All posts by Mike

Adventures and mishaps in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery
Jack London, Publication day, Science fiction

At the Edge of the Crater

10 Comments

I’m pleased to announce that the winter issue of Tales from the Crosstimbers is now available on Amazon. It includes my story “At the Edge of the Crater.”

Jak, a newcomer to the mining colony on the asteroid 16 Psyche, ignores his partner’s warning not to travel alone into the asteroid’s Badlands. There’s a rich new vein of iridium to claim, and Jak wants first pick. All he has to do to win the race is to venture into a forbidding impact crater.

I wrote this tale as a futuristic version of “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. In “Crater,” the protagonist lets greed drown out the warnings of his more experienced partner. Space, like all of nature, often overwhelms us with its beauty and mystery but can also snuff out human life in an instant. To understand ourselves, and to grasp our place in the universe, we must realize we are mites compared to the limitless expanse of space. Survival is a struggle, one best waged with friends at our side.

Tales from the Crosstimbers features speculative tales “grounded in strong characters interacting with a gritty, realistic world.” So it’s the perfect venue for this story. I’m honored to be included with this line-up of authors.

Modern life, Nature

On the origin of species

14 Comments

Charles Darwin’s landmark book On the Origin of Species was first published on this date in 1859.

We haven’t been the same since.

As E. O. Wilson tells us, science provides “more solidly grounded answers” to life’s mysteries. Not only has the theory of evolution transformed science, it has also given us a powerful lens for examining ourselves. Sadly, we remain blind to Darwin’s foundational message, that humans are not invaders but a part of nature. This continued isolation from the natural world has dire consequences, as this recent article from Science Daily warns us:

“A new study by evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw (University of Zurich) and Daniel Longman (Loughborough University) argues that the pace of modern living has moved faster than human evolution can follow. According to their work, many chronic stress problems and a wide range of contemporary health concerns may stem from a mismatch between biology shaped in natural settings and the highly industrialized world people occupy today.

That means the mismatch between our evolved physiology and modern conditions is unlikely to resolve itself naturally. Instead, the researchers argue, societies need to mitigate these effects by rethinking their relationship with nature and designing healthier, more sustainable environments.”

What to do? We must recognize our relationship with nature. The places we live must be reimagined and revamped so they resemble our hunter-gatherer past. More green spaces, more walkways, less dependence on cars, more opportunities to see nature maturing and blossoming before us.

But the first, most essential step is to open our eyes and see what we truly are.

Poetry, Publication day

On the Train from Charlotte

4 Comments

And now for something completely different: Poetry. Yes, it’s a new endeavor for me, a craft I’ve only dabbled in (such as this silly piece for the Charlotte Observer).

My poem “On the Train from Charlotte” is included in the latest Metaworker, a spunky little journal that has been featuring fiction and poetry since 2015. Here’s the magazine’s mission statement:

“Driven by passion, our fires are fanned by sharing engaging stories that aren’t afraid to put a spin on rules of craft, spit in the eye of convention, and provoke in ways that surprise, challenge, or enchant. We hope our readers leave the page with experiences that you can take back into your daily life, maybe even change a perspective you didn’t know you had.”

I hope “On the Train from Charlotte” affects you the same way.

Language, Literature

Reading for life

15 Comments
Story

The latest findings on American literacy are troubling, and not just for educators and authors:

The number of Americans who read for pleasure has fallen by 40%, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Florida and University College London have found that between 2003 and 2023, daily reading for reasons other than work and study fell by about 3% each year.

Many causes contribute to this unsettling trend. More “how to” advice is presented in the form of videos rather than text. Often, when you’re trying to read a news story online, pop-up videos vie for your attention. Video games, with their numbing sound effects and over-the-top visuals, offer seductive, but mindless, distraction. How are books to compete?

And again, the effects are far-reaching. Written language is the bedrock of an advanced civilization. The wisdom of past generations boosts the available information to the present generation, freeing us from having to re-invent the wheel.

Just as important, language binds us to one another, helping us see ourselves in context. Reading stories opens our eyes, letting us see we’re not alone facing problems.

Finally, each of us is a story, a cohesive narrative that makes sense of our memories, good and bad, as well as our aspirations. Lacking that narrative, we fall apart. Little wonder so many people feel isolated, disconnected, not just from others, but from themselves. When children agonize about being born in the wrong body, they’re yearning for a cohesive identity, which helps define purpose.

A culture that actively promotes atomizing society into disjointed, isolated individuals needs medical attention. The humanizing power of language is just what the doctor ordered.

Adventure, Book review, Manly Wade Wellman, Southern Fiction

Cahena

8 Comments

In his foreword to Cahena: A Dream of the Past, Manly Wade Wellman describes the last novel of his brilliant and prolific career as an historical novel. That’s mostly true. The book is rich in historical details, from the hardscrabble life of the Berbers to their preparations for battle, which are especially vivid and convincing. But this intriguing tale is also spiked with the sorcerous, including a demon that stalks the camps searching out doomed warriors, and a vampire.

The tale revolves around the military leader and enchantress known as the Cahena, who leads her people against invading Muslims from the east. The setting is north Africa around the beginning of the eighth century. The novel is told from the point of view of Wulf, a Saxon career soldier whose military prowess earns the Cahena’s trust, boosting him to the position of advisor and later her lover. The story moves smoothly and forcefully through military campaigns and romantic complications.

This book is a treasure to be enjoyed, from the gorgeous cover to the bittersweet conclusion. Brace yourself for realistic action, romance, betrayal, and heroism. History aficionados will especially appreciate the well-researched details of training and organizing an army. Call it historical fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, or historical romance, it delivers an entertaining, gripping tale.

Kudos to DMR Books for keeping Wellman’s legacy alive.

History, Southern Fiction

July 3, 1863

4 Comments

“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet.”

William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

Publication day, Science fiction

A Rookie Mistake

23 Comments

I’m pleased to announce the latest issue of Tales from the Crosstimbers is now available on Amazon. It includes my story “A Rookie Mistake.”

Deputy Malcolm Lamb, the newest member of the marshal’s office on the rowdy mining asteroid Psyche, gets a chance to prove himself to the older deputies when he’s sent to find a stolen minebot. But when he finally catches up with the culprit, he’s forced to question where his duty lies. The choice he makes shows heroic action can spring from simple kindness, from our realization we are connected to others.

I’ve long imagined what mining would be like in the asteroid belt, a vast region rich with precious metals, yet forbidding and treacherous. To me, the combination of grizzled prospectors of the Old West and space exploration is endlessly fascinating. My first foray to the asteroid Psyche was “The Calculus of Karma,” the cover story in the June, 2020 issue of Mystery Weekly Magazine.

The return trip there was long overdue, and I’m thrilled with the result. Check it out! It’s available on Amazon as a Kindle or paperback.

Science fiction, Television

That First Job

15 Comments

Here’s a picture of me from 1975. I’m at the video board at WGHP TV in High Point, North Carolina. Weekends and summers in high school and college, I worked at the local TV station, running the projector and editing films. I got to see a lot of classic movies, especially the horror and science fiction films we featured on Shock Theater, which aired Saturday at midnight.

That first job makes a lasting impact, often in ways we don’t recognize. Like many truths about ourselves, it often takes an outsider to point that out. For example. I was pleasantly surprised by this review of Aztec Midnight, my first book:

“Tuggle skillfully ends most of his sections with hooks redolent of the weekly movie suspense serials that provided filler between Saturday matinee double features.” — Gordon Osmond, author of Slipping on Stardust

As soon as I read it I realized Osmond was right. I’d absorbed many of the tropes from the science fiction movies I’d edited, and as a kid, loved watching “B” serial films like Rocket Man.

Recreating the fun and adventure of those old classics remains my goal in the stories I write today. And if they get published? Why, that’s just icing on the cake.