At last! The first of my triptych reviews! Triptych theme: Protagonists = (potentially) romantic couple engaging in near-constant witty repartee. AKA “The Nick & Norah Triptych” Books in this triptych: 1. The Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie (1922) 2. The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett (1934) 3. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn & David … More Witty Repartee Triptych
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan (co-author of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) is not a work of speculative fiction. Or so I thought until I turned the first page. Nothing in Boy Meets Boy defies the laws of physics. The novel doesn’t feature any technological advances beyond cell phones and instant messaging. It’s not … More Why It’s Fantasy When Boy Meets Boy
At long last! By popular demand! Bread and Magic has returned to the intertubes! After several years of living the glamorous jet-setting lifestyle of a nonprofit professional working full-time-plus, I am happily returning to the more leisurely ways of a freelancer/writer. This is good news for you, dear reader, because it means lots of Ben … More And We’re Back–Now with Triptychs!
Ack! This is the obligatory oh-dear-I-haven’t-posted-for-more-than-a-month post. I’ve been traveling near non-stop for work for the past couple of months, including a few not-fun episodes of being stranded in airports past 4 am. This lifestyle has not been conducive to active participation in the blogosphere. However (seamless transition), it has been conducive to a fair amount … More In Which I am Surprised to Be Reading Several Series
… are among the topics that came up in David Grossman’s interview of me over at io9, along with some discussion of my short story, “Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts.” Check the interview out here in case you didn’t catch it yet. David had some great questions and it’s cool to see io9 initiating … More Ghost stories, Ursula Le Guin, and Gay Trading Cards…
Just finished reading From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust. The novel is a hilarious send-up of the superhero genre, told in the form of a self-help book for superheroes: “When Being A Superhero Can’t Save You from Yourself – Self-Help for Today’s Hyper-Hominids.” The novel is narrated by Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman, who … More Superhero Self-Help
My short story, “Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts,” is now available for free online at Realms of Fantasy’s website. It’s also being featured next week in io9’s short-story reading club. The short story club is a new feature at io9, and the first few stories featured included stories by Isaac Asimov and Elizabeth Bear, so it’s a … More Tio Gilberto All Over the Internets!
That’s a paraphrase of the opening line of M.T. Andersen’s Feed, a young adult novel about an eerily familiar future in which everyone is connected to a neural feed, which transmits information, messages, and lots of advertising directly into your brain 24-7. The story mainly follows a group of teenagers as they hang out, date, and consume. … More Went to the Moon for Spring Break but the Moon Turned Out to Completely Suck
… are among the stuff of the stories of LCRW 25, which will be coming out in April-May-ish. This issue includes my story, “This is Not Concrete,” as well as “Music of the Spheres” by my Clarion-mate Daniel Braum. I’m very psyched to be sharing a table of contents with Mr. Braum for the first time. … More Concrete Monsters and Music at the End of the World…
Polyphony is a wonderful anthology series that’s published some of the best speculative fiction out there in recent years – with a specialization in the weird and interstitial. Volume 7 is now available for pre-order at Wheatland Press, and it features a great line-up of writers like Howard Waldrop, Mikal Trimm, and Bruce Holland Rogers. … More Pre-Order Polyphony 7
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