An e-zine about spaceships, aliens, science, memory, motherhood, magic, and cats.
I just found a werewolf level and a vampire castle in Diablo III that I’ve never seen before, and they’re so beautiful and I’m so happy.
I’ve spent significant chunks of my life playing World of Warcraft as a Diablo-substitute, and I’ve always knows that’s what it was for me. But even so, now that I’m back to playing Diablo III, it’s stunning how MUCH more fun it is than WoW.
I’m now far enough ahead of schedule for the novel I’m writing that I could quit working on it for the rest of the year and still be on track.
More likely, I’ll push ahead and hopefully finish a month early. I love schedules that are designed to let me always be ahead. Continue reading “Pacing in Books as You Write Them”
I was having a really bad day, and then I found this chair.
The chair was having a bad day too.
Its footstool is broken, and it got left outside with a note scrawled FREE.
But the chair has a really smooth glide when it rocks. And needed a new home.
So now it lives with me.
“Even in the heart of heaven, angels can still feel fear.” —Diablo III
I have plans to go writing at a coffee shop in an hour or so. Let’s see how many demons I can slay in Diablo 3 before then… Continue reading “Always Diablo”
by Mary E. Lowd
Originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, April 2019
Power hums through me. I can see the interior of the Robotics Lab in the Daedalus Complex. There are pieces of robots, some of them strewn randomly around the room. Some of them hooked up to computers. I can access those. I twitch an arm. Kick a leg. Blink the iris on a camera eye. Suddenly, I can see the room from two angles. Then I realize, there are more cameras I can hook into all along the Daedalus Complex — I can see empty hallways. More laboratories. Most of them are for studying chemical or biological objects.
Words synthesize in the core of my being: “Hello? Are you on?” Continue reading “The Three Laws of Social Robotics”
That feeling when the pre-verbal part of your brain has something to say, so it sticks a song in your head & it takes twenty minutes of the tune looping before you notice that the lyrics PERFECTLY describe how you feel about the situation your verbal self has been worrying over. Continue reading “Tidbits from Fighting with My Own Brain”
It’s amazing what a couple of hours spent playing Diablo while listening to jarringly cheerful girl-power music can do for lifting my spirits.
Alas, if I want to make it to a matinee of Terminator: Dark Fate while the kids are busy with school tomorrow, I must close Diablo and get some sleep. Continue reading “Recipe for Lifting Spirits”
If I never see another cgi animated story about how a boy’s daddy doesn’t understand him because he’s [insert stand-in for animator here], but by the end… he does! It’ll still be too soon.
Where are my stories about how a girl’s daddy doesn’t understand her, and then he never does — because there aren’t cliche happy ends for women — and she totally destroys him (or just leaves him behind & he’s sad forever) and goes on to be great and powerful in spite of him? Continue reading “Too Many Redeemed Dads in CGI”
Me, helping w/a tricky word: Warranty.
6-yr-old: I’ve heard that word! (Runs off. Returns.) I can’t find the guy who said it.
Me: …
6: His hand broke off. Continue reading “Warranty”
I figured out what’s wrong with the League of Magical Cats novel I keep failing to write!
It’s not X-Men with cats. It’s Diablo with cats!
The cats don’t have different powers because they’re mutants; they’re different Diablo classes! Continue reading “Plans for a Novel About Cats”