Mahlia... understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village. He wasn't trying to change them. He wasn't trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently. She thought she'd been surviving. She thought that she'd been fighting for herself. But all she'd done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon ... not for their lives, but for their souls

Plenty of people say my guesses about a future drought in the western U.S. (where I live and grew up) are wrong, so I don't see why I won't be wrong in some people's eyes when I go set a story on foreign shores.

Blood is not destiny.

For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus.

But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.

Knowledge is always two-edged. For every benefit, there is hazard. For every good, evil.

The surfeit of bad trends pushes me to set my stories in worlds which are often diminished versions of our own present.