Rob Dircks's Blog, page 2

BREAKING NEWS: (Yeah, I know, everything’s breaking news, but this really is I swear)

I know, I know. EVERYTHING is breaking news. so when EVERYTHING is breaking news, NOTHING is breaking news. But for me? This is about as breakingy-newsy as it gets:

I got an agent!

Yes, I’ll now be represented by Jacqui Lipton at The Tobias Literary Agency.

What does that mean?

I’m guessing it means any day now you’ll be seeing my books in the Barnes & Noble window on Fifth Avenue (they take down the Stephen King display to make room for mine), and a 10-episode series on Apple TV+ starring Timothée Chalamet, and I’ll send you a selfie from my Malibu cliffside manor, and I’ll fly you all out for a garden party.

But really? Jacqui — who I hear is awesome — is going to help me get my next novel done (finally!) and get it in front of some folks who might like it. We’ll see.

And if you’re saying “Hey, that’s great, Rob, but what’s in this email for me?” well, it’s a stretch maybe, but since many of you are self-published authors yourselves, or budding audiobook narrators, I’d say this old chestnut applies:

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

It’s been eight years since I published Where the Hell is Tesla?, and the writing/narrating road has been a long/windy/awesome/ups-and-downs one, but I keep chugging, and enjoying the ride, and putting bricks in the wall, and hitting some cool milestones along the way. And maybe you can too.

Okay, sermon over. I’ll let you know when the next short story podcast drops, and keep you in the loop.

Cheers, << Test First Name >>!
— Rob

P.S. For the record, If the Malibu cliffside manor garden party thing happens, I’m paying for Economy Comfort Plus and one carry on.

The post BREAKING NEWS: (Yeah, I know, everything’s breaking news, but this really is I swear) first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Carbon Monoxide Detector” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “Carbon Monoxide Detector” now!

Hey, Rob here. I don’t have a lot of background for this story, but here’s how it started: I was talking to a friend, about how when I heard the carbon monoxide detector beep because it needed a new battery, I thought we were going to die, and she said, “hey, that would make a great beginning to a story.” So here it is…

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your periodic free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Carbon Monoxide Detector” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “This Is Only A Test,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “This Is Only A Test” now!

What are you giving thanks for this year? Here’s mine:

THAT WE’RE NOT GETTING HIT BY A GIANT ASTEROID.

I know, I know, the chances are basically nil, but… are they? I mean, NASA is serious enough about it that they launched a spaceship yesterday to collide next year with an actual asteroid. But don’t worry, the asteroid they’ve chosen is not on a collision-course with Earth, so it poses no threat. I repeat: it poses no threat…

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “This Is Only A Test,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Hart Island,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “Hart Island” now!

Happy Halloween! So a friend of mine texted me and he’s like, “Dude! Do a story about this creepy island I’m working on!” Usually I’m like okay, great, thanks, whatever, and then I do what I want. But this time he got me. See, his job is to map areas, and he told me about Hart Island. It’s a tiny island off the coast of the Bronx in New York City, in the Long Island Sound, and it’s basically a giant mass grave. It’s where all the people who become the responsibility of the city are buried: the homeless, stillborn children, people who can’t afford any kind of burial, and bodies that are unclaimed. There are a million people buried there, with more every year, making it the largest potter’s field in the world. And on top of that, it’s got an abandoned psychiatric hospital, and even old cold war missile silos. Wow. Seems like the perfect creepy Halloween setting, maybe for a zombie story, or nuclear zombies, even better! But then this story spilled out of my head, the story of a woman named Ruth…

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Hart Island,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Swatch,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “Swatch” now!

As you might know, I’m into the whole Mars rover thing, and I was psyched to find out they included an extra little package inside it this time — a helicopter. And even cooler, they fastened an actual swatch of fabric from the original Wright Brothers Flyer to the underside of its solar panel! So that got me thinking: I know they’re super careful about not letting bio material contaminate the moon or Mars, but what if, for this tiny swatch, they sort of forgot to check? What might happen?…

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Swatch,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “The Other Ted,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “The Other Ted” now!

Hey, Rob here. Have I got a treat for you! I’ve finally branched out and collaborated with some great folks on a story. Wendy Mass, NY Times bestselling author, reached out to me last year to co-author a short sci-fi story to submit to the talented Alex Shvartsman, who was publishing the latest in his anthology series Unidentified Funny Objects. So we came up with a story in correspondence, from an alien liaison to the U.S. President, about the impending colonization of Earth and how wonderful it would be. We were just having fun, but it turned out pretty damned good, so Alex accepted and published it. And now, with myself and the narration of Audie-award-winning Khristine Hvam, I present… “The Other Ted.”

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “The Other Ted,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “Happy Sun Vitamin C!,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “Happy Sun Vitamin C!” now!

Hey, Rob here. I’ve been sitting on this Bloomberg Businessweek article for a couple of years, not knowing what to do with it. It’s the true story of the Chinese government’s spy infiltration of major companies and government agencies in the U.S. through the use of a tiny, undetectable chip placed on computer motherboards. I couldn’t even believe it when I read it. Anyway, I started thinking, “What if they could make that technology even smaller? Even more undetectable? What would the limit be? Would there even be a limit?” 

So now that Halloween is upon us, and we’re also on the eve of another sort of surreal Presidential election, I figured the time was right to bring this inspiration to you with something creepy as hell. Enjoy!

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, "Happy Sun Vitamin C!," posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, “I, Reggie,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “I, Reggie” now!

Hey, Rob here. So you know how it goes, I get myself down an Internet rabbit hole, and I wind up on this thought problem called The Ship of Theseus. I won’t tell you what it is, it’s in the story, but it reminded me of that factoid that every seven years all of our cells are replaced, the old ones dying and the new ones growing, and we’re essentially a new person. Now, we humans don’t notice it, and can’t do anything with the old bits, but what if there was a life form that could?

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

The post The latest FREE audio sci-fi short, "I, Reggie," posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast first appeared on Rob Dircks.

September’s FREE audio sci-fi short, “Robot Brains From Outer Space,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “Robot Brains From Outer Space” now!

So this month I was reading this article in the New York Times(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/science/organoids-brain-alysson-muotri.html), and had that moment, you know, where fact can be stranger than fiction. Apparently scientists have been growing brain organoids for a while – taking human stem cells and cultivating little clusters of neurons, to help with brain disease research. At some point someone raised the ethical question, “what if we grow a brain that gains consciousness?” But everyone pooh-poohed that idea, I mean, come on, it’s just a cluster of cells, right? Well, they shot a bunch of these organoids into space, aboard the International Space Station, to see how they’d grow there, and even hooked some up to a robot. And then they started seeing brain wave activity, similar to that of retrieving memories and dreaming, at the level of a developing premature baby. I’m not kidding. So this is a horror story waiting to happen, right? Let’s see what happens…

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!

August’s FREE audio sci-fi short, “FutureHeist,” posted to Listen To The Signal Podcast

The latest episode of the Listen To The Signal podcast is up!

Listen to the new episode “FutureHeist” now!

Hi guys, Rob here. This story’s been bouncing around in my head for a loooong time. I hate to do this, but once again I can’t tell you much about it up front, other than it’s about a heist with two long-time professional thieves, and that their mission doesn’t go as expected.

P.S. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and get your monthly free sci-fi short audio delivered right to your phone/tablet/whatever!