DAW Books published in 1988 a Jack-the-Ripper anthology, Red Jack, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh, and Frank D. McSherry. Recently reprinted by iBooks as Jack the Ripper, the anthology’s centerpiece is the Ellery Queen-bylined Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Terror. Never having read Queen’s novel nor seen its film adaptation IContinue reading “Ellery Queen's A Study in Terror”
Category Archives: Writing
Writing Day
I scheduled myself for the day off and planned on spending the day writing the proposal for an SCE story for Pocket, pulling together the notes and notecards and making some sense of them. It didn’t happen. A work situation loomed. The regional was in the area, and could I come by the store 2-ish?Continue reading “Writing Day”
Drabble-y Goodness
What is a drabble, you ask? A drabble is a short story of precisely one hundred words. No more. No less. I write drabbles for fun. Usually as a writing warm-up exercise. Occasionally for profit, when for Pocket’s Strange New Worlds VI contest two years ago I submitted many drabbles for consideration. (Come to thinkContinue reading “Drabble-y Goodness”
Sherlock Holmes against the Irrational
Yesterday I received in the mail the latest Faction Paradox novel, Philip Purser-Hallard’s Of the City of the Saved….. The novel takes place in the City of the Saved, essentially a secular heaven after the Big Crunch where humanity in all of its forms, from Homo habilis to post-human intelligences that bear no physical relationContinue reading “Sherlock Holmes against the Irrational”
On the Picard who fought at Trafalgar
What I’m wanting to do is write a story about the Picard who fought at Trafalgar, mentioned in Star Trek: Generations, and I am trying to settle on a name for the historical Picard’s ship, though perhaps giving the French frigate the same (or a similar) name as the Starfleet vessel his descendant commanded fiveContinue reading “On the Picard who fought at Trafalgar”
On How I Got Here
About two months ago, I guess, I was feeling particularly sentimental. It happens. Time changes people. I was a sad, sullen person at the age of twenty-five. At thirty, I feel genuinely happy, perhaps even content. It’s like the pieces of my life have come together well, and though there are some pieces of theContinue reading “On How I Got Here”
Blinded by Science
How does that ’80s song go? “I’m blinded! By science!” That’s how I feel right about now, having just written five pages of tech exposition. It’s vital to the story, otherwise I wouldn’t have written it. The conflict between two characters begins (or more precisely, resumes after a twenty-year absence), the seeds of the conclusionContinue reading “Blinded by Science”
Reminder
Tonight’s episode of Enterprise is “Regeneration,” the Borg episode. Check it out if you’re curious to see the 22nd- and 24th-centuries collide. My speculations on the episode when it was first announced can be found here. For a possible result of the episode in the 24th-century, look here.
Writer's Notebook II
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Kirk and Spock discuss 20th-century American literature on a San Francisco public bus. The remembered names of 20th-century literature? Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann, two authors we would consider today the purveyors of crap. What we think of today as great literature may not stand the test ofContinue reading “Writer's Notebook II”
New Year’s Eve
John Ordover announced yesterday the winners of this year’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds contest. Of the five stories I submitted for consideration, none made the final cut. I thought I had a real shot with “Memorial Day” The story of Jake Sisko and the Cestus III Dominion War Memorial wasn’t the incestuous continuity pornContinue reading “New Year’s Eve”