Christopher McKitterick - he/they. Science fiction, writing tips, cute animals, equality, astronomy, mental health, the human condition. No AI slop. Writer, educator, editor, intersectional feminist, autodidact, neurodivergent, animal rescuer, & director of the Ad Astra SF Institute. My fiction won the AnLab Reader's Award. Fandoms: Alien, A:TLA, Babylon 5, Leverage, MM:Fury Road, Star Trek, etc. Doing what I can to make our world better. Curated tags for my students & y'all. Many thanks to patrons supporting posts here & on Patreon!
I’m stoked to announce the launch of my newest fiction series:
my novel, Empire Ship, begins dropping in weekly installments on my Patreon next week!
my darling wife Lauren and wonderful friend Kij convinced me this novel is ready for prime-time, so I’ll begin shopping it around soon. in the meantime, my patrons will see chapters every Monday morning starting December 15
> the elevator pitch <
Hard-edged far-future space opera. A menace from the ancient past threatens galactic civilization. Aboard a continent-sized Empire Ship, a boy comes of age in a society that hardens them into weapons, while the marooned ship’s captain schemes to resurrect the long-collapsed Empire by building a new fleet from the bones of a frontier planet. Meanwhile, a woman in control of galactic society’s security forces launches a mission to end this newly discovered threat and must make hard choices about how best to save the human species - as well as her father - from not only the nascent Empire but also her sadistic boss (while teaching a couple of psychopaths about loyalty and love… sorta).
so, a book about the many flavors of threat we face - and hopes we reach for - even in our time. but set in space. with huge, organic spaceships and nigh-indestructible operatives having really f*cked-up relationships
a friend of mine who read it in early draft form said the main villain (not one of the Empire guys) is the most-memorable horror character he’s ever read. that’s possibly the nicest thing he could have said (this friend loves and writes horror)
I’ve given public readings from the Putt & Dank sections (those are the two that Mare Noma needs to corral in everyone’s best interests), because I find Putt’s voice especially fun to read
if you’d like to hear more, I write a lot about the book, the personal challenges around bringing it to life, my baby’s first birthday, and more in a public post on my Patreon blog here: X
I’ll likely share more about the hell this book and I went through in the months to come, along with the weekly installments. I have to make it patrons-only because I hope to publish it traditionally, and publishers don’t usually consider something that’s publicly available
of course, if the traditional-pub cliff ends up looking too tall to climb (or presents more of the kind of nonsense this book has already faced), I’ll do a special self-published or small-press version
of course after it’s out, expect a non-DRM ebook version to be freely available, as always with my stuff
Ad Astra!
privileged to be a beta reader for this, now I can tell everyone to go read it
The sounds awesome! I’ve sworn off Patreon until I get a job again (it has been a YEAR, I am hyperventilating 24/7), but this is definitely on my do-want list when it’s available to me.
When you try to book a flight on Chase rewards and key in the exact code for the airport you want to go to, it suggests a bunch of non-matching airports, and puts the exact match like 10 options down.
I’ve noticed that in other apps too. Quite suddenly, like maybe it’s new behavior in a commonly deployed widget?
Also, file search in a beloved program went to hell after a recent update. It now always returns results, even if nothing matches. Infuriating.
Searches has gotten way worse in recent years on every platform. I suspect Al.
Like I’ll search for something like “green horses” and instead of getting hue-challenged animals I get things that are green, and also some pictures of horses.
“On the last day of autumn, before the first frost, find the Elder Oak on the island in the saltless sea, and offer up your most prized treasure. If your offering is accepted, your deepest wish will be granted. But if your offering is rejected, your skin will turn to bark and your limbs will harden to wood.”
Inspired by a walk through the woods in my new backyard in Sweden! The oak trees here are very different from the ones I’m used to in California and I’m constantly mesmerized by the beautiful twisting branches~
my favorite calvin and hobbes comic is the one where his dad just rolls up and casually destroys his entire night by pointing out some neat trivia about record players
are you sure. are you sure calvin’s dad is not a seasoned elder trickster. are you sure this isn’t the exact outcome he was hoping for
ok but that’s actually canon
You forgot this one
*looks pointedly at ETD*
Calvin’s dad is basically a Calvin who has learned that he can’t get away with running outside naked or throwing snowballs at neighborhood girls, but he is still precisely the same little shit under the thin veneer of civilization.
@lyricwritesproseCalvin and Hobbes has been one of my favorite things since I could read and Calvin’s dad one of my favorite characters, but that last comment blew my mind wide open. Of course that’s what he is. Of course.
one of the most subtly delightful things about calvin and hobbes is that you can SEE that calvin is his parents’ kid: his dad is so playful and imaginative, and his mom has a heck of a temper and a good sense of what’s right and wrong. calvin is a smart, passionate, imaginative kid who gets really upset when he thinks things are stupid or unfair. he drives his parents crazy sometimes because he’s a kid. but they were probably a lot like calvin themselves, when they were little.
how it feels deleting the ?source=share from a link you copied to deny them the extra bit of analytics
Link Cleaner is a web app that removes tracking code, search parameters, and other data from URL links. It’s a great way to shorten links for text chats, sharing in social media posts, or embedding in documents and articles.
It also exists as an app, which you can find linked in the webpage directly.
removing tracker data not only removes info about you and your relationship with whomever you share a link with for advertisers, it helps protect people from worse forms of surveillance, too - something we all need to consider in this time of rising tyranny
Do you ever have that moment of horror when you remember that every horrible thing that you’ve ever heard about in history was an actual, extant moment in time that someone exactly as real as you are had to live through?
Anyway, don’t know why I’m thinking of this now, haha.
And! People ! Survived!
It is bad. If you understand that, you have correctly assessed the situation.
But you are born of people who survived. And it IS still survivable.
Unfortunately I don’t know you or your situation. But you do. And you absolutely can make it through this.
Historians are fascinated by deaths, but history has far more survivors. Go and join them. You can do it, and history believes in you.
ALT
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