When did journalism go from this: “This thing happened. Here are the factual details of what happened as verified by our in-house reporter. Here is a quote from someone supporting this fact. Here is a quote from someone who explains how this fact will affect your immediate situation. Here are the facts again. Here’s where […]
When did journalism… Read More »
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where the expectation was that it’d be 60 degrees and raining all the time. This made gardening a pretty easy affair. Most stuff didn’t freeze, and it didn’t get hot enough for tropicals, and the sun came out so rarely that if you skipped a day or two
The Failure Garden Read More »
Note: Spoilers ahoy When I walked in to watch The Cabin in the Woods, I expected a total subversion of the genre. I was giddy at the idea of taking all the old horror movie tropes and fucking with them. I looked forward to the blonde who wasn’t stupid, the virgin who totally had a
Why your gun-toting chick isn’t feminist, redux: Thoughts on The Cabin in the Woods Read More »
I get asked about worldbuilding a lot, and now that I’m starting a new book, LEGION, it’s probably a good time to talk about what’s working for me and what’s not. Shorter blurb for this one: LEGION is a stand alone space opera about two feuding families battling for control of a legion of worldships
Re-imagining the Legion Read More »
Remember your favorite Sword and Sorcery novel? Disappointed when you went back, ten or fifteen years after you read it, and realized the writing kind of sucked and it was pretty sexist and racist? Did you wonder, then, why it was nobody was creating less crappy S&S these days? Well, maybe you didn’t. But I
Monster Fights & Mayhem: Thoughts on Throne of the Crescent Moon Read More »
I spent last weekend off the grid at a cabin in Hocking Hills. Packing up four adults, two dogs, and a 2-year-old may not have been the best idea we ever had, but it worked out. Before I came out here to Ohio, the whole “cabin in the woods” horror movie cliché thing was foreign
No Refund for Bugs Read More »
So you may remember that I’m finishing up this book, RAPTURE. It’s the final book in the Bel Dame Apocrypha, about Nyx and her mad gang of magicians, mercenaries, and shapeshifters. It’s got bugs and beheadings. It’s also due to my publisher on April 30th. Learning how to balance book marketing/promo/public presence with actual writing
All Quiet on the Apocalyptic Front Read More »
I’ve been thinking a lot about women and power. J. and I went to see John Carter last week, but this isn’t really a rant about John Carter, which has its own issues. What particularly struck me was when J. pointed out that he was surprised to see so many women background characters in the
..and you need to decide if you’re OK with that. I was going through my Youtube videos this week and tabulating views and such. I did several different versions of the GOD’S WAR trailer in an effort to reach different types of readers. For the most part, I think those succeeded. But if you look
Sometimes you’re going to piss people off… Read More »
I’m continuously tinkering with my draft of RAPTURE right now, banging my head against some chapters set in Ras Tieg, which is a country that readers of the Bel Dame Apocrypha haven’t really seen before. It’s no surprise, then, that I haven’t seen it either. No, really. I’ve never been to Ras Teig either. I’m
The Dirty Little Secret to “Imaginative” Worldbuilding Read More »