Downloads

Ventus - Complete novel

I've made my first novel, Ventus, available as a free download, as well as excerpts from two of the Virga books. I am looking forward to putting up a number of short stories in the near future.

Complete novel: Ventus

To celebrate the August, 2007 publication of Queen of Candesce, I decided to re-release my first novel as an eBook. You can download it from this page. Ventus was first published by Tor Books in 2000, and and you can still buy it; to everyone who would just like to sample my work, I hope you enjoy this version.

I've released this book under a Creative Commons license, which means you can read it and distribute it freely, but not make derivative works or sell it.

Book Excerpts: Sun of Suns and Pirate Sun

I've made large tracts of these two Virga books available. If you want to find out what the Virga universe is all about, you can check it out here:

Major Foresight Project: Crisis in Zefra

In spring 2005, the Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts of National Defense Canada (that is to say, the army) hired me to write a dramatized future military scenario. The book-length work, Crisis in Zefra, was set in a mythical African city-state, about 20 years in the future, and concerned a group of Canadian peacekeepers who are trying to ready the city for its first democratic vote while fighting an insurgency. The project ran to 27,000 words and was published by the army as a bound paperback book.

If you'd like to read Crisis in Zefra, you can download it in PDF form.

Short Stories

I'll be adding new stories here periodically. First of all, you can try my Aurora-award nominated short story "Hopscotch." The year this was nominated, another of my stories was also nominated: "The Toy Mill," which I wrote with David Nickle. "The Toy Mill" won the award; but I've always been fond of "Hopscotch." Here it is, in its entirety excerpted from my collection The Engine of Recall.

Hopscotch

Personal tools

Catching up 1: back to school!

Filed Under:

foresight

I'll be working towards a Masters degree on a part time basis

It's official: over the next two years I'll be working towards garnering a Masters in Strategic Foresight from the Ontario College of Art and Design. This will formalize my skills and experience in an area where I already do a good deal of work--foresight studies, also called futures study or just futurism. Flying cars

I'm already a futurist, I suppose, though for me at least that term tends to conjure images of chrome-domed technophiles ranting about how we're all going to have flying cars in our driveways in ten years. Technology foresight, which is what I specialize in, is less ivory-tower and more inclusive, however, because it involves the contribution of stakeholders in imagining both the scenarios and the probabilities attached to them.

I hasten to add that I won't be doing this work instead of my SF writing; I will be doing it in addition to writing. I'm still deeply committed to my science fiction and to writing in all its forms. What this degree program will do is give me more tools for my workshop, allowing me to approach the study of the future from more directions. It's all good.

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Half-way there

Posted by Adam Crowl at Jul 12, 2009 08:33 PM

Hi Karl

Excellent to hear that you're going further with the futurism. I'm sure it can't detract from your writing - what you lose in time, you'll gain in depth.

As for flying cars - they always sound cool until one considers how badly regular cars are driven...

I had no idea...

Posted by zentinal at Jul 31, 2009 07:00 PM

...that you could get a degree in Strategic Foresight. Would that such a thing existed when I was in college.

Best of luck. I'd bet that you'll find the same thing I did, that as a returning student, you'll be much more disciplined than your younger classmates.

See you at Worldcon!

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