Mike Fisher will be exhibiting a collection of his retro-futuristic artwork this Friday, October 8th, as part of Art on the Hill the monthly Tobin Hill Art Walk. Fisher’s pieces play with pop-culture, science fiction and comic book themes and feature robots, aliens and bikini-clad star babes. [Read it all...]]]>

Art on the Hill - Featuring Mike Fisher

Mike Fisher will be exhibiting a collection of his retro-futuristic artwork this Friday, October 8th, as part of Art on the Hill the monthly Tobin Hill Art Walk. Fisher’s pieces play with pop-culture, science fiction and comic book themes and feature robots, aliens and bikini-clad star babes. This show is at The Gallery Josephine (339 W. Josephine) where Fisher’s work will be on display along with that of two other artists, Jason Limon and David Peche.

Rumor has it that an actual star babe will be present at the show. Yes, that means that from beyond infinity comes…The Queen of the Forbidden Universe. Will she decide to invade Earth with her army of deadly robots? Will you talk her out of it? Chat her up and perhaps you can save the world.

Art on the Hill is sponsored by the Tobin Hill Art Alliance and happens on the second Friday of every month. The nexus of the Art Walk is the triangle at E. Dewey Place, N. St. Mary’s Street and Josephine Street. Nine venues are showing art and all are within walking distance of each other. Last month there was even a shuttle bus running between the venues. Of course, that diminishes the ‘walk’ aspect of the Art Walk, so wear comfortable shows and stay pure.

It was only a matter of time before I read this one. I work at a popular San Antonio bookstore, and I try to shelve the sci-fi and fantasy books whenever I can. It was the cover of The Devil’s Alphabet that initially drew my attention with its gloriously creepy upside-down eyes staring back at me every [Read it all...]]]>

It was only a matter of time before I read this one. I work at a popular San Antonio bookstore, and I try to shelve the sci-fi and fantasy books whenever I can. It was the cover of The Devil’s Alphabet that initially drew my attention with its gloriously creepy upside-down eyes staring back at me every time I walked by. The synopsis proved interesting enough to suck me in, and Daryl Gregory’s unique combination of science fiction, horror and small-town secrets kept me hooked.

It’s been fifteen years since Paxton Martin left the small town of Switchcreek, Tennessee, and he’s done his best to put his past behind him. Now he has returned to his hometown to attend the funeral of an old friend—her death ruled a suicide. However, Paxton has his doubts concerning the events of that night, and a few questions and some snooping around prove that there just may be more to Jo Lynn’s death than originally thought. This in itself provides the backdrop for a pretty standard, run-of-the-mill mystery; but Gregory doesn’t stop there.

Switchcreek, Tennessee, is the place where the changes happened.

Before Paxton left town, a mysterious, unidentifiable disease wiped out a third of the population and transformed most of the rest into one of three different types of beings. Argos are painfully stretched into hunched, chalk-skinned, twelve foot tall humanoids of immense strength and speed. Betas are a hairless, wine-skinned people whose women conceive children without intercourse. Charlies, like Paxton’s preacher father, are bloated and obese, the elder males of which produce blisters which leak a drug-like substance known as “the vintage.” Only a few residents, Paxton among them, are spared the pains of the transformation.

The town has moved on during Paxton’s absence, its people adapting to their new lives. The different clades have found ways to fit in, and their representatives strive to meet their new needs as citizens. The betas have grown into a cult-like people, living on a compound and revelling in their natural births. The charlies have also found a way to fit in, harvesting the vintage for an unknown purpose. Paxton finds himself having to learn to live in a new society, one that has evolved around its new inhabitants.

Gregory definitely has fun with the story. Not to be content with a mere estranged father/son reunion tale, Gregory’s Paxton is a chemically dependent slacker whose motivations may be based less on love than on the hallucinogenic side-effects that his vintage provides. Likewise, his take on local politics involves a bit more as well as now we have the different clades jockeying for more dollars to suit their new needs. It’s nice to see what he can do to small town life just by throwing in a little sci-fi weirdness.

Gregory does play with the fantastic, but like in real life, not all of his questions are answered. While the questions surrounding Jo Lynn’s death are resolved, I was left with quite a few “what-ifs” to kick around. But that’s not neccessarily a bad thing. Just as his take on small town life has enough true-to-life flavor to feel real, so does a story that only answers a few of the questions it poses. One question I do know the answer to:  I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more stories from Daryl Gregory, upside-down eyes or not.

The original cover of Varley's "Titan"

With the series returning to publication in 2006, now is a good time for readers either to reacquaint themselves with Texas native John Varley’s epic Gaea series (Titan, Wizard and Demon) or read it for the first time.

While Cirroco “Rocky” Jones leads a group of [Read it all...]]]>

The original cover of Varley's "Titan"

With the series returning to publication in 2006, now is a good time for readers either to reacquaint themselves with Texas native John Varley’s epic Gaea series (Titan, Wizard and Demon) or read it for the first time.

While Cirroco “Rocky” Jones leads a group of astronauts to examine the moons of Saturn, they make the most amazing discovery in the history of space exploration-one of Saturn’s moons is not a moon but rather a sentient life form on a planetary scale.  The crew explore this new creature they name Gaea and discover within her centaurs with three sets of genitalia (both male and female in the horse part of their bodies and one set in the front which determines gender), a race of angels whose raison d’etre is a blood feud with the centaurs, and whistling, blimp-like creatures who pick up passengers and fly them around.

While much of the joy of reading this trilogy comes from the sense of discovery the reader shares with the humans, the complex relationships between the main characters are what make this trilogy such a completely engrossing read.  Themes such as lesbianism, the complex reproduction practices of the centaurs (with three sets of genitals, family trees start to look more like fractal images), and the goddess Gaea weave together in a tapestry of tension, occasional horror, and frequent delight.

Similar sexual themes in other sci-fi/fantasy works include: Tanith Lee’s Don’t Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine, Lynn Flewelling’s The Tamir Triad trilogy, and Storm Constantine’s Wraeaethu works.

One of the Freff illustrations from the original printing of Titan

Characters similar to Gaea—alien, sentient, or psychotic habitats, appear in works like: Arthur C. Clark with co-author Gentry Lee’s Rama tetralogy (alien), Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy (sentient), and Arthur C. Clark again with 2001: A Space Odyssey (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”).

Titan is a powerful first contact novel on the same scale as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye.  While this is science fiction, the awe created by the indigenous people of Gaea and their forms give it a fantasy feel.  The exploration of the interior of Gaea becomes a quest for the characters.  In Titan, that quest is to find the physical manifestation of Gaea to learn about her and to stop the warring between the Titanides (centaurs) and the angels.

The fusion of genres probably worked in Varley’s favor as he won the 1980 Locus Award for SF Novel and was a Nebula Award nominee for the 1979 Nebula award.  The second and third books in the trilogy earned Varley one Hugo and two more Locus SF nominations.  Titan introduces readers to compelling characters who must live within their new environment and sets up readers for the adventures in Wizard and Demon.

Never look for a good book to read; instead, look for good trilogies.

The recent republications do include the original artwork from the first publication in 1980.  The artist goes by Freff. I have been unable to locate any other examples of his work, so if anyone out there has anything, please share.

I posted this at my blog this morning, but this book is important enough that I thought it was worth sharing here at Missions Unknown. I’m now looking at an advance copy of one of the 2009 hardcovers [Read it all...]]]>

ARE YOU THERE AND OTHER STORIES by Jack Skillingstead (Golden Gryphon). Cover Illustration by John Picacio.

I posted this at my blog this morning, but this book is important enough that I thought it was worth sharing here at Missions Unknown. I’m now looking at an advance copy of one of the 2009 hardcovers I’ve most wanted. It’s ARE YOU THERE AND OTHER STORIES by Jack Skillingstead (Golden Gryphon Press). Yes, I illustrated the cover art for this story collection, but that’s not why I’ve been looking forward to it. Quite simply, I envy the rest of the world that hasn’t read this one. The major editors of sf/f, such as Gardner Dozois, Gordon Van Gelder, and Lou Anders, know how special Skillingstead is. They’re the ones that first commissioned his stories. Beyond them, I suspect Skillingstead is still a relative unknown to many, but perhaps not for much longer. Skillingstead is one of my new favorite writers, and even better, he’s one of the rare ones that seeks big questions rather than big answers. As 2009 World Fantasy Award nominee Daryl Gregory says, “Jack Skillingstead is fearless. No one in SF writes about death, sex, loneliness, and love with such searing honesty.” Well said.

I was hired for this gig back in ’08, and was privileged to read the manuscript back then. I suspected this might be one of the very best sf books of 2009. That’s how good it is. I want to know what you think. This book is not for everyone. I envy anyone reading these stories for the first time. This is my favorite kind of sf — the kind that makes me see the world a little more clearly, with all of the shades of love, hurt, and hope illuminated a little richer and deeper than the day before. Golden Gryphon has it available right now, and Amazon will start selling it on September 6th. (Note that Amazon’s cover image is a mockup, not the final. The one you see above is the final.)

A final note about the cover art — gosh, this was a hard book to cover-illustrate. This book demanded a personal response, rather than a literal one, which is the way I prefer to work, but it wasn’t easy. I originally thought the cover might be a man trying to hug a ghost (if you catch that Amazon image before they change it) and I cobbled together a rough assemblage image using a piece of a previous cover to try to grasp the basic image, in hopes of reshaping and refining. The publisher liked it. Jack liked it. I liked it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it seemed awfully heavy-handed. It just wasn’t the iconic image this cover demanded. The final cover art sprung from one of my alternate ideas, and as it turned out, it was the right one. Thanks to Matt Fulcher and Sanford Allen for helping me find my way. I wish there were more books like this.

JAYME LYNN BLASCHKE is a speculative fiction writer who lives in New Braunfels and works at Texas State University. His short fiction has appeared in a variety [Read it all...]]]>

MARKING YET ANOTHER TOILET FOR CERTAIN DOOM (Part 1): Sf author/editor and Green Arrow fan Jayme Lynn Blaschke aims one for the ages. (Photo by Lisa Blaschke.)

JAYME LYNN BLASCHKE is a speculative fiction writer who lives in New Braunfels and works at Texas State University. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of markets, including INTERZONE, ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE, and the anthologies FAST SHIPS, BLACK SAILS and CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE. He’s probably best-known for his genre-related interviews, some of which were collected in his 2005 book, VOICES OF VISION: CREATORS OF SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY SPEAK. When he’s not busy writing, he can sometimes be found working as a second cameraman for Lisa On Location Photography Studio, specializing in infrared images. 

Favorite authors, sf/f novels, and comics include: James Tiptree, Jr., Greg Bear, Nalo Hopkinson, Charles de Lint, Clifford D. Simak, LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller, Jr., BATTLE ON MERCURY by Eric van Lihn, DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis, GREY MATTERS by William Hjortsberg, WEIRD BUSINESS, edited by Rick Klaw & Joe R. Lansdale, GREEN ARROW: THE LONGBOW HUNTERS by Mike Grell, WATCHMEN by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, THE QUESTION (entire run) by Denny O’Neil, and THE ROCKETEER by Dave Stevens.

You’ve worn several hats so far in your career. You’ve been a fiction writer, editor, reviewer, and journalist. Is this diversity by accident, by necessity, or are you happier when you’re working in various capacities? Which is the role you most enjoy?

I have to confess no grand plan. I got out of college with a journalism degree because writing was the one thing I was marginally competent at. After I sold a few short stories, I had the bright idea that I’d put my journalism background to genre use and do a couple of interviews to keep my name in front of readers. At some point, GreenManReview recruited me to write some reviews, and I eventually found myself writing for SFSite and Brutarian. Then the afore-mentioned Rick Klaw tapped me to take over for him as fiction editor at RevolutionSF. I’ve just blindly stumbled from one role to the next. The two thing I sat down and charted strategies for–editing anthologies and writing comics–have been my least successful endeavours.

I’m happiest and most fulfilled when I’m writing fiction. Or rather, once I’m finished writing a piece of fiction. I’m like a lot of writers in that I don’t particularly like the process, but I like “having written.” Interestingly enough, that’s not the case with non-fiction. With the ever-present deadline looming in journalism, the writing comes much easier, which explains why I tend to produce much more non-fiction than fiction, even though I enjoy it less. It’s a siren song. (Warning: the remainder of this article may contain hazardous photographic material which may lead to your immediate need for vigorous brain scrubbing. Venture below the cut, at your own peril.)

FAST SHIPS, BLACK SAILS Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer (Night Shade Books)

I’ve got a thing for airships, zeppelins, dirigibles. Love ‘em. I did a story for INTERZONE a few years back titled “Being an Account of the Final Voyage of La Riaza,” in which huge dirigibles sail between the habitable moons of a Jupiter-like gas giant. There’s a breathable atmosphere because of a gravitationally trapped gas torus, plus lots of swashbuckling and derring-do. I had a great deal of fun with the setting, so when the Vandermeers announced their fantastic pirate anthology, I knew I had to return to this setting. There was a throwaway line in the story about a gigantic, alien species of whale that was essentially a mobile ecosystem, so I channeled some Melville to come up with what a whaling fleet on these alien worlds might be like, and then I had pirates attack. All of them in airships, of course.

A month before the anthology opened for submissions, there was a Turkey City Writers Workshop in Austin. Jeff Vandermeer was a guest, and so I strategically took “The Whale Below” along for critique. He got about two pages in before he laughed and asked, “This isn’t a pirate story, by any chance?” I answered with a straight face, “Why, Mr. Vandermeer, I do believe it could be read as such.” When he got to the kraken swarm, he accused me of being a “Shameless panderer,” but hey, I’m in the antho.

Do you have a personal favorite amongst your body of fiction-writing?

That’d be “Europa, Deep and Cold.” My all-out, throw caution to the wind, nuts and bolts, take-no-prisoners hard-SF story. Bruce Sterling called it science fiction’s DAS BOOT. I researched for a year, maybe more, pestering NASA researchers and basically turning over every stone I could to ensure it was as technically accurate as I could make it. Incredibly difficult story to write, because I don’t have a technical background. I definitely bit off more than I could chew with it, but I’m very pleased with the end result. Venturing outside of one’s comfort zone can be as rewarding as it is painful. Alas, the story remains unpublished.

You’ve built an impressive list of interviews over your career. A lot of them are packaged in your 2005 book VOICES OF VISION. What are one or two favorite moments from your body of interview work?

My favorite moment has to be my interview with Harlan Ellison. That was my first freelance interview, but not by design. He was scheduled to attend a nearby convention, so I wrote asking if he’d agree to an interview. I had a couple of other interviews line up before that convention, so I figured I’d have cut my teeth well enough by then. Well, Harlan phones me up out of the blue saying he’d cancelled that appearance but if I could come up with a dozen questions he hadn’t been asked a million times before, he’d talk with me. Getting a phone call from that man can be quite intimidating for a wet-behind-the-ears writer, but once my knees stopped knocking I accepted the challenge and a week later we had our interview. In the end, I feel I acquitted myself moderately well.

You’re the Communications and Marketing Director for the Science Fiction Writers of America. How did that come about?

A few years ago, then-SFWA President Robin Bailey posted a somewhat cryptic message on a SFWA newsgroup asking for people with media relations experience to contact him. My background’s in journalism, but for most of the past decade I’ve worked primarily in media relations, so I bit. The next thing I knew I was chair of the SFWA publicity committee. When Russell Davis took over the presidency, he did some organizational restructuring and my chairmanship became a directorship. But there hasn’t been much practical change in what I do.

My position’s a volunteer job–-all the officers and committee chairs in SFWA are volunteers–-and I imagine my reasons for doing this are similar to most everyone else’s. We believe in the mission of SFWA, which is an advocacy organization for writers of speculative fiction. It’s there as a resource, and works to further our interests. There’s nobody else out there looking out for us. SFWA does a lot of good for writers, but much of it is behind the scenes stuff the group never gets any credit for. The grievance committee (GriefCom), in particular, is a wonderful tool for writers who find themselves being taken unfair advantage of. One time, some years back, I was having trouble with a publisher who simply would not pay me. I finally asked GriefCom to get involved, and a check showed up in my mailbox before the end of the week.

When I see all the hard work officers like Russell Davis, Mary Robinette Kowal and Elizabeth Moon invest in the organization, I really feel like a slacker, sending out my little media releases every other month or so. The effort from those folks is inspiring. My serving as media director is the least that I can do.

Part of your personal website is devoted to a shrine to the DC Comics character, the Green Arrow. What is it about the character that resonates so strongly for you?

The first Green Arrow story I ever read was “Manhunt for a Murderer” by Gerry Conway with art by Michael Netzer in WORLD’S FINEST #246. Green Arrow takes down the bad guy by shooting an actual broadhead through his shoulder. Ouch! That was pretty hard-edged stuff for Comics Code super-hero stories at the time, and it made an impression. Here was this guy, Oliver Queen, with no powers other than a nifty Robin Hood outfit, some trick arrows and that crazy goatee. What’s not to like? Having the hottest girlfriend in all of comics sealed the deal. I still have a crush on Black Canary to this day.

I love the fact that Oliver Queen’s a guy with no powers out there mixing it up. He’s deeply flawed. He’s not a great fighter or uber-genius like Batman. He’s impulsive and passionate. He was incompetent enough to get swindled out of his vast fortune. How can anyone not love that? Yet he’s the only one willing to call out the Justice League for becoming too self-important or the Guardians of the Universe for ignoring the plight of the little guy. I worship Mike Grell’s run with the character, but Denny O’Neil’s brilliant work on GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW back in the 70s set the standard.

I co-operated the Unofficial Green Arrow Fansite with a talented artist and writer named Scott McCullar for a long time, but a few years ago we decided to shut it down because out career pursuits–he in comics and me with science fiction–were demanding too much time. I set up the Shrine on my homepage intending to re-post the hundred of issue reviews I’d done for the Fansite, but I never quite found the time for it. A few months ago the hard drive I’d stored those reviews on was damaged, so now I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recover them.

But I still love the character deeply.

MARKING YET ANOTHER TOILET FOR CERTAIN DOOM (Part 2): No comment. Just no comment. Please forward all requests for immediate brain scrubbing to Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Esquire. (Photo by Lisa Blaschke.)

You’re currently working on a non-genre project, a book about the Chicken Ranch. What’s the latest with that?

This is a book that I never wanted to write. When Marvin Zindler died a few years ago, it struck me as a shame that nobody had ever written a book about the events surrounding the closure of the Chicken Ranch with input from everyone who’d been involved. “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” is great fun, but it tells the story in broad strokes at best. It’s entertainment, not history. Zindler was dead, and Sheriff Jim Flournoy had died back in the ‘80s. I went around for a year complaining that if somebody didn’t write the book, there wouldn’t be anybody left to talk to. Finally, my wife got fed up and told me to shut up and write the damn book myself.

This project has been an incredibly eye-opening experience. I’ve talked with people who were inside the brothel the day it was closed for good. I’ve learned that La Grange wasn’t unique by a long shot–there were lots of brothels in small-town Texas throughout the 20th century. The Chicken Ranch just kept its nose clean better than the others and cultivated a network of friends and allies throughout the state.

I’ve interviewed some former clients, and am currently talking with the son of a Texas Ranger who used to place as a source of intelligence. The only real dead end I’ve run into is finding women who are former employees of the brothel to interview. They’ve pretty effectively covered their tracks in the intervening decades, but there’s bound to be some out there willing to talk with me. Their part of the story is very important.

What’s next for you as far as genre-related works?

I’m working (or not, as the case may be) on several short stories, including another airship piece set in the milieu of “The Whale Below,” but the Chicken Ranch book is demanding so much of my time that I don’t know when they’ll be finished. My main ongoing fiction concern right now is a serialized experiment I’m publishing via a group blog I belong to, No Fear of the Future. The idea is to write and publish a story in 1,000-word increments without any preplanning or post-publication edits. I’m writing live, without a net, as it were, trying to replicate the Dickensian seat-of-your-pants creative element. When I sit down to write, I normally have no idea what’s coming next and this has led to some interesting twists. The tale–titled “Memory”–has become something of a Moorcockian universe-hopping adventure featuring a Scottish refugee from the battle of Culloden and reality-bending flying serpent. I think there’s a good bit of Jack Vance influence in there as well. It’s proven to be an interesting experiment, even if I don’t publish as regularly as I’d hoped. The first chapter of “Memory” can be found here.

Favorite San Antonio place?

San Antonio Homebrew Supply on St. Mary’s Street. It’s not the best homebrew supply store there is, granted. Their inventory can be spotty at times. But it’s a dingy, cluttered old bar with checker boards and disc golf equipment on the main floor. They serve ultra-microbrew at the bar and shut the place up as soon as the sun goes down. It’s unbelievable. Rationally, they should’ve gone belly-up long ago, yet they’ve persisted for years. I’m convinced there’s sympathetic magic at work there. It feels like a place with magic lurking in the walls. I love it.

Favorite food or drink that can be found nowhere else but SA?

This might be a cheat, but I’m going with Kiolbassa Sausage. It’s not found only in San Antonio–thank goodness–but it’s made in the Alamo City. I’m very picky when it comes to sausage. I don’t like it greasy, and by golly, I want it to have some flavor. We used to process our own venison sausage growing up that bordered on an out-of-body experience, and my grandmother in Cuero got this incredible melt-in-your-mouth pork sausage from a local meat market. Kiolbassa is the only mass-market sausage I’ve ever had that even comes close to those ace sausages. My family background’s got a lot of German, Polish and Czech there, so we don’t heap praise on sausage indiscriminately. Kiolbassa’s some good stuff.

The Overtime Theater has a new musical coming up and you could be a part of it! THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE is a new original horror/comedy/musical (and we need more of those) adapted from the ‘classic’ 1962 film of the same title. You may [Read it all...]]]>

The original "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" movie poster

The Overtime Theater has a new musical coming up and you could be a part of it! THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE is a new original horror/comedy/musical (and we need more of those) adapted from the ‘classic’ 1962 film of the same title. You may remember the film as the first movie that Mike Nelson watched on Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you don’t remember this nugget of cinema gold, you are in luck. This flick is now in the public domain and you can download it for free, legally, from the Internet Archive.

While the musical is not scheduled to be staged until October, the auditions start next week! If you are a singer/actor or actor/singer and have always wanted to be in a third-tier horror/sci-fi production then now is the time.

The setting is 1959 and a brilliant young surgeon is convinced that he can save his bride-to-be who has been decapitated in a fiery car wreck. The good doctor uses his experimental serum to keep her head alive while he looks for a suitable replacement transplant body. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is brought to you by the same team that was responsible for Sheer Bloody Lunacy! including director John Poole, composer Phillip Luna, and producer/lyricist Jon Gillespie. It will contain all of the overcooked dialogue, melodrama, and cheesy special effects of the movie, plus original songs, choreography, and much more!

Auditions are Monday July 20th from 7-10pm at the Overtime Theater (1216 West Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78201). Auditioners must be 17 or older and prepare 32 bars of a 1950s or 1970s pop song or show tune and bring a CD for accompaniment. You should be prepared to dance and do a reading of the script as well.

The Overtime is looking for 2 women in their 20s or 30s, 2 Men in their 20s or 30s, 1 man in his 30s or 40s and an ensemble of approximately 8 men and women. All actors must be able to sing well.

Rehersals begin in August, so now is your time to be a part of a unique theatre experience. Check the Overtime Theater’s web site for additional details or call John Poole at (210) 380-0326.

San Antonio resident and multi-Ditmar award-winning author Damien Broderick has a new story published in the August issue of ASIMOV’S, available now. “The Qualia Engine” is a full-length original novelette, and is featured along with new stories by Michael Blumlein, Derek Zumsteg, Robert Reed, Steven Popkes, Mary Robinette [Read it all...]]]>

ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION / August 2009

San Antonio resident and multi-Ditmar award-winning author Damien Broderick has a new story published in the August issue of ASIMOV’S, available now. “The Qualia Engine” is a full-length original novelette, and is featured along with new stories by Michael Blumlein, Derek Zumsteg, Robert Reed, Steven Popkes, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Broderick is the author of several new books including UNCLE BONES, I’M DYING HERE, and QUIPU.