I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t read the seminal sci-fi novel Dune until recently. I’ve been told Dune is to sci-fi what Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. Given Dune‘s impact, it’s not an unfair comparison. Having written a sci-fi novel myself due to be published here in just a few weeks, …
I was told by a friend who’s already passed the somehow both meaningful and yet meaningless benchmark that is 30 years since entering this world naked and screaming that both my muscle strength and bone density would halve at midnight. I don’t believe that happened, but then again perhaps one’s mental faculties also drop in …
I recently finished The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemisin, the second novel in her Dreamblood duology. Perhaps that is why romance in fiction is on my mind. Without naming names, though this probably still amounts to a bit of a spoiler, it employs the age old, and by all means effective, arc of enemies …
I attempted to hike a 14’er last week. For those not indoctrinated by the outdoorsy culture, a 14’er is shorthand for a mountain summit that exceeds 14,000 feet, an elevation where oxygen is in shorter supply than confidence at a middle school dance. There were many small breaks to catch my breath, as much as …
In my last post I mentioned moving across the country for graduate school. Well, cut to over two years later and I have both graduated with a Masters in Applied Mathematics and slunk back to the corporate overlords in order to pay off the school loans I had to take. I joke but in actuality …
I recently read the story Chisel and Chime by Alex Irvine, a short story in the January/February edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and two facets of the world stood out to me. First, every person was born with a magical spark that could be spent in a myriad of ways but also couldn’t be …
Back when I was taking creative writing classes in college, I remember a professor steeped in the world of literary fiction asking me why I needed such outlandish settings and convoluted plot in both the stories I wrote and the ones I most preferred to read. My first thought was how everything is relative. The …
Welcome to the first blog post on the shiny new M. Weald website! Cue the imaginary sounding of a trumpet, the warbling of a synth, the plucking of a guitar, the beating of drums, the slapping of a bass or the sounds of a madman plinking away at whatever instrument you think best goes with …
M. Weald 