Category: Blog post

For those of you who don’t know me well, I have a confession to make: I’ve played the same video game for the last two decades. And not even a great game, defunct Westwood Studio’s Dune 2000. This RTS (real-time strategy) game is a remake of Dune II, which, in video game history, is probably … Continue reading 20 Years of Dune 2000: Hunting and Seeking Oblivion

Nihei, 2016 Blame! is a magna series written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei, created between 1997-2003. I first heard about it in 2016, when a student taking my Western Utopias seminar wrote about it for a final paper. However, the student’s vague description of a dystopian, post-singularity world was well-shy of the deeper themes and … Continue reading Reaching the Edge of Dystopia: Blame! by Tsutomu Nihei

This summer, I’m teaching an introductory reading course at UC Santa Cruz. One of the first assignments asks students to reflect on the last time a book fucked them up (not the actual assignment wording). The question is really three: when did a book move you to wonder by its aesthetics, or when did it … Continue reading What We Could Learn from a Film Version of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

When I was in my early twenties, I discovered this collection of James Blish stories. Pretty much all of them melted my brains. Especially the last story, “This Earth of Hours” which I still regard as a classic. The others in the collection are not as impressive, and many of them seem hopelessly obsessed with … Continue reading “To Pay the Piper”

My first book is done. But now comes the tricky part: coming up with an appropriate title. For the duration of the writing, I've been calling it Boy Privilege, which was inspired by The White Boy Shuffle, by Paul Beatty. However, not only is my book nothing like Beatty's (which is fucking brilliant) the character's … Continue reading Potential Novel Titles

So, my novel is finally finished. By finished, I mean I'm now sending it out to agents; what changes will need to be made before publication remains to be seen. Below is my current query letter. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it! I've tried to follow the guidelines I found on … Continue reading Query Letter Draft