Although A Deepness in the Sky was published in 1999, I didn't get around to reading it until recently. Vernor Vinge deservedly won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for it. The novel includes one of my favorite portrayals of an alien society, and also portrays a fascinating interstellar human culture. (It is a prequel to the novel A Fire... read more »
I have previously recommended Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories, which are like Jane Austen with magic. Ironskin, by Tina Connolly, is Jane Eyre with magic. I enjoyed reading it perhaps even a little more than I enjoyed reading Jane Eyre. You can buy it from Amazon or get the audio version from Audible.
I've known about EMP weapons for at least a couple of decades. But reading the novel One Second After by William R. Forstchen really brought home to me how vulnerable our society is to such weapons (or even just a major solar storm). Frankly, after reading this book, I favor increasing government spending to harden our infrastructure against such events.... read more »
I was the head editor for the November 2014 issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show. Head on over and check out the stories I selected.
My story "A Sufficiently Advanced Christmas" is now available in A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories, edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Keith J. Olexa. Publishers Weekly gave the anthology a starred review, saying "This often amusing and frequently compelling collection features Christmas-themed short stories from some of fantasy and science fiction’s brightest stars." They even mentioned my... read more »
The Martian, by Andy Weir, is the best standalone novel I've listened to so far this year. Here's the one-sentence summary: A MacGyver-like astronaut stranded alone on Mars has to figure out how to survive until rescue can come. I first heard of the novel from Daniel Burton's stellar review at Attack of the Books, and was so intrigued I bought... read more »
It's been a long process, but today I signed a contract with Baen Books to publish my debut novel, Unforgettable. I'm very excited to have my novel come out from the same publishing house that publishes some of my favorite authors, including David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, Larry Correia, Elizabeth Moon, and Brad R. Torgersen. I don't yet know when... read more »
Note: I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason, with or without explanation. Having written about my personal and religious thinking about same-sex marriage, I now want to address the politics of the issue. Yesterday, a panel of the 10th Circuit ruled that Utah's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. That ruling is on hold while Utah... read more »
I just finished listening to Valour and Vanity, the fourth book in the Glamourist Histories series by Mary Robinette Kowal. I've enjoyed all the books very much. The first, Shades of Milk and Honey, can simply be described as what Jane Austen would have written if she wrote fantasy. Basically, it takes place in a world very much like our... read more »
Note: I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason, with or without explanation. This is going to be a long, meandering post, but there's a reason why: I want to give as full a context as possible to my position. Let me start off by saying that, due to my own personal spiritual experiences, I believe the... read more »
