When I wrote Episode Four of THE MINUS FACTION back in 2015, I wondered whether a breakdown in the normal order, like a blackout, would create suspense — whether readers, who seem to live most […]
Tag: fiction
(Fiction) The Shri-class Intelligences
Balram was right about one thing. Sonrisa was hesitant to leave the farmhouse. She doubted she’d be allowed to return. She leaned her bike deftly into a turn, right, then left, moving through the empty […]
(Fiction) Scratch ‘n Sniff
The neighborhood dated from the previous century. There was hardly a curb. Deep green lawns sat nearly level with the street. There were no fences. Each yard blended into the next. The Arneson house was […]
(Curiosity) Where Have the Villainesses Gone?
“Isn’t it time to acknowledge the ugly side? I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — good, […]
(Fiction) The Shotgun in the Bathroom
01Oct I could tell it was serious by the tone of her voice. Lieutenant Miller called me to her office where Craig Hammond, my old partner, was waiting in one of the chairs. His block […]
(Fiction) I will set you free!
People. That was the difference. If they had a mission, they would have put him somewhere secret, somewhere no one would see. Given him orders. When they put him in the middle of a crowd, […]
This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow. —Mervyn Peake, “Titus Groan”
—a description of the Tower of Flints, part of the aging castle Gormenghast, from Mervyn Peake’s Gothic fantasy “Titus Groan.” Neil Gaiman and Akiva Goldman are bringing a series based on the unfinished novels to […]
