August 2025: The Hornet Apocalypse

In the middle of July, we took the kids down to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. While we were out, a moving truck backed into the mature Japanese Maple on the corner of our property—ripping down a third of the tree—and then drove off. When we got home, we discovered a football-sized bald-faced hornet nest was now on the ground, broken open, and very active! That situation is dangerous enough that we had to have a professional exterminator come clear it up, in full bee suit and everything.

I’m fairly tired of dumb problems like this.

Anyway, here are some pics:

Writing

I’m publishing a new short story every month for a year. The second one is out now: Witness, a moody exploration of the aftermath of an obsessed writer’s sacrifice to an ancient god.

Here’s an excerpt:

The door stands ajar, beckoning, but nobody has entered, because nobody is now willing to approach this cursed place.
Even the yellow crime scene tape remains undisturbed.
Thin black filaments curl around the door frame, grasping, exploring, and a small voice, barely there, with a rasp like a breeze through dead leaves, beseeches from within:
Come to me.

You can read it here.

Reading

Adrienne Clark recommended me NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, and it turned out to be one of the most spot-on recs I’ve ever received. This is a horror novel with a deep and affecting empathy for its characters, filled with care and attention to the human condition. I so crave this kind of horror that makes me think more of people, not less.

I also read some real-world horror: They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer. It investigates the mindset of ordinary Germans during the Holocaust, exploring the question of how that could have been allowed to happen, and finding in the answer something that resonates powerfully today:

Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about— we were decent people— and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

The things being done by the people in power today are infuriating. Charlie Jane Anders has words for this in the last of my book-length reading for the month, Never Say You Can’t Survive:

If you’re angry, stay angry. Anger is the best fuel for writing, emotion, plot, comedy, and everything else. Channel that energy into stories. Use your anger to create something so beautiful, people will cry all over the page.

Short fiction

I stumbled upon this incredible solarpunk short, Saltwater Billionaire, which deftly explores themes of immortality and environmental stewardship. It’s available to read for free, and it’s well worth your time. Here’s an excerpt:

So they took matters into their own hands. Specifically, they took you, and all the rest of the bastards rich enough to afford technological immortality, and they hauled you up onto a sunny hill and—
“So what did you get?”
“What?”
“You know. The species. You got.”
“I dunno. Some Latin bullshit. Does it even matter?”
Is what you’re about to send. But then you remember: now you die when the last individual of that species dies. So it really, really does.

Read it here.

Community

Uncanny Magazine is running their Year 12 Kickstarter. They’re my favorite magazine for speculative fiction, and they absolutely deserve your support. Plus, you get to be a Space Unicorn! Contribute here before August 6. 💫🦄

DreamForge Magazine is running their Year 7 Kickstarter. Their mission is hope, which resonates powerfully in these times. Contribute here before August 8.

Upcoming

I’ll be at Bridges Book Fair at the Owen Beach Pavilion in Tacoma on Saturday, August 9.

I’ll be at the Puget Sound Book Festival on the Bremerton Boardwalk Waterfront on Sunday, August 10.

I’ll be at Worldcon in Seattle for at least some of the time between August 13-17; I’m still working out my exact schedule.

And I’m aiming to publish another horror short near the end of August.