Science fiction

Who’s driving the bus? Parasites rool, OK!

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I’ve recently suggested that parasites can be our friends, with special reference to Bill the Mathematician’s quest to become infected with hookworm.

Now I see a member of the Bangkok Writers’ Guild has posted a reference to a story I’d filed some time ago among notes regarding neuro-parasites (“Zombie ants have fungus on the brain”).

“Tropical carpenter ants (Camponotus leonardi) live high up in the rainforest canopy. When infected by a parasitic fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) the

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Better than ever: Surgical revision rools

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1 April 2011. I’m trying to beat a self-imposed but important deadline with The Proteant Enigmass. A few people have said they’d like to see the working ms., but I’m waiting till I get to a certain point in the story so they can get a better sense of what I’m trying to do. And I’d really, really like to do that before Tuesday’s operation. (As it stands, no one has seen any part of this thing, and I need … Read more

Gallows humor for writers

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I see I haven’t posted an item since 17 March. Excuses range from “I’ve been too busy to blog” and “I’m suffering a multi-tasking deficiency” to “I’ve sustained a fit of sanity, wherein I see no percentage in posting elaborate messages into the Void.”

Mostly, though, I’ve been in thrall to a fiction project, a series of speculative novels. The Muse, revealing herself as a dominatrix this time around, has shacked up with me big time. (I speak only figuratively, … Read more

Rules? I don’t need no stinkin’ rules

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Well, maybe just a few.

A writer should find a good chair, e.g. Install it right there in front of  computer, pencil & pad, whatever, and then sit in it for extended periods, writing stuff.

Here’s a real lode of good advice from The Guardian—10 rules for writing fiction from each of a bunch of prominent writers.

And here are five tips of my own, something I recently added to advice emerging from a Clarion Science Fiction and … Read more

Qubital worlds save Pyramids from erosion by camel crap

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Leary here. Wherever that might be (not to mention when).

Current affairs written on the wind (“mere ephemera,” according to my editor, which I didn’t ask). Right now, many of you folk back in 2011 will be fretting about political events in Egypt. The papers should be full of it. (You could still read newspapers back then, and they were often full of it.) No doubt the TV networks will be talking it up like they discovered Egypt only last … Read more

Submarine garrets for starving writers

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Writers look for budget accommodation  (Bangkok, 2027)

Here are some things that didn’t fit on the graph in my “Things fall apart redux” post.

The price of fish in Villa Supermarket is soaring, the Gulf of Thailand is getting fished out, China is behaving more aggressively as the superpower-in-waiting, I’ve lost my mother’s copy of Ben’s secret recipe for Montreal smoked meat and I now learn Ben’s deli closed two years ago. It’s as likely I’ll get to … Read more

Digital bedlam

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Yesterday I was riding the BTS here in Bangkok, when I noticed a guy standing in the corner of the car. What first caught my attention was his face, which was bathed in an unholy glow. Short of sleep as I was, my first thought was, yow, this is some kind of divine messenger, maybe sent by my dear, departed mother to have another go at finally setting me straight.

Then I realized the light came from the iPad he … Read more

Paper books rool, OK!

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One more advantage of paper books. Once upon a time before e-book readers, on an upcountry excursion in Burma, I was smitten with acute diarrhea in a land without toilet paper. But I was equipped with a fat paperback on Chinese history and politics. Over the next few days an assortment of conveyances jounced me along back-country roads as I attempted to learn about China fast enough to stay ahead of immediate needs for paper. I never did get to … Read more

Pretty good sandwiches. Questions of relativity and quantum theory

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The other day I went to meet the charming Ms. Weow at the new Dean & Deluca coffeeshop, a glitzy branch of the New York deli in what’s to be the ground floor of the Ritz Carleton Residences, still under construction.

On my way over, I phoned her to check that I had the correct location.

“Right at the Chong Nongsri BTS Station,” she said.

“West side or east?”

“Which way are you facing now?” she asked me.

“What do … Read more

Rx for rejected writers

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Steve Van Beek, prominent local writer, film-maker and river specialist has just sent me the following encouragement to get off my lazy butt (interview with Philip K. Dick’s daughter) and do more to promote my series of darkly comic futuristic novels (underway) that will clarify most important features of reality in rippingly entertaining fashion. (Some opinion has it that I  write better novels than I do blurbs.) Certainly, Philip K. Dick is one of the most successful

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