A tale of memory, art, and the unsuspected things artists put into their work.
A sordid tale of crime by youthful bandits.
A somewhat different kind of vampire tale, and not nearly as nice as the current crop of heartthrob bloodsuckers. (With apologies in advance to Wagner fans...)
An Analog-style science fiction tale, only with characters, about smokejumpers and that notion that science can't necessarily explain everything you see.
A "weird town" genre story, with (Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!) a stinker of a punchline. You were warned.
A revisionist (and feminist) take on the manly art of war, and how wars aren't always fought by conventional means.
A full moon, a coldblooded killer, but a different kind of monster than the one you might be expecting.
Art remains art, even when the media and the technology change. But can an old-style artist keep hold of his muse when younger, hipper artistes start transforming his art form with new technology?
A classic spacefarer-meets-new-planet story, but with a protagonist who is anything but the jut-jawed Nordic demigod of this story's tradition.
Every generation finds some way to rebel against its parents, and one generation's rebels soon become the next generation's status quo.
A loving pastiche of Harry Harrison's beloved Stainless Steel Rat series.
A short-short written for the Concept Boréale short story competition.
A fairly classic Analog-style hard SFF story about alien life forms and the ecological consequences of not understanding alien ecosystems—or even basic ecological principles.
A time-travel tale of tragic love, told in correct chronological order—well, sort of.
A fairly classic Asimovean type of tale of chemical physics, with a particularly annoying protagonist and a touch of a fantastic sting at the end.
An experiment in narrative voice, set on a planet where human-powered flight is possible, at least for a time.
Computers are our friends, right? Not if you pay too close attention to the upgrade cycle.
Blood in the Snow is the first in what may become a series of tongue-in-cheek murder mysteries centered around a young Dwarf, Thomas “Rabbitfurs”. While traveling through the mountains, Thomas is caught by a winter storm and forced to seek refuge. By good fortune, he finds himself near a mountain keep, where he’s welcomed by a host who seems suspiciouly vampiric, but really—isn’t that a bit too much of a cliché? Thomas isn’t so sure. As the storm traps everyone within the keep, people begin dying. Can Thomas solve the crimes before he becomes the next victim?
Graduation Exercise introduces the character Alison Katherine Morgan, who will become the protagonist of a novel (The Black Ships) about first contact, gunboat diplomacy, and the pursuit of war by other means. In this installment, Morgan recounts the story of the final test she faced before graduating from the Naval Academy's Intelligence (Intel) section. As you'll see, it's not a warm and fuzzy kind of place, but those who survive are well equipped to "pursue war by other means".
Expert System is a story about the rapid pace of obsolescence of high technology, and what this may mean once we develop sentient or near-sentient machines. It's a particular concern to me since, once artificial intelligences start to displace us in the workplace, this will inevitably create tensions and the potential for tragedy on both a human scale and an AI scale. This is one musing on that potential.
Winemaking is as much art as it is science, and a mysterious art at that. But wine is just chemistry, and wine snobs notwithstanding, a good scientist should be able to solve the problem.
Offshoring is a great way to reduce labor costs, but as developing nations begin to develop a higher standard of living, vigilant capitalists will need to seek new ways to keep costs low.
Evil stepmothers and other fairy-tale archetypes may have gotten a bad rap. After all, everything in nature serves a purpose.
The "white man's burden" will travel with us when we go visiting primitive civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. The goals are sometimes noble, but the results? Not so much.
These are two parts of an eventual triptych about transformations and seeing the physical world in a way that subverts our conventional scientific understanding. Possibly with a bit of horror thrown in for good measure.
If superheroes existed, it wouldn't be long before the government weaponized them. They won't all want to go along with this, particularly when the government's motives are less than pure.
When we have the option of becoming post-human, will we bring all our old baggage with us?
Globalization has many challenges, including the difficulty of establishing good business relationships with people from other cultures.
The only thing more horrifyng than Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness is what capitalism is likely to make of them.
When we create something in our own image, it may not share all our beliefs.
Fishermen and their fish sometimes play more interesting games than you'd expect.
Guiding a group of Cub Scouts can be intimidating if you don't adopt the right perspective.
Even if you've lived hundreds of years, falling in love can still teach you interesting things about yourself through the way others reveal your reflection—even if you don't have a reflection.
Sometimes ecological principles work in your favor—and sometimes they come back to bite you.
Filming publicity stunts doesn't always pay the bills—but getting the real story might.
Door to door sales reps are sometimes unaware of what awaits them.
Economics is about more than money, just as knowledge is about more than fact.
Freya and Mouse learn that magic notwithstanding, it takes more than a chain of office to rule a kingdom.
First contact with aliens inevitably leads to surprises for both.
Dragons and humans are sometimes uncomfortably codependent.
When Zeno's paradox meets quantum physics...
In which Hamlet and friends encounter a very different type of ghost.
The end of the world might take you by surprise, but you'll be okay—so long as you're willing to compromise a little.
If you're given a second chance, use it with discretion.
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