Back of the Envelope

Kristin and I spent the last weekend in Quebec city, the capital of the French-speaking province of Quebec, where we saw the sights and went...

There's been a lot of talk recently about what motivated the Marathon bombers.  The assumption is that they were following the dictates ...

Not many plot spoilers below, but I might give away an emotional epiphany or two. Kristin and I went to see Iron Man 3 on Saturday.  Whil...

My latest review for Black Gate is now up.  This month, it's Annie Bellet's Avarice .

It's been a week since the bombing attack on the Boston marathon, and if there's one thing you can say about the week, it sure wasn...

I went down to North Carolina last week to attend my grandfather's funeral, where he received military honors, including a three-volley ...

My latest review at Black Gate, of Dalya Moon's Broken Shell Island , is now up .  I thought the plot could have been a little more log...

C. R. Wiley has an interesting post up concerning the different views of the alien as expressed by C.S. Lewis and H.P. Lovecraft.  It's...

In a writers' forum I participate, the question has come up of whether writers really need to read.  The answer is yes.  I'm not one...

I'm old enough to have played the original 1985 Bard's Tale game shortly after it came out, in glorious 320x240 4-color CGA. That ma...

Last October, my wife and I went to World Fantasy in Toronto .  One of the things you receive at World Fantasy is a huge bag full of free (i...

A friend of mine, and a contributor to the now defunct Storyblogging Carnival , is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a tele...

My latest review is up at Black Gate.  This month, it's Robert Sier's Chains of Loss , but I've been calling it Cyborgs vs. Or...

From Instapundit : THE BROWSER UPGRADE I’D LIKE TO SEE: One where the tab that’s the source of the autoplay audio flashes or something so ...

On a writers' forum that I participate in, the question was asked about how to motivate a character to stick with his first love once he...

Kristin and I went to Boskone this weekend, one of the science fiction conventions local to Boston.  It's not as literary as Readercon,...

Today marks the ninth anniversary  this blog. I  know, it's Valentine's day.  Why did  I start a blog on Valentine's day?  Well,...

Throne of Bones is the first book in Vox Day's Arts of Dark and Light  series. It is not the first story in this world, however, and Vo...

My most recent story, "Local 623," is out at Nature Futures . Now all members of the Fraternal Order of Mad Science Assistants, Te...

I've posted another review of a self-published book at Black Gate , this time of  Noggle Stones: The Goblin's Apprentice by Wil Ra...