Book Review of Wrestling With Gods

I picked up Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) because I’m a sucker for speculative fiction that intersects with religion. On the other hand, I rarely read anthologies, preferring novel length fiction. Nevertheless, I can say that I was happily surprised on several fronts. First, the writing is undeniable excellent throughout. Liana Kerzner and Jerome Stueart …

Book Review of VERACITY

I picked up Laura Bynum’s VERACITY because of the interesting concept and strong writing in the few page sample I read. The concept has protagonist Harper Adams living in a dystopian society that formed in the aftermath of a large-scale bioterrorism attack. The interesting part is that this society tries to control thought, and thereby …

Book Review of THE BEAUTIFUL LAND

Alan Averill’s THE BEAUTIFUL LAND was a real surprise for me. I picked it up on a bit of a whim; the premise was interesting and I knew it won the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, so I was curious. Technically it is speculative fiction, but the physics concept is so far beyond the bleeding …

#MyWritingProcess

Welcome to this tour of my brain. Hopefully it will provide some enlightenment as to my writing process, or at least supply more data for my future commitment proceedings. I lead with a current picture of myself in my writing attire. If you suspect I’m pushing the definition of “current” too far, then I’ll have …

Book review of NEVER LET ME GO

Kazuo Ishiguro’s NEVER LET ME GO is speculative fiction at its best. Ishiguro contemplates an alternate reality where clones are raised for spare parts. Do I hear groaning? Relax, this isn’t yet another rehash of a tired old science fiction troupe: step one, clones are blissfully ignorant; step two, clones realize they’re only spare parts; …

Book Review of THE HANDMAID’S TALE

I first read this book soon after it was published and just re-read it a quarter century later. This is a seminal work about gender roles that is often mistaken as a rant against religion. Atwood needed a dystopia in which to set her tale of Offred. She chose a religious dystopia, perhaps because there …