Tweaking “Little Things”
I made a few small modifications to “Little Things” last week, nothing that affects the plot of the story but more in the way of attempts to refine and improve…
Speaking Chinese
The recent tragedy in West Virginia has thrust Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, into the spotlight, which knocked loose a memory of his interview on Marketplace, broadcast on October…
Wastelands…
I, like so many others in the reading public, went through a Stephen King phase. It was in junior high for me, when I bought his books by the yard…
It’s all in a name…
I do not remember a time when the words “Skywalker” or “Alderaan” sounded nonsensical and silly. In fact, I don’t know if that time ever existed. They seem like perfectly…
Year of the Turtle
In the spirit of the 2009 summer movie season, I developed a “prequel” to the Highway Virus series called “Year of the Turtle.” Of course it is a prequel only…
Burgess’s Honey for the Bears
I recently finished reading Honey for the Bears, by Anthony Burgess. Of course his most famous work by far is A Clockwork Orange, although his other writing is highly regarded…
Technology Reveals our Psychosis
J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise is like MySpace pages or user comments on a blog about Glenn Beck or Michael Vick – it’s a good place to lose your faith in humanity….
It always happens…
When you’re way way way way down at the bottom of the writing world, it seems every time you look up, there’s a luminary (or at least someone with better…
Science as a Wedge
Back in the day, there were always rumors about big colleges accepting more freshman than the school could handle – but then forcing these wide-eyed fledglings through an intensely difficult…
Hammett’s Red Harvest
The plot of Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, plays out, in a microcosm, for larger events in the U.S. What starts the main sequence of events in the book is…