James Pyles's Blog, page 54

“Time’s Abyss” Now Available for Pre-Order

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi. No, it’s not a short story in an anthology. Time’s Abyss is a completely self-contained novella, book 10 of 12 in the Underground series published by Black Hare Press. It’s available for pre-order from Amazon for delivery to your kindle device […]

“No Place Like Home” featured in “Magicks & Enchantments”

This is a little later than I’d hoped, but my short story “No Place Like Home” is finally available in the Blackbird Publishing anthology Magicks & Enchantments (also available HERE and HERE). What would have happened if Dorothy hadn’t made it back to Kansas from Oz? What would have happened if she didn’t want to […]

Big Announcement for Saturday the 17th

This one has been in the works for months, and the story involved has been edited again and again. I think you’ll like the final result. It will become available Saturday. I still can’t talk about it and have no promotional materials to offer, but I can share an excerpt to whet your appetite. Toto […]

There’s Still Time

Still time to pre-order it at Amazon.com. Will be released May 11, 2021.

WordPress Did It Again (Darn Them)

Months back, the free version of WordPress took away what they now call the Classic Editor used to write and edit blog posts and replaced it with something that for me is almost unusable; Gutenberg. I tried to work with it at first, but it was (and is) terrifically awkward. Then I discovered that if […]

G. Scott Huggins Wins 2021 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest

Just wanted to say a quick congratulations to G. Scott Huggins for being named the 2021 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest Winner. A few years back, I somehow started following him on Facebook and more recently twitter, so I’ve known about this for a few days. The really cool thing according to Baen is: […]

Review of “Mara’s Awakening”

Disclosure, I was asked by the author via email to review his short novelette Mara’s Awakening. Interestingly enough, when I tried to post a review on Amazon, I received a notice that it wasn’t eligible to be reviewed. I have no idea why. I did manage to post a review on Goodreads. I had a […]

Where Are the Families in Science Fiction?

Not long ago, I read a blog post by Caroline Furlong called Why Science Fiction Lacks Mothers and Fathers – and Why This Trend Needs to Change. At the time, I didn’t notice it was first published in July of 2018, but that doesn’t really matter. Caroline lamented the abysmal lack of supportive parental characters, […]

Book Review of “On Basilisk Station”

In my continued effort to review Baen Publications, I’ve just finished reading the first novel in David Weber‘s “Honor Harrington” series On Basilisk Station. It was kind of hard to get into. Weber has a tendency to lapse into long pages of dense exposition, which tends to put the reader into one person’s head (more […]

Comic Books, Television, and Who Are Our Heroes?

So I happened to read Cora Buhlert’s review of the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier called Marvel’s “New World Order” – Some Thoughts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (spoilers) expecting something light and entertaining. Not exactly what happened. First of all, let me say that I haven’t seen any […]