Ironclads is set in the near future. There’s a lot in the geopolitics and social elements of the book that is a direct, albeit…

So you want to read all the important fiction written about or set on the fourth planet from the sun? I suggest the following…

Describing how the world will end and the fate of mankind has been the subject of much discussion, often in the format of a…

Horror is defined as a feeling of great shock, fear, and worry caused by something extremely unpleasant; an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.…

I want to talk a little bit about writing schedules. Specifically, writing schedules that work for busy people. People who have jobs, families, outside…

Over time, I have discovered many inseparable musical associations with books. For example, I discovered the work of British electronic music pioneer John Foxx…

The themes of all post-apocalyptic novels share some sympathies, in that they involve the survival of a small fraction of the world’s population. How…

World-building is a double-edged sword, especially for the inexperienced writer. On one hand having a fleshed out and internally consistent world is crucial to…

A young biotechnologist is creating “designer pigs” whose organs could be transplanted into humans. Her long-term goal is to rewrite the human genome to…

I’ve always had a love affair with science fiction. When I was a kid, I gobbled every SF story I could find. I especially…

Good worldbuilding is often less about what you choose to show your audience, and more what you choose to withhold. To see why, let’s…

Let’s face it, every story has a villain including within the hero themselves. These villains come with a lot of interesting qualities. I find…

A while ago, let’s say a few years ago, I was recovering from surgery and pretty much immobile. I had no choice but to…

I was a teenager when I first read Graham Masterton’s ‘The Pariah.’ Young, innocent (or so some would have you believe) and very much…

When I was a young, starry-eyed lad dreaming of becoming an author someday, an enormous amount of appeal came from the idea of creating…

Frank Herbert’s Dune and I begin in the same place: the central Oregon coast. The sand dunes blanketing the forty-mile stretch between the towns…

I never meant to write a science-fiction novel. In the early incarnations of The Rebellion’s Last Traitor—which was called Mount Joy at that point…

People die a lot in epic fantasy. Yes, everyone blames GRRM for that, but was a trend long before Game of Thrones. The body…