My second Portia Oakeshott, Dinosaur Veterinarian short story, “Minnie and the Trekker,” is in the July/August 2021 issue of Analog. Despite the title, neither a cartoon female mouse or a fan of a long-running science fiction media franchise are involved. Just Portia Oakeshott and a colleague, trying to help an ill dinosaur, and discovering something […]
New story in Analog – Minnie and the Trekker Read More »
I was a Chiefs fan as a kid and have greatly enjoyed the Mahomes era. This year, despite their league-best regular season record, they weren’t dominating on offense they way they have. Culminating in their defeat in Super Bowl LV on Sunday to the Buccaneers, by the largest margin (22 points) of any defeat in
Offensive Lines and Bertolt Brecht Read More »
I have a Q&A about my new story in Analog, and related topics, online now. Check it out at The Astounding Analog Companion.
Q&A at The Astounding Analog Companion Read More »
I have a story in the Jan/Feb 2021 issue of Analog. “Riddlepigs and the Cryla” is my first appearance there and the first story in the Portia Oakeshott, Dinosaur Veterinarian series. On newsstands now. This is a really cool experience for me. Analog helped form my interest in reading and writing science fiction when I
New Story in Analog Read More »
I wrote my earliest stories using a range of tools, from my dad’s old manual typewriter to Bank Street Writer on the Commodore 64. After I got a real job and disposable income, I bought a PC and used Microsoft Word, because every writer used a word processor, right? After a decade of that, when
Writing tools: software Read More »
Some of you might have seen that my short story collection Constitution 2050 was mentioned at Instapundit.com. If you didn’t, you can read the article here.
Constitution 2050 mentioned by Instapundit Read More »
I’ve been reading nonfic about politics, government, and socio-political cycles lately. Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War, Oren Litwin’s Beyond Kings and Princesses: Government for Worldbuilders. Good stuff. If you read between the lines, the former is a good anecdote to the Whig history every American is exposed to by government schools. These books
The Iron Law of Iron Laws Read More »
In the first three posts in this blog series, I’ve pointed out that, if high tech civilization collapsed and we reverted to the technology of the year 1750, you wouldn’t like it. There’s a 90% chance you’d starve to death. If you were among the 10% of survivors, you’d have a 90% chance of being
Why You Don’t Want Civilization to Collapse, Part IV Read More »
In the first two posts in this blog series, I’ve pointed out that, if high tech civilization collapsed and we reverted to the technology of the year 1750, there’s a 90% chance you’d starve to death. Even if you were one of the survivors, you’d then have a 90% chance of scraping a living from
Why You Don’t Want Civilization to Collapse, Part III Read More »
In part 1 of the series, we compared today’s population with that of Earth before the Industrial Revolution, call it 1750. Assuming farmers back then were as productive as possible, the food supply back then supported a population about 11% of what it is today. We rounded this off as If civilization collapsed, there’s a
Why You Don’t Want Civilization to Collapse, Part II Read More »
