“The Dead Duck Diner capsuled a corner just two fingers short of the waterfront. It gleamed like the wet fin of some imaginary car, all sleazy chrome against the fast-forward decay of the esplanade. Festooned with rotisserie jungle chicken, pink-on-green neon, and loud checkerboard trim, it bubbled with all the indigestible traffic from the strip. You name the parasite, and their umbilical leavings would be smeared along the linoleum countertops: robo-jox, the bitchdoctors, all the sailor drek, cyborg love bunnies, bible jerkjumpers, jewel shifters, soldier camp dropouts, alien trannies, cannibal hobo freak shows, keyboard cowboys, jungle mummies, the whole carnival sucked through the place like a vacuum cleaner and gathered like gunk in the filters.” Continue reading →

I’m about a month late getting to this, but back in September, Drabblecast released their 415th episode, “The Best Scarlet Ceremony Ever!” written by Shaenon K. Garrity and narrated by Renee Chambliss. You can read/listen to it here.

This is like Christmas come early for me. Not only did my favorite podcast release an episode written by my favorite comedic writer, but it’s also read by my favorite narrator! It doesn’t get much better than this. Continue reading →

In the world of The Black Tides of Heaven, children are born without gender. They usually choose whether they want to be male or female by the time they’re in their mid- to late teens. Some children get their gender as young as three and some don’t decide until after their teens. There’s a vague reference to this involving a trip to the doctors, so this seems to be a world in which being trans is the norm. It creates an interesting effect since readers won’t know which gender, if either, a character will pick once they get older. Continue reading →