“Just take a bite.” She appraised him suspiciously, then dropped her jaw like a snake and bit into the pitaya’s flesh. “What is this?” she mumbled around ravenous bites. “It’s called a pitaya. Tons of vitamin C and calcium. Our scientists blended in genes from a legume to—.” A wet mouthful of pulp flew across … More The Science of “Syzygy”: Genetic Engineering
No longer content to misshelve his favorite fictions in the non-fiction section of our national discourse, our new Librarian in Chief now wants to ban the entire 500 class of the Dewey decimal system: science. Last week the Trump administration issued a so-called “gag order” banning federal science institutions—including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Agriculture, and Department of … More Sci-Fi Strikes Back: How Genre Fiction Can Combat Scientific Censorship
After a wild winter here in the mid-Atlantic, spring has finally arrived. Daffodils bob on the highway medians, the famous local cherry trees cast pink carpets under my feet when I run, and my Laddie gulps allergy pills with his morning coffee. I can’t wait to get my hands in the soil, but for the … More Cultivating Plots: How to Grow your Series
“Think of it as the literature museum,” my father told me when I was fifteen. I was a dually-enrolled high school student at the local college, and frustrated with some of the ideas I encountered in the curriculum’s so-called classic novels. Dad, a veteran English major himself, helped me contextualize the antiquated stories by likening … More The Literature Museum: Sci-Fi and Sexism
After several weeks of compulsive reading, I just finished the Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy. Few series are engrossing enough to compel me to read all of them in succession, but this one joins The Warlord Chronicles and The Hunger Games trilogies on my short list of exceptions. Even if dystopian fiction isn’t your thing, it’s … More Review: The Maddaddam Trilogy
Wild Type 