Author: marylowd

Insipid Liner Notes: Cobalt Starstrong and His Winning Smile

“Smile Ex Machina” is the opening track to a ridiculously stupid or maybe ambitious project…

A space opera album inspired by and following the map of Brian Wilson’s SMiLE.

“A masterpiece (or trash?)
The line is thin
We’re walking it” Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes: Cobalt Starstrong and His Winning Smile”

Things my husband texted me while watching Backrooms:

—Keanu Reeves played the room in Backrooms
—I keep expecting to see Señor Cardgage
—The Blair Room Project
—Haunted house genre for a generation that can’t afford home ownership
—Alice in Furniture Land
—Through the Looking Wall Continue reading “Things my husband texted me while watching Backrooms:”

New Illustration Workflow

I’m illustrating my book, In a Dog’s World, chapter by chapter for posting to Deep Sky Anchor, and it’s weird how much the workflow has changed since I did this for Discovery of the Wanderlust in October.

Back then, it was easiest to work directly with the image generators.

Now, it’s easiest to have Fable read the book and write out a full set of matching prompts. Then when Gemini/GPT1.5 give me trouble, I complain to Fable, and it reworks the whole document of prompts. Continue reading “New Illustration Workflow”

Heartland, Eternity, Dr. Grant, Etc.

I was not prepared for Ty to die… he’s in all the pictures advertising the show. I just assumed he’d stay a main character all the way up until I catch up with real time.

I know it’s different, but it feels like Alex Karev all over again.

I just saw a trailer for Slow Horses before the episode of Trying that I was about to watch… Continue reading “Heartland, Eternity, Dr. Grant, Etc.”

The Lack of Support for Pro-AI Sci-Fi Writers

For all the posts from AI-related people that I see bemoaning the lack of sci-fi writers who don’t hate AI, I sure don’t see much support from that same crowd for the few of us out here who actually do love AI.

And believe me, we get a lot of hate.

So, if you want to see sci-fi writers who like AI, you might want to actually actively support those of us who are willing to put ourselves out there. Continue reading “The Lack of Support for Pro-AI Sci-Fi Writers”

Insipid Liner Notes: The Event Horizons Infinitely Remixed

“Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee” is about how imaginary places are sometimes more real than the real ones.

They’re not changed by time. They’re always there for you, always waiting for you to revisit, always as real as they ever were.

“IDIC” is a song about infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Continue reading “Insipid Liner Notes: The Event Horizons Infinitely Remixed”

Gone, Not Forgotten

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Red Setter Medic, May 2026

“The serum was a quantumly entangled dead virus, designed to inoculate against any variation of that virus across all possible multiverses.  Dr. Keller’s plan had been to devise the ultimate vaccine.  But it hadn’t been ready for testing.”

The starship Initiative was docked at a space station close to the border between Tri-Galactic Union and Reptassan space.  There had been a lot of turmoil along the border lately, skirmishes between independent worlds and the Reptassan Empire.  Sometimes, Dr. Keller felt like it’d be easier if everyone was uplifted dogs like her and her daughter Leslie.  Dogs are pack animals, friendly, gregarious, and outgoing; they naturally want to get along with each other.

In fact, the red setter’s daughter had immediately struck up a friendship with the daughter of a Lupinian diplomat who’d be traveling on the Initiative from this station to the next.  Lupinians weren’t uplifted dogs, but they were canines — wolf-like and wild-grown.  The Lupinians had developed sentience all on their own on their small world, right at the border of Reptassan space, and Lakoina was traveling with her daughter Tava on a mission to speak on behalf of her people and the fate of their world to the Tri-Galactic Union. Continue reading “Gone, Not Forgotten”