It’s been a long time since I’ve checked in here, but I’m delighted to announce that my new short story “The Weight of Oceans” is now available in the July/August 2024 issue of Asimov’s SF. You can subscribe through the website or find the issue in major bookstores.

It’s great to be published in Asimov’s again. I have a long history with the magazine, beginning with my receiving the Dell Award (known as the Asimov award in my time) for my writing while at USAFA. It only took me 20 more years to finally get published in Asimov’s, with my 2023 story The Repair.

It’s funny…  I generally approach writing stories like an engineer or carpenter. I brainstorm ideas, sketch out characters, develop initial plotlines, and then set to work writing. The story always takes on a life of its own, but this initial engineering work provides a kind of scaffolding that gives the story shape. I’ve written many stories this way, but the only two stories I’ve sold to Asimov’s began with a completely different approach. Both originated as unplanned “freewrites”, in which I simply sat down with a notebook and started scribbling out a scene. With “The Repair”, I wanted to try writing a single cyberpunk scene. I had no plan for turning it into a story, nor any idea where that first scene would lead. Only over time did I discover what the story was actually about. It was a humbling and almost frightening lesson about the power of the unconscious to guide creativity.

“The Weight of Oceans” had even less thought behind it; I sat down to freewrite to warm up my creative muscles. Somehow, the image came to me of two women in a bar fight. I was in a fiesty mood and ran with it. The words kept flowing. I’d recently been telling a friend that the zeitgeist of contemporary science fiction often involves strong independent characters standing up to soulless and abusive capitalist machinery, so I decided to try taking this story in that direction. It was tricky, because as a military officer and political scientist who reveres capitalism’s achievements even as I detest its faults, I hold a much more nuanced view than many other SF authors do. Fortunately, I was pleased with the story that emerged. There was a particular moment during revisions when my impression went from “this is really weak, but I should just see it through” to “wow, this is actually pretty good.”

Ultimately, this story explores the common feeling that the world’s challenges are bigger than we can comprehend or manage. It asks how we can find hope and agency, when we are holding back… THE WEIGHT OF OCEANS.