Reading Time: 6 minutes If you are trying to puzzle out reality, Trump is done. If you are writing a story with Trump as the hero, he’s invulnerable. The difference comes down to an irritating artifact of bad drama.
fiction
Posted inFilm/TV
‘The Good Lord Bird’: Dark satire with a white-hot moral core
Reading Time: 4 minutes What kind of white man puts his life on the line to fight slavery? James McBride’s irreverent portrait of John Brown offers an answer.
Posted inFiction
Dreaming up worse to imagine better: Why I write bleak humanist fiction
Reading Time: 7 minutes My heart is a touch heavy this birthday of mine. Don’t get me wrong: all birthdays are fantastic, so long as you’re on the right side of the green. (And even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t be in any position to complain, now would I?) Moreover, I’m publishing my first novel today, which is a […]
Posted inBooks
Let’s talk humanist science fiction: An interview with writer Ray Nayler
Reading Time: 15 minutes In North American literature, strict boundaries are often propped up between fiction and nonfiction, along with “literary” and “genre” prose. These are useful for commercial purposes, but out of step with our history. Speculative fiction might even be considered our oldest literary form: a realm of play and exploration, and a way of reaching deeper […]
Posted inFilm/TV
Mother-daughter stories are easy. You just have to break the universe
Reading Time: 5 minutes More than ever before, adult children are breaking ties with their parents. Shifting cultural norms and expectations, coupled with increased individualism and awareness of mental health concepts, are prompting children in their 30s to go “limited contact/no contact” with parents, and learn techniques like “gray-rocking” to communicate with parents who trigger emotional breakdowns and irrational […]
Posted inFilm/TV
Q and Yahweh: Unworthy gods
Reading Time: 5 minutes Star Trek’s omnipotent prankster Q shows the folly of worshipping beings who possess superior power, but not superior morality or wisdom.
Posted inFiction
A letter from Jackrabbit Springs
Reading Time: 4 minutes Hello again! Well the big move is finally over and I know it’s been a while since you heard from me but now that we’re settled in I wanted to catch you up with all the goings-on out here in Jackrabbit Springs. And is there ever a lot of Spring in Jackrabbit Springs these days! […]
Posted inFiction
5 minutes into the future
Reading Time: 3 minutes It was the tests that ran out. They knew they’d never be able to stop the trade of abortifacients. The tests were a different matter. They owned the companies that made the tests. No test, no scrip. No scrip, no pill. We need to talk about the rabbits So here’s what’s going to happen. We […]
Posted inFiction
Interloper
Reading Time: 4 minutes A short story about a man who finds himself where he least expects to be.
Posted inGeneral
Commonwealth, III.XVII: Project Chicxulub
Reading Time: < 1 minute The Pacific Republic’s advance team meets the U.S. prison-industrial state in battle.