Taking Root

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My new short story, “Taking Root,” is now available in D.O.A. III (Kindle and paperback), alongside some great writers, including Jack Ketchum, named “the scariest guy in America” by Stephen King. Please proceed with caution: “depraved” does not even come close to describing this book. Happy reading! 🙂

While I feel the warning is necessary, there’s some stellar writing in this anthology, including these lines that I think speak to why (mostly) sane people read and write the kinds of atrocities found within:

“There is no bottom. And there is no top … No matter how hard you fall, there is always a deeper darkness below. But if that is true, there is also no end to the height and the light that a soul can aspire to. Up goes up forever, too. A little perspective is a wonderful thing.”

– John Skipp, “Splatterpunk Alphabet Souffle”

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The Three-body Problem, and What America Can Learn from the Cultural Revolution

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I rarely write book reviews, but after reading The Three-body Problem I must yawp from my rooftop just how extraordinary this novel is, in the hope that others will experience the same mind-bending awe this masterpiece inspired in me.

The Three-body Problem is by no means slow, though it’s not exactly an action-packed, cliffhanger-type novel. I enjoy those as well, and I’ll highly recommend Red Rising and Ready Player One if that’s what you’re looking for. But Liu Cixin didn’t need to blow shit up to keep me reading through the night: the sheer scope, originality, and power of his ideas do that job more than adequately.

The novel is set in China, largely in Beijing, a city in which I studied and worked for over a Continue reading →

Release day!

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My short story “Möbius” is now available in Writers of the Future, Vol 32!  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers are all carrying this year’s collection, which contains excellent work from new hands and old pros, including bestselling and award-winning authors Brandon Sanderson, Tim Powers, David Farland, and Sean Williams. 

Below: the haunting illustration Talia Spencer created to accompany “Möbius.” Pick up a copy for more than a dozen stories and illustrations, and let me know what you think!

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“The Descent of Man” published in Nature

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The descent of man image

“The Descent of Man” – read here

Okay, so I’m a bit late to this party. This piece appeared in January, before this site was born. But the story is one of my favorites, so I’m going to post retroactively.

The idea for this piece came while working on a team of arborists hired to remove an enormous apple tree whose, rotted, hollow trunk had become home to a honeybee colony. Continue reading →