On islands and shadows

So I’d promised a little more background on the two new Malay Mysteries books, Island of Glass and Ashes and Sita’s Shadow and Other Stories. Island is a weird book. I responded with a mixture of sheepishness and bafflement as the first two Malay Mysteries...

A troll of one’s own

Jen Contino’s interview of me for The PULSE is up. She very sweetly chose not to cut a single bit even though I held forth at tedious length. I got to talk about the secret origins of The Malay Mysteries, who my characters are based on, and how it felt to be...

Technoporn

In his brilliant “science fictional autobiography” (Astounding Days, which I highly recommend), Arthur C. Clarke recalls a lecture he delivered at MIT. This was during the 80s, at the height of the Reagan Administration and its so-called “Strategic...

Bruce Jones, the Dead Damn Rat, and other pranks

For some reason I can’t quite put together, I woke up today chuckling over some dreadful pranks a niece of mine and I engineered in our younger days. One summer while I was visiting India (this was years and years ago), she told me of the tyranny of her school...

Alexander the Great vs. the Taliban

It was around 9 or 10pm in Tokyo on September 11th when a friend sent me an instant message. She works in the West Village, within sight of what, one year ago, used to be the World Trade Center. “A small plane just crashed into one of the Trade Towers....