love...
Bonnie Raitt's Career Ended In 1986
Bonnie Raitt's career ended back in 1986. Her long-time record company Warner Bros. had sat on her album Nine Lives for a few years, refusing to release it....
How To Build Your Online "Brand" Without Burning Out
Recently, there's been a lot of talk about people, especially writers and other creative people, needing to have a "personal brand" on social media. This...
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Is The Best Superhero Movie Ever
No, seriously. I am going to fire up this hot take — and I might even convince you that I'm right. So I finally watched Puss in Boots: the Last Wish, because...
Here's What Bugs Me About Comics
I love comics so much — some of my earliest memories involve visiting the Million Year Picnic and New England Comics, and gazing in wonder at all the...
10 Space TV Shows That Don't Get Enough Love
Everybody talks about Star Trek, the various Star Wars TV shows, and Battlestar Galactica. But space is way, way bigger than that — space is, in fact, pretty...
Reboot Star Wars!
Just a heads up! The trade paperback collection of New Mutants: Lethal Legion (by Enid Balám, Elisabetta D'Amico and me) comes out tomorrow! It's a silly,...
The Difference Between Deceptively Simple and Deceptively Complex
Hey everyone! I'm afraid I don't have time to write a brand new newsletter this week. My mom has been visiting from out of town, and I'm under a bunch of...