Tag Archives: science fiction

Adventures in Short Story Publishing

The publication of my fourteenth short story collection, The Dire Wolf and Other Stories, has caused me to reminisce about the various methods I attempted, especially in the early days, to get my stories into print. By early days, I … Continue reading →

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A Halloween Literary Treat

In honor of upcoming Halloween, I wanted to highlight the weirdest, most frightening and horrific thing I have ever written. Numerous short stories might qualify for the shortlist, but among the longer works I think that The One Thousand series … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, an Autobiography by J.G. Ballard

I first became acquainted with the stories of J.G. Ballard in the early 1970s during my first infatuation with science fiction, specifically with the cutting-edge literary work referred to as the New Wave. Back then, his shorter works appeared mainly … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter by Neil deGrasse Tyson

As a writer who frequently delves into the genres of science fiction and fantasy, I have, in the past, conjured up various types of aliens as story characters. Depending upon the specific parameters and requirements of the tales, I have … Continue reading →

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MoPOP: The Museum of Pop Culture

I decided to take a bus to the Seattle Center, the former site of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, to visit the Museum of Pop Culture, commonly known as MoPOP. When Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire, founded it in 2000, … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

If there is such a thing as literary comfort food, this science fiction novella qualifies. It tastes good and goes down smooth and easy. Ostensibly it’s a dystopia; after all, California has recently broken away from the rest of America, … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  The Silence by Don DeLillo

Several years ago I read Zero K, a science fiction novel by Don DeLillo. I recall being impressed by the elegance of the prose but feeling that the plot was too thin to justify the length. In The Silence, a … Continue reading →

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Book Review:  Orbital by Samantha Harvey

The first I heard about the novel Orbital was when I read that it had won the Booker Prize for 2024. It seems I wasn’t the only one whose radar it passed under. The Seattle Public Library, usually top-of-the-line in … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits Edited by J. Michael Straczynski; Part Three

These days we are constantly beset by entertainment that features extreme acts of violence. We see violent deeds so often in film and television that we have become inured to them; they have, in a sense, lost their shock value. … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits Edited by J. Michael Straczynski; Part One

And now we turn to a complex subject: the writer Harlan Ellison. He was a volatile, controversial figure during his lifetime, and continues to be after his death. His literary executor, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, is intent upon … Continue reading →

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