Discounted pre-orders on everything you want to read this year!
Hey, folks! From now until April 22nd EVERY TITLE available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble is 25% off, including THE ORIGIN OF STORMS! Remember that pre-...
Adventures in everything
Hey, folks, Things have been a little hectic around here for the past week or so, but in a good way mostly. Spring has finally sprung, and it's cool and...
Why are cats?
We have a little mudroom/storage shed on the back of our house that I use (among other things) to store bird seed. Our downstairs guest bedroom (currently...
$2.99 THE STONE IN THE SKULL ebook!
Does what it says on the box!
First they came for the book clubs.
Hey folks, It seems to be time to tell you what I managed to get read in March, which is currently acting more like February here in the glorious...
Meanwhile, over at the Discord, a book club for writers...
Hey, folks, As some (most?) of you probably know, one of the benefits for paid subscribers of this newsletter is access it a private Discord server, which is...
Horse stories make a triumphant return!
Hey, folks, Well, I'm riding again on a regular basis, much to everyone's relief, and so I've got horse-related things to tell you. Ormr is doing great, and...
The trick is not to keep moving the extra credit goalpost, I think you'll find.
I am coming around to the feeling that one of the worst things we do to ourselves is quantifying everything, and training ourselves to judge everything by...
Ego defense and American authoritarians
Hey, folks, I've been thinking a lot about American authoritarianism as we watch the situation unfold in Ukraine, breath held and fingers crossed for those...
Cancer stuff update
No real news, but boy between the tamoxifen and the post-radiation sequelae, I am learning a lot of stuff about thermal dysregulation. I feel like a have a...
Origin of Storms excerpt! And... good news, bad news.
The good news is the excerpt, obviously. :D Which you can read here. The other good news is that amazing cover art. The bad news is that due to S*pply Ch*in...
Nobody needs more punditry on Ukraine right now and I am not an expert anyway
I will say one thing, though, that DOES speak to my area of expertise: Volodymyr Zelenskyy is really, really, really good at narrative. I can see why he was...
February 2022 Book Club
Hey folks, A day late, but not a dollar short, I hope. The world is a scary place right now, and I spent yesterday in post-cancer doctor appointments. All...
Cheap Ebooks!
Well, it’s not horse_ebooks, but they are on sale! For US readers, my award-winning first novel, Hammered, is on sale for $1.99 in ebook. For the UK readers,...
Quiet out there. Too quiet.
Hey, folks, So my radiation burns have nearly healed (just a couple of small scabs left, three and a half weeks after finishing treatment, and no oozy...
So we're watching this TV show called "TRAPPED."
Hey, folks, Well, I’m healing, slowly. There is some skin or scar tissue that wasn’t there before, and I’m kind of hoping that by Friday or Monday I might...
"A Blessing of Unicorns" available online now.
Hey folks. Asimov's has made its Locus-Award-Nominated short fiction for 2021 available online, including my story "A Blessing of Unicorns." Enjoy!
Big UK discount on MACHINE
Hey, folks! Just a quick note to let UK readers know that MACHINE is a Kindle Monthly Deal for 99p at Amazon UK! Remember to always take Mantis Cop's advice!...
Book Club, January 2022
So I mentioned over in the discord that I was reading a book that made me really angry. And in fact, it made me so angry that I wound up posting a goodreads...
I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. (CW, cancer stuff)
Well, I’m done with the radiation treatments. They gave me a certificate and a cute pink superheroine pen and let me pin a pink ribbon to a corkboard. (It...
Peter Pan Vs. Jenny Waynest
Actually I bet they'd get along famously.
Five More Fire Hydrants
CW: cancer stuff and one more piece of practical advice. Well, I am scabrous, rugose, and desquamating. I've got blisters in my underboob and peeling,...
Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas
(If you don't know the reference, you're one of today's lucky ten thousand: ) So the Great Minnesota Potato Spill drama has been a source of much joy in many...
Tomorrow, and then the next day, and then the day after that.
(CW: cancer stuff) One of the worst things about modern social media is the damn algorithms that ensure that people will posts out of order and out of...
Pro tips for surviving radiotherapy.
So you've got a hot date with Medusa. 1) I'm really sorry about that. 2) Here's a few things that make the process more endurable. (This is flat-out advice,...
The gifts that cancer gave me.
It turns out being suddenly, dangerously ill isn’t all bad. Especially if it’s the kind of illness I have, which would kill me if left untreated but other...
Karhu on sisukas nainen.
Karhu on sisukas nainen. My friend Chelsea, who is learning Finnish, told me that today. It means, they said, Bear is a woman with sisu. Sisu, per Chelsea,...
Medusa and me
A couple of people have asked for details of how the radiation treatments work, so I wrote this out for one of them, and figured I would copy it here in case...
I'm doing science and I'm still alive.
Well, not me. I’m not doing science. But I have been reading some science, and I’m realizing that one of the amazing things about the Current Unpleasantness...
December Book Club
Well, the long drive is good for podcasts and audiobooks! I'm still on the mystery kick. I finished the second Helene Tursten, An Elderly Lady Must Not Be...
Cancer stuff update, also rambling about life (CW, cancer stuff, obvs.)
Well, as I was sitting down to write this, I heard the news that Betty White had died. So as I compose these lines, I'm listening to Andrew Gold's "Thank You...
I'm a bad person and you deserve better but this is what you get.
Ensemble: Haul out the hellhoundsString up the sigils before a spirit gnaws on usI hear it stalkingI may be rushing things, but ward the walls, don't make a...
End of year roundup...
Hey, folks, New publications this year: "Thanksgiving," 24 November, from Tablet, Ani Wilcenski and David Samuels, ed. (short story) "A Blessing of...
*taps mike*
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedSwabs shoved up noses and rapid test scrounging Masking and face shields and HEPA...
Eight down, 24 to go (cancer stuff, horse stuff)
Well, that’s 25% of the radiotherapy done. It would have been a bit more, but today’s treatment was cancelled at the last minute because Medusa was in a snit...
Omicron and fascism
I’m spending a lot of time lately in the car, driving back and forth to radiation appointments. This means that I get ideas in the car (the best time to get...
The plague and the memory hole
We’re going to forget all about this, and that’s a terrible idea.
Still no jam today.
Medusa was out of sorts this morning. I still managed to get treated, but because everything was delayed, they didn't have time to do the tattoos. So I'm...
VGer is my lover.
Yesterday, I started radiotherapy. I could not decide whether to call this post "The Illustrated Boob," "They shot me with a proton gun," "The lion lies down...
The cat content you come here for
Gurney is a cat of vast dignity, curiosity, and intellect. Last night, for example, he happened to be inspecting the guitar amplifier when I tapped my...
CW: Cancer stuff update
Hey folks, Just wanted to check in and let you all know that things are finally moving again here. I got some good news on Monday, which is to say that my...
Book Club Post, November 2021
It’s come around again on the guitar, as Arlo Guthrie says: we’ve weathered the onset of the holidays, we’re battening down for the next Covid surge (sigh),...
New story! It's about mushrooms!
MUSHROOMS!
A Hole to the 80s
So yesterday was Max Headroom Broadcast Signal Intrusion Day, one of the holidays in my personal calendar, along with Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov Saves The...
The Origin of Storms cover reveal!
Available for pre-order now, here!
A moment of silence, this Armistice Day
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and...
CW: Cancer stuff, boy am I tired edition.
So I’m sitting on the couch and I’m sort of trying to write but it’s not going especially well. I did some administrivia and answered some relevant emails,...
THE ORIGIN OF STORMS pre-orders are go!
24 May 2022! Cover coming soon!
a poem for the ladies
This is from 2015. I just found it again, looking for something else. Oh grand-daughters. You will not know what your mothers and your grandmothers knew; you...
It's all Ursula's fault.
So I've been dealing with the Cancer Bullshit and trying to do #nanomiddlemo, as it were--I.E., use the general November energy to get a chunk out of The...