Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 91

Doug Jones has won!

A heartfelt thank you to 50+% Alabamians for this surprising victory. You might not be very progressive, but you’ve shown middle-of-the-road is OK too when compared to alt-right bigots hiding behind religion. Special thanks to women voters (overwhelmingly for Mr. Jones, for obvious reasons), blacks (Jones reached out to you and you responded), and those GOP members who deserted a sick pervert (write-ins, probably not for Jones, but not for Roy Moore either). This is a huge slap in the face fo...

Is sixty the new forty?

Although I’m encouraged by all the young readers and writers I meet on Goodreads (“young” is a relative term, of course), fiction writers shouldn’t ignore baby boomers and older readers.  People are living longer, and older people are more likely to be avid readers because they’re less likely to be distracted by streaming video, social media, video games, and so forth. Normal seventy-year-olds aren’t fanatical Twitter users either in general, with certain infamous exceptions.

I’ve already wri...

Sweet home, Alabama…

It’s the state that’s well on its way to elect an exploiter of underage girls as Senator with complete support of the GOP establishment.  It’s the state that thinks George Wallace is a hero and martyr.  It’s the state that’s still living the Civil War.  It’s the state where evangelists are racists, bigots, and not Christians.  And it’s the state whose football team is overrated and doesn’t belong in any post-season game, let alone the college playoffs.  It’s the most infamous state in the uni...

Monday words of wisdom…

A perv, a con artist, and a fascist walk into a bar. Bartender says, “What’ll it be, Mr. President?”—seen on a church sign.

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The entire “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” is on sale now at Smashwords until December 24. The NYPD homicide detectives’ cases usually start out in New York City but expand to national and international crises as they fight all sorts of criminals—gun runners, sex traffickers, evil hedge fund owners, drug smugglers, terrorists, and more. The crime-fighting d...

FAQs…

Let’s remember Pearl Harbor today–for the brave who perished on that day, as well as a reminder to all of us about the horrors of war.  As sabers rattle again in the world, peace is more in danger than ever.  And now we’re in danger of destroying our world.

[Readers often ask me questions, and I try to respond as quickly as possible, but some things are asked more than others, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do a FAQs post. Of course, you won’t find answers here to embarrassi...

The Dr. Carlos stories…

Carlos Obregon, medical officer on the starship Brendan, stars in various short stories of mine. You can find them in the collections Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape and Fantastic Encores! Dr. Carlos is Sherlock Holmes at times, while his intern Julie Chen often plays the role of Dr. Watson. But are these short stories mysteries or sci-fi? They’re both, of course, for the most part—always sci-fi, but many also mysteries. This isn’t new in sci-fi. Old master Isaac Asimov created the sci-fi...

Reading v. understanding…

Those who are accustomed to my blog posts—minimally, an op-ed comment on current events on Tuesdays and something on reading, writing, or the publishing business on Thursdays—might find it strange that I’m placing this post here on a Tuesday. There’s a simple explanation: reading and understanding what we read are building blocks in the democratic foundation of our country.

A dear friend and I were talking over the holiday about reading “popular science” articles. These are supposedly designe...

Monday words of wisdom…

If I were to run, I’d run as Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They love anything on Fox News.—Donald Trump

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The entire “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” is on sale now at Smashwords until December 24. The NYPD homicide detectives’ cases usually start out in New York City but expand to national and international crises as they fight all sorts of criminals—gun runners, sex traffickers, evil hedge fund owners, drug smugglers, terrorists, and more. The cr...

Special post: With this tax bill, the fascist oligarchy prevails…

The Senate just before 2 a.m. today passed the most egregious tax bill in America’s history! These scurrilous sycophants of the oligarchy of rich elites, Corporate America, and the coalition of haters and bigots has struck yet another blow against the poor and middle class, worsening the plight of the former and adding another nail in the coffin of the latter.  Happy Holidays from the Grinches at the U.S. Senate, folks!

You’d think that such an important “reform” (the polite term for their “f...

Names and personalities…

Do you name your cars?  We do. We called our dark green Camry Katie—she was an Irish lass, you see.  We call our dark red Accord Mr. Rose—that’s a pun connecting the color with Axel Rose of Guns and Roses fame.  An old Tercel was called Charlie Red—he was supposed to be copper-colored (Charlie  Brown), but the dealer couldn’t get that color in stick shift.  All our cars have personalities because naming people or things is related to their personality.

Characters names in books have to be cho...