Walsh McKeeg had tried before to salvage the wreck of the old bomber from the desolate planet where they'd crashed during the war. Was the old girl up to one last flight when it really mattered -- and could Walsh overcome his own ghosts?

Writing effective critiques--those that help the author--has a certain requirement that I learned the hard way. If you're reading this, presumably you want to help authors by writing critiques of their work that they can learn from. Beyond all the How To's about what to include in a critique (the plot, the characters, the world, the ideas, etc.), there's one vital element that is often overlooked. That's what this little book is for.This is a collection of articles I've written ove...

Not too far in the future, terrorists who hate modern civilization hope to wreak unrelenting destruction when they get their hands on powerful military AI software -- ultimately forcing life altering decisions in a race to save the very existence of humanity. Against this backdrop, Weston Foard must juggle a championship chess match while falling in love with Jasmina Simonis, the soulmate who would upend his life; Chris Giordano is writing a book about the best people on Earth while being ...

On the trillionth anniversary of the universe, a descendant ponders, What's in a bod?Originally published in Beyond the Last Star, an anthology from SFF Net.

How to avoid anachronisms in fiction to keep your prose timeless...So you're reading along in the Bourne Ultimatum, you're with Jason Bourne on the run, he's caught sneaking out to the car—interrogated by the baddies—and boom, he says, "I'm just driving out on the highway to find a phone, that's all." He what? Doesn't he have a cell phone? While in 1991 there were no cell phones to speak of, today it's awkward for a character not to have one, and this leaves the reader feeling the ...

While the poems in this collection are inspired by the story of Fievel Mousekewitz, the cartoon mouse of the author’s childhood, they are gut-wrenching in their examination of the American dream. Fievel’s family history—and the author’s—is one of a Jewish family immigrating from the Old World to the New and eventually being pulled across the plains: “When migrant boys looked west in leather hats, their slang pierced with Polish accents.” Even though “tomorrow is made of rocks and time; is ...

Sometimes I wish birds had never discovered that humans were intelligent...(If you like playing Angry Birds then you've got to read this one. First published in Outside SF / FarSector in 2003.)

We're living in a Simulated Universe? Are you sure?Pondering about the nature of the universe is always fun, isn't it? It's one of the cool things science fiction writers get to do.So, this Oxford philosopher "proves," mathematically, that either you're living in a simulated universe, or else the world is going to end soon. Wow, that's bleak, no? Fortunately there are some flaws in his logic, leading to some even more fascinating ideas, which I've played with for fun in an ...

(Shhh! A Secret of Great Writing)An article originally published in the SFWA Bulletin on fascinating statistical correlations found between the amount of interpersonal relationships in "well regarded" vs. "ordinary" SF/F stories. In addition to the article are supplemental materials, including much that wasn't published because of space limitations.This has huge implications for your writing (at least in terms of what sells better) and also offers a possibly useful tool for...

Colonists and crew crammed into a freight ship destined for a distant planet must find a way to survive when it turns into a plague ship... and the plague isn't the only kind of sickness they must overcome.EXCERPT:Captain Savola fell ill to 'The Purge' this morning. He collapsed at breakfast, vomiting up the green, matty substance we have all come to fear. The doctor, as we call Mr. Lane because he's the only one who stayed awake through the first aid course, used up most o...

She wanted my body. The problem was, I couldn't be exactly sure where to find it...

"Free to go" doesn't always exactly mean free to go...The smell was like fresh manure mixed with rancid milk the best smell Fenn Tibarrien could have wished for. He recognized a few of the noxious odors that penetrated his breathing mask, and spoke in his mind what he knew the translator on his arm would momentarily speak aloud: "Free to go." One day those words would be uttered and he would actually be free to leave, but until then they were merely a cruel, ironic reminder of his ...