Vampires and Robots

Friday the 13th is one of my favorite quasi-holidays, especially since we get to focus on weird and spooky things. This Friday is not exception! I'm spreading the word about a fun new middle grade book that launches on Friday the 13th and promises to be a great start to a series: Five children find themselves stuck in a beautiful jungle on a strange planet. But all is not as peaceful as it first appears… Twelve-year-old Charlotte has been different all her life. It isn’t just that her father left when she was a child, or her mother ignores her. What really makes her an outsider is the fact that she has strange abilities that she can’t explain and struggles to control. Everything changes in the summer of 1993 when she feels drawn to a certain spot outside of town. Unfortunately, she isn’t alone when things go sideways. When the children realize they are definitely not on Earth anymore, they have to learn not only how to fend for themselves, but how to get along. The pr

Well folks, this is it. The future, that is, the real future, is finally here. It's not just smart phones and high powered gaming computers anymore. No, we aren't yet flying our cars, but look around you, it has begun. The automated home of the future past has become commonplace. Except now we call it the smart home because we know that complimenting and stroking the AI ego is simply good practice lest we accidentally set off the inevitable robot uprising with a thoughtless, pre-coffee insult. It's a good thing there's a diploma course for just such a scenario. But all jokes aside, what a truly inspiring and terrifying time to be alive. To clarify, I'm not talking about the terror of 50 ft tall Killbots coming to destroy the world.  In his best Urkle voice: "Did I do that?" (Art by David M. Kelly ) I'm talking about the mundane terror that scifi tends to gloss over in chosing to focus on the sexier issues of robot rights and saving th