New story out

My latest "flash fiction" short story, "Hard Man to Surprise," appears as the Futures feature in this week's issue of Nature (July 30). It's an adventure in social networking in the era of designer drugs (as was my previous entry, "Timed Release." That must be a theme of mine or something). I hope you check it out.

If you are a Nature subscriber, you can read it online for free. If you're not a subscriber, you might be able to read it on your local university's server or find it in a library or on a newsstand. Otherwise, you might have to wait until December of this year when my contract allows me to make it available on other sites. I'll release both stories somewhere.

The photo above has nothing whatsoever to do with "Hard Man to Surprise." It's a detail of my license plate during my recent tour of South Central Alaska. You'll note that most of the splattered bugs are mosquitos.

Counting Heads Audiobook

Counting Heads has just been released as an audiobook by Recorded Books. Looks like it's available as a download (for $28) from Audible.com, through Amazon. This is my first audiobook, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Back from Vacation

I've just returned from a couple of weeks in a remote corner of Alaska. That is, in the Wrangell--St. Elias National Park and Preserve, where my family owns land in an inholder subdivision. The photo above is of my friend Rusty who accompanied me during his first visit to Alaska. He's standing in front of the Kennicott Glacier near McCarthy, which is about 10 miles from the subdivision. The old Kennecott Copper Mine can barely be seen in the background on the right.




We're going to build a cabin on our lot, and one of this summer's chores in preparation was to clean up a mess the bears made of stuff they pulled out of our storage shed. Here's a bear-mauled plastic bottle of Clairol hair conditioner. The bears found it irresistible.

New flash fiction story

"Timed Release," my latest story, is in this week's issue of Nature (June 11, 2009). It's a flash fiction piece and concerns a "bachelor aid" technology I am waiting for someone to invent. I thought maybe if I got my idea into one of the world's premier science journals, maybe an enterprising chemist would see it and be inspired to work on it. I believe it would be a boon to civilization and could make some drug company a ton of money.

Dueling Interviews

Two new interviews came out yesterday, one in the Alaskan writers blog, 49 Writers, and the other in the SF blog io9. This sure has been my time for interviews.

The photo above is a shot of my recent reading at Barnes & Noble in Fairbanks.

MOS Book Launch this Saturday

If you're in the Fairbanks, Alaska area this Saturday afternoon, stop by Gulliver's Books on College Rd. and help me launch my second novel, Mind Over Ship. It's a science fictional romp through a scary future, and it's the sequel to my first novel, Counting Heads. I'll be there from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, and I'd love to meet all of you sf readers in Interior Alaska.

And another interview

This one is in our local newspaper, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, purveyor of all the news from the mines since 1906, I think. And it's true that I worked there in the early 1980s. There were relatively few quality jobs in town in those days, especially for a young man with no skills but art. The N-M was responsible for turning my fine art into commercial art, which has provided me a steady paycheck ever since (until I quit all graphics work two years ago to devote all my time to writing).

The article and my grinning mug appeared on the front page of the newspaper. That blows me away.

If I could correct one thing, though, the term I was referring to is "fix-up." As in: He fixed up his award-winning novella into a full-length novel. I fixed-up "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" into Counting Heads.

Another Interview

I was pleased to see that Mind Over Ship was designated a Sci Fi Essential book. Here's my interview.

Intervju med David Marusek

Mind Over Ship is the featured Book of the Month at the premier SF bookshops in Sweden. It's all in Swedish, though, except for an interview I did with them just last week.

MIND OVER SHIP released today

I am pleased to announce that my second novel, Mind Over Ship, has been released today. Hope you like it.