Entitlement mentality

This post is mostly for my own benefit, feel free to skip over it if you’re not interested in my dusty brain’s internal gear grindings. As I’ve been researching the current state of the biotech debate for my next two books, I’ve run up against a broad cultural trend that should provide me some good material for future Reprobates Hour episodes (I’m currently prepping Season 3 – - but more on that later).
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Aging and death: Desirable , necessary evils, or preventable dysfunctions?

As part of the research for one of the new books I’m working on, I’m coming up to speed on the state of the art in biotech, nanotech, gerontology, and bioethics. As such, I’ll be posting periodically links to speeches, lectures, and articles I find germane to the topic so that I can find them easily for reference. I might also do a few articles as I get a deeper grasp on the topic.

This first order of business is this lecture from William Hurlbut, and represents probably the best, most nuanced articulation I’ve heard of the bioconservative case. Does anyone else find it distressing that the part he reads from the President’s Report at the end (which he authored) sounds much more like something you’d get out of a Romantic poet than like something you should get out of a scientist?

Publications and Media Appearances

I’ve updated my Publications and Media Appearances pages to reflect recent article sales which I’ve been too busy to blog about as they came out, and to list some recent places you can hear me opine about archaic and interesting things. Click on the links in the menu above, and enjoy!

The Man In The Rain

So, after finishing Predestination, and getting the last of the edits in this week from my readers, I’m well on the way to recording and mixing it for the podcast. It’s going to be a near thing making a June release date, but so far it looks good.

Along those lines, I’m looking for readers to read different parts. I’ve got all of the leads cast but one, so I’m mostly down to minor characters with between one and eight scenes. We’re doing this production full-cast audio book style, so the guest voices only read the direct thoughts and spoken words of their characters, while I’ll be doing the narration.

Once I get the rest of the recording done, I can move on to the next two novels – currently, I’m looking at starting the second draft of Antithesis book 2: Free Will and Other Compulsions, and novelizing Down From Ten, but I may step back from the novelization of Down From Ten to write a little urban fantasy book that’s been percolating in the back of my mind. I won’t say more yet, other than it may turn out to be a good YA novel – and if it does, that’ll open up a whole new can of worms for me in terms of markets to learn!

Finally, as per the title of this post, the new Sculpting God story is finished. For the next episode I’ll be deviating somewhat from the normal formula of standalone stories to bring you a future noir set in the jungle featuring characters from Predestination, in a story called “The Man In The Rain.” I’ll be recording it tomorrow and posting over the week as time permits, and you should get it sometime towards the weekend. After this, and perhaps one or two further stories, Sculpting God will go on a brief hiatus while I get far enough ahead on Predestination that I can spool the episodes out on a dependable weekly basis. Once that’s done, Sculpting God will come back with another eight to ten stories, most of which will be two parters or better.

That’s it for today – more stuff coming soon. Also, thanks to the lovely Gail Carriger for the link to the site. She’s an up-and-coming author in the paranormal and steampunk romance categories – keep your eye on her!

I’ve Been Blogged

I was discussing the results of the Democratic delegate tally today with my friend Ian Gowen. Little did I know that the man is a burgeoning Cory Doctorow, blogging everything. So, if any of you are interested in my terribly unpredictable (yeah right) analysis of the situation, take a gander at Ian’s blog.

Satan Teaches Sunday School

My latest appearance out and about in the podosphere is on The Reason Driven Podcast, where I discuss Satan. We go to and fro from the real history of the devil as told in the Bible (it’s not what you heard in church), the history of the devil as a literary character, and the gestalt value of the Satan archetype as it appears in everyday life.

If you’ve ever wondered why Satan is working for God in the book of Job, or if you’d like to hear me defend the statements “I’m an athiest, but I believe in Satan” or “Satan is the friend everyone wishes they had,” tune in. It is many things, but dull ain’t one of them.

Do you have a soul?

I’ve been around the block a few times, mostly chasing wayward dogs who escaped from their enclosures. Zach Moore evidently mistook this for some kind of expertise and asked your humble soulless narrator to engage in a discussion about whether or not humans actually have souls in the first place.

So, is the mind a product of the brain? Is it the same thing as the brain? Is it something else entirely that merely interacts with the brain? Well…nobody knows for sure. But everyone has an opinion. If you want to hear how mine stacks up against a psychologist, a neuroscientist, a geneticist, and a youth minister, check out the new Apologia and our extensive, in-depth roundtable discussion of the mind/body problem.