Fiction

An excerpt from book 1 of The Emissary trilogy: Palomar's Hale telescope

On a mountain that was relatively quiet for southern California, the big Hale telescope on Palomar was taking in data. Chandra frowned over the many monitors at her station. Every now and then, a burst of soft keyboard chatter from across the room signaled Dave’s presence. As usual, it was just the two of them working together. The goal this week was to test the new interferometer’s ability to increase resolution, with a secondary goal of keeping each other awake in order to that. She swept the little frizzle of dark hairs that kept falling into her line of sight and secured them, firmly stuffing them under her headscarf. She rubbed at her eyes and sucked down some more coffee.  She never could get used to this, staying up all night. She was irritated that she had not been able to sleep at all that day to prepare for tonight’s session. Her tired bones cried out for the tiny little cot in the nearby dormitory. The monastery. Read more →

AI is invading critique groups: what to do?

As of this writing, I have no idea how to create AI-generated content. I’m uncharacteristically not curious about learning how. Uncharacteristic, because normally new tech makes my inner nerd all giddy. This tech, when applied to writing at least, makes my inner ethicist want to vomit. I am trying to be balanced. I am often wrong about things. Read more →