politics

Imagine a story about Melody Baker, an unemployed woman living in New York City. She has a PhD, huge student debt, and no professional job prospects. Deborah Ann Woll speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons). (Picture Debra Ann Woll playing her in the movie version. She’d be perfect in the role.) Out of desperation she applies for a research assistant position upstate—and finds herself smack dab in the middle of a political campaign run by cynical operators, eccentric aristocrats, and absurdly horrible partisans and hangers-on, all scheming to elect an unwilling but convenient old-money recluse who has these quaint ideas about integrity, compassion, and justice....

I’ve been writing science fiction and a bit of fantasy. One story is out for submission. A couple others I need to look over before sending out. Right now I’m working on a weird transhumanist tale with four-eared humans and eight-legged aliens—which in turn is an interstitial project between rewrites of the epic space opera I’ve been reworking for a couple of years now. (I think it’s close.) Some people have asked me about the next Maid book....

Warning: Spoilers After last night’s season 3 opener, I’m a little concerned about my favorite show on television, Battlestar Galactica. The show is starting to resemble “Lost,” which from my perspective is not at all an improvement. I’m not just talkling about the tents and stress monkeys in the jungle. It’s the whole arbitrariness that comes across in sequence after sequence of surprises with very little tension. The show used to be terrific at building tension....