hope

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POINT OF VIEW: Planning for the After-Time

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sprouting hope - pixabay

Mark and I speak of the Before Time with awe, in hushed voices. The time when things still seemed normal, whatever that was. When we thought nothing of packing ourselves into a crowded movie theater to see the latest film, or of going out to dinner afterwards and breathing the same air as a hundred other restaurant-goers. Before the pandemic-related words invaded the language – masking, anti-maskers, double-vaxxed, triple-vaxxed, anti vaxxers, boosted, pfizer, moderna, mrna, protein spikes, aerosolized droplets, and so many more. It seems impossible that we will ever go back to that time, which seems strangely innocent now. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Lemons

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Lemons - Pixabay

“When Life gives you lemons…” Life has given us a lot of lemons lately. There’s a war on in Europe. There’s a never-ending plague. My writing career seems to be stalled in second gear, as I try to finish a trilogy that has consumed my life for nigh on two years. And real estate prices are raging like a five-alarm fire here in Sacramento. It’s dawning on us that we will probably never own a home again. All of this fills me like a fog on a cold winter’s day. Somehow I need to have hope. Somehow I need to … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: I’m a Trafficker

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Drug Trafficker - Deposit Photos

Confession time. I’m a trafficker. You may have seen me, lurking around the dark corners of the internet, hand in pocket, waiting to share the drug so many of you desperately need right now. It’s called Hope. Peddling Hope is a dubious business these days. Hope has so much competition – sarcasm, cynicism, gaslighting and outright lies, anger, and fraud. Hope has it tough, what with the four horsemen of the apocalypse loose on the Earth. What chance does little old Hope have? There’s this psychological thing I ran across shortly after the lockdowns started. It’s called “sense of a … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Thirteen Years (Or Twenty-Nine Years) Later

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Mark Scott Wedding

Thirteen years ago today, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I had the most amazing day of my life. I married my prince, my one true love, on a beautiful terrace in front of our closest family. It was our second wedding – the first was a hastily-arranged affair four years earlier, when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom threw open the doors of City Hall for gay and lesbian couples for the first time. And while that one didn’t stick, this one did, and remains one of the sweetest and most precious moments of my life. I still remember vividly … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Long Bleak August of the Soul

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Green Plant in Bleak Desolation - Deposit Photos

It’s been a bad month. Out in the world, fires are burning up the very trees we need to slow climate change, sending clouds of choking smoke into the air and filling the Sacramento valley with a nasty orange haze. Hurricanes are supercharging over the gulf and bringing torrential rains to the places that need it least, flooding people out of their homes. Religious extremists are taking over a country and shoving women and gays back into their respective closets. Covid, in the form of the cursed “Delta Variant,” rages on against a backdrop of idiocy, hatred, horse dewormer, and … Read more

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REVIEW: Dropnauts – J. Scott Coatsworth

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Dropnauts

J. Scott Coatsworth has a new queer sci-fi book out in his Liminal Sky universe: Dropnauts. And there’s a giveaway! Life after the Crash. Over a century after the end of the Earth, life goes on in Redemption, the sole remaining Lunar colony, and possibly the last outpost of humankind in the Solar System. But with an existential threat burrowing its way into the Moon’s core, humanity must recolonize the homeworld. Twenty brave dropnauts set off on a mission to explore the empty planet. Four of them—Rai, Hera, Ghost and Tien—have trained for two-and-a-half years for the Return. They’re bound for … Read more

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ANNOUNCEMENT/GIVEAWAY: Fix the World Anthology

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Other Worlds Ink has a new hopeful sci-fi anthology out: Fix the World. And there’s a giveaway! We’re a world beset by crises. Climate change, income inequality, racism, pandemics, an almost unmanageable tangle of issues. Sometimes it’s hard to look ahead and see a hopeful future. We asked sci-fi writers to send us stories about ways to fix what’s wrong with the world. From the sixty-five stories we received, we chose the twelve most amazing (and hopefully prescient) tales. Dive in and find out how we might mitigate climate change, make war obsolete, switch to alternative forms of energy, and … Read more

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REVIEW: Fix The World Anthology

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Fix the World Anthology

Genre: Sci-Fi, Hopepunk LGBTQ+ Category: Gay, Lesbian, Genderfluid Reviewer: Cyd Get It On Amazon | Universal Buy Link About The Book We’re a world beset by crises. Climate change, income inequality, racism, pandemics, an almost unmanageable tangle of issues. Sometimes it’s hard to look ahead and see a hopeful future. We asked sci-fi writers to send us stories about ways to fix what’s wrong with the world. From the sixty-five stories we received, we chose the twelve most amazing (and hopefully prescient) tales. Dive in and find out how we might mitigate climate change, make war obsolete, switch to alternative … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Hope

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hope - pixabay

Covid19 is ravaging the country. Our main business is suffering, especially the travel-related part. Our country has just gone through an attempted insurrection, and more Trump pardons are on the horizon. I should be devastated. And yet… I feel a strange peace. A weird feeling that I’m not entirely comfortable with, as it goes against the rough grain of all that I have experienced these past four years. Hope. It’s been nine days since I last heard the phrase “President Trump tweeted.” I don’t think I’d realized until now what an ongoing psychic abuse I felt every time someone uttered … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Hope

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forest path - hope - pixabay

As a sci-fi author, I have written a number of times before about our responsibility to forecast the future, both to warn the world about what might be coming, and to share my hopes for what we might become. In these last few years, I have written four separate columns about the idea of hope and writing. In these fraught several weeks before the US election, I find myself hoping against hope for change, and then fearing the worst. Every day, there’s a new poll that reinforces that hope, and a new piece of news that dashes it. Biden’s up … Read more