I finished the final edits on a new novel, which is for the moment scheduled for an April 2023 release. It’s a departure for me, in that it is not science fiction. Several years ago, after finishing a novel, I considered the possibility of switching genres, so I wrote two non-SF books, both in some fashion murder mysteries. One of them, because I had done so much research on St. Louis, I decided to do as an historical. I set it in the 1780s, starting just after the Revolutionary War Battle of St. Louis. After that, I decided to try a contemporary mystery.…
Category: Whimsy
The New Look
This is the new author photo. At least, for now. I want to thank my pal, Tom Ball, for patiently doing a good job. Being the photographer means I’m usually not in the pictures, so it always feels a bit weird to be the subject. But Blank Slate Press requested “recent” photographs, but there really aren’t any, so…
Anyway, the Author as he is.
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Rarely Seen
In the wild, so to speak, photographic proof that I do indeed go without a hat on rare occasion. Just in case anyone was wondering.
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And Maybe One More…Because Everyone Needs A Mountain
(The black & white version is here and available for purchase:Â https://Markimages.zenfolio.com/p386674473/e7a6c1d2 )…
Time For A Photograph, I Think
We are returned from a trip to Colorado. Family wedding. In spite of being a stone’s throw (so to speak) from the mountains, we did not get to them. Reserved for a future trip. But I can’t go anywhere special without my camera. I’ve been photographing things since I was 14—53 years. I think I’ve gotten reasonably good at it, but that’s not really for me to say.
In Loveland, we found a marvelous park filled with flora, fauna…and a lot of sculpture. I made this image.
Now, I’ve had a gallery open for some time now. The images there are available for purchase—you can even pick from a variety of frames—as well as for perusal.…
Trekness
I sometimes marvel at my own inability to apprehend the cluelessness of my fellow beings. Some positions come out of the zeitgeist that leave me gobsmacked at the utter feckless density of people.
And then I recover and reconsider and realize, no, I’ve been hearing this kind of nonsense my entire life. One just never expects it from those one considers allies. It calls into question all assumptions, then, about what one considers an ally, and the realization (which has always been there, really) clarifies that it’s all surface.
There are fans of Star Trek who have apparently only ever cared about the ship, the uniforms, the phasers, and the astronomy (such as it is).…
Processing….
Notice the new banner? I played around with an image till I came up with something suitably SFnal. We sometimes forget to talk about æsthetics in SF, even while responding to it in a big, big way. I mean, how else to explain how so many otherwise mediocre or plain bad movies became so popular, even for a little while, except by their Look? Be that as it may, I thought I’d post the unmanipulated image from which the new banner was derived. Because, heck, it’s kinda cool, too.
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And For Something A Bit More…Artistic
Haven’t put up images just for the sake of images lately, so….
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Is Scrooge Merely A misunderstood Businessman?
It was a tradition in our family for many years that at Christmastime we get together, eat, drink, make jokes, and endure the Yule Season with a skeptical resolve to give unto Santa what is Santa’s. We appreciate the spirit but the actual mechanism leaves us a bit chilly. In rejecting the corporate gloss of Xmas, though, we’ve sort of recovered some of what the holiday is supposed to mean, at least according to all the armchair philosophes.
My mother is more enamored of the childlike aspects of Christmas than my father ever was, and he indulged her. She still holds to that in her small way, even as circumstances have changed.…