Ophid Dei for sale

Cover for "Ophid Dei"This actually went live at the end of last week, but as I noted, I took a long weekend. Ophid Dei is a novelette — which is to say, it’s longer than your average short story, but shorter than a novella or short novel, such as Heart of Darkness (to use an example most people will recognize). It involves a little gender-bending, and some of the action is a bit more risqué than some of my other stories, so if you’re squeamish, don’t read the excerpt. That said, I hope you do read, enjoy, and decide you’d like to see the rest.

When the “snake” aliens took over Earth, they started radio-tagging the humans. Disguised as a girl, Sovann has managed to hide from the snakes for a decade, but now they need someone without a tag. Captured, unable to escape, how long can he remain hidden?

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Defining the genres: Space opera

When I ran my genre poll a couple of weeks back, I got a request to address space opera. As this is easier than the other subgenres requested (splatterpunk, wuxia, and bizarro), I’m starting here. Oddly enough, I was recently trying to explain to my son what space opera is. First, however, I had to explain both operas and soap operas as concepts. I don’t think I’ll have to do that here. Continue reading

Farwalker for sale

Cover for Farwalker novellaThe latest addition to my published stories, Farwalker, isn’t quite as bright and cheerful as most of my work. I think it’s still hopeful as it shows a man struggling to save everybody on his ship, but the story definitely visits some dark spots along the way.

When saboteurs wreck the hydroponics bay of the colony ship Promise, First Captain Djon Farwalker struggles to find a way to keep his crew alive, even if that means taking the long walk out of an airlock to decrease oxygen consumption on-board. His wife challenges him to find another way, tensions heighten, and factions quickly develop, including those who want the colony idea abandoned.

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Defining the genres: the edges of science-fiction and fantasy

I meant to write and post this yesterday. I didn’t get to it because I was finishing up a work deadline — updating an index I’d worked on a few years ago. I was really happy to get the index done, and other commitments sort of slipped my mind.

Science fiction and fantasy, on the whole, are fairly easy to recognize: we see a space ship on the cover, and we think science fiction; we see a dragon or a fancy sword, and we go with fantasy. There is a lot in the speculative field, however, that defies easy characterization. It may blend SF and fantasy, or it may lurk on the edges where it’s easy to say, “Well, it’s not mainstream, but I’m not sure what to call it.” Today, I break out a few of those tougher-to-call subgenres for you. Continue reading