Released from the clutches of Pew! Pew! 5, Tyche’s Gravedigger is out. I really enjoyed writing this one — a reprobate meets a baby pirate and they save the universe. A scream for help across the hard black, then silence. That was the start of Chad Forradel’s bad day. One minute he was checking out a planet of bug corpses, the next he’s catching a ride on an old heavy lifter, bound for a system infested with pirates. When Chad reaches New Haven, he finds the space terraforming platform all but destroyed, all hands lost. The insect-like Ezeroc have returned, and this time they have subverted a Navy corvette. One guy — charming, handsome, and good with a blade, but still just one guy — against a whole warship is hard enough. But the Ezeroc are after an esper hidden Read More …

You may remember when I began to believe the hype on Cyberpunk 2077. CDPR released their gameplay trailer today, and oh my. This has all the nostalgia of my days as a baby nerd, playing Cyberpunk 2020. Trauma Team. Night City and the NCPD. Ripperdocs and Johnny Silverhand. Samurai streetware. Militech, optical scanners, and being a solo. It’s all there, but wrapped up in a skin that feels like Witcher meets Syndicate. Grab a coffee, beer, or other narcotic and check this out:

People seemed to like our regrets, so here we are: a fiesta of difficult and rewarding writing. I asked some of my homies which scenes were hardest to write, and which were the most fun. Let’s see where it landed up. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne I think the most fun scene I’ve ever written was the opening of (an unreleased) manuscript, where the angel Michael invents a new programming language and lobbies for it to be used in Creating planets. It’s either that or the entirety of the Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne, where an alcoholic from Sri Lanka signs up to fly into a ring singularity – basically torus-shaped black hole with nothing at the core. That was so fun the entire story just came out in one writing session. The hardest was writing the middle sections of Numbercaste. Mapping Read More …

You might remember my take on the power of names. I figured since I know about a zillion authors, I’d get their take and we’d turn it into something fun. We all make mistakes. Characters we’ve named without considering all the angles. I put out the call: what’s your favorite and least favorite character’s name, and why? And — this is vital — would you kill off the least-favorite in order to not have to type those foul letters anymore? Let’s see where we ended up. As a side note, and not in any way resentful, fuck all y’all with no regrets. Michael Cooper My favorite character name is obviously Tanis Richards. Tanis was the name of my first girlfriend, and also the name of a cool character from DragonLance. Often people think its a male name (because of DragonLance) Read More …

Michael Peña was part of the trifecta of perfection that made Ant Man great (alongside Evangeline Lilly and Paul Rudd). Bring this the hell on:

For those liars writers among you, some friends and I Skyped (is that a word?) on some entry-level Qs on book marketing. In this video we discuss platforms and release cadence… It’s subjective, biased, and we swear. https://youtu.be/Obg_mS-wVMk