politics

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Cover Reveal: In Love and War – The First Lotus Knights, by Beryll & Osiris Brackhaus

by
In Love and War - The First Lotus Knights, by Beryll & Osiris Brackhaus

Beryll & Osiris Brackhaus have a new queer sci-fantasy romance coming out (gay, bi, poly): In Love and War – The First Lotus Knights. And we have the cover reveal! It is the year 1985 ET. House Virasana has fallen, the Lotus Throne stands empty, and a bitter succession war has every noble House at arms. To make things worse, House Tô-Genji and House Medina are locked in a vicious feud over a flood of cheap illicit drugs tearing their worlds apart. Prince Li Lan Tô-Genji is as far from the fighting as one can be. Third son of the … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Politics and Being a Writer

by
protest fists - deposit photos

Writers of fiction, especially often escapist fiction like romance, sci-fi, and fantasy, are usually told to steer clear of politics. You don’t want to alienate half of your potential audience, they say to us. In some ways, it’s sensible advice. Readers are looking for an escape from their daily lives, not another diatribe on the dire state of the world. If they wanted to be depressed about the events of the day, they would turn on one of the 24 hour news stations. There’s already plenty of commentary out there about politics and the savage world we are living through. … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Cocooning

by
cocooning - deposit photos

We started off 2026 with great hopes. Maybe this year would be different. Maybe things would finally start to change again, for the better. And then… Venezuela. And then… Renee Good. With this current administration, it’s always a new outrage, a new spectacle, always a new something horrible shoved in your face, each one more awful than the last. And so I am cocooning. I am spending the time I used to spend doomscrolling the news reading books instead. I am taking that space that he has been occupying in my brain for the last year, and allocating it instead … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: The Power of the Pen

by
rainbow pen - deposit photos

Kim Fielding and I are hard at work on the sequel to Office of the Lost, and as yet to be named second romp through the Connected Worlds with our heroes Crispin and Leopold. In the scene I just completed, they find themselves on a world named Hades, where the very fabric of the place is made up of a substance that is contradictory in nature. They nickname this weird stuff Schrödinger’s cat because it seems to exist in two states at the same time. Sometimes it’s hot/cold, sometimes it’s black/white, sometimes it smells like cinnamon/garbage. It’s organized, intentional chaos. … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Adrift

by
river - deposit photos

And the river flowsI am never gonna get it back againAnd the river flowsI am never gonna take it back again… “Take Me Back”, by Erasure Sometimes a song speaks to you in an unexpected way, and the music unlocks something you’ve been feeling for a long time, but couldn’t quite name. Our world is in a state of flux, where everything we thought we knew is being questioned, threatened, and overturned. Most of us just want to go back to the way things used to be, when we were standing on what we thought was solid ground. As I … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Selling Books at a Time of Existential Threats

by
This is Fine

We’ve all seen the meme. In a world that seems to be burning down around us, it captures that horrible frozen feeling many of us have that the forces moving around us are just too large to comprehend, let alone combat. Have you seen the whole original comic strip this came from? It’s by artist KC Green, and there’s a great interview and explanation here at The Verge. This is the world we as authors are living in. Lately a new version has been making the rounds, where “This is fine” is replaced with “Buy my book”: And here’s a … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Adrift

by
adrift - deposit photos

If you’re anything like Mark and I, you’re probably feeling a bit lost at sea right now. Our new Administration here in the US has turned everything upside down – black is White, Zelensky is Putin, and all the lies are now true. Or at least they will be once they finish beating us over the head with them. The weather here in Northern California is vacillating between super cold and rainy and too warm for February, suggesting a hot summer to come. I’ve now been looking for a job now for sixteen months. I interview, they love me, they … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: It’s Okay to Be Scared, But Let’s Flood the Zone Our Own Way

by
holding hands - deposit photos

I made it exactly one week with my pledge to take a break from my Point of View columns. But given all the recent events, I couldn’t stay silent. I needed to reach out and gather you all in my arms and tell you: It’s all right to be scared right now. I am scared shitless. The non-stop torrent of bad news, as Musk sticks his fingers into agency after agency, stuffing AI into their core coding and demolishing some of them singlehandedly with seemingly no recourse, is truly frightening to behold. And Trump’s non-stop attacks on his enemies, which … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: The Long Fall

by
Falling - Deposit Photos

I grew up in the small desert city of Tucson, Arizona. When I was seven or eight, we moved out to the edge of town. And I mean waaay out. The nearest shipping center was at Orange Grove Road, a good 3-4 miles from our house. I still remember vividly the trip to the “microwave store” (yes, they actually had stores devoted to selling only microwave ovens) to buy one of these miraculous sci-fi devices for our home. Our brand new home was built in the virgin desert, in amongst the palo verde and mesquite trees and the occasional saguaro … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Release / Giveaway: Conspiracy – M.D. Neu

by
Conspiracy - M.D. Neu

M.D. Neu has a new gay sci-fi book out, A New World book 3: Conspiracy. And there’s a giveaway. A little blue world, the third planet from the sun. It’s home to 7 billion people with all manner of faiths, beliefs and customs, divided by bigotry and misunderstanding, who have been told they are not alone in the universe. Anyone watching from the outside would pass by this fractured and tumultuous world, unless they had no other choice. It’s been a little over a year since Todd Landon’s life changed with the arrival of the Nentraee. Continuing his duties as … Read more