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

Speed forecasting on Feb. 10

Filed Under:

public speaking

I'll be compressing a months-long process into 25 minutes in front of a live audience. Interested? Come on out

On the evening of February 10, 2012, I will be joining Jody Culham and John Godfrey at the Toronto Reference Library, where we'll be doing some cool stuff. As part of the Treehouse Talk series, we'll each present and do a short exercise designed to provoke thought and discussion, starting at 6:30 in the evening and running until 8:15. I'm not sure what Jody's talk will be on, but John's will be on "Is Global Citizenship Possible?"

My talk/exercise will be "Tomorrow's Toronto: A Foresight Exercise on the Future of our City." I'll be using some foresight-oriented brainstorming techniques with the audience to try to derive a set of sketchy but evocative scenarios for Toronto's future. My part of the evening should take about 40 minutes.

Of course, this will only happen if Toronto city employees are not locked out. I'll keep you posted on that one.

ADDENDUM:

The evening went very well, although I did get kinda excited and flip my lapel mic into the audience at one point. I soldiered on with a hand-held unit and finished my presentation with, if I do say so, some aplomb.

Much thanks go to the founders of the Treehouse Talks series and to the Metro Reference Library staff who patiently set up and facilitated for us. It was a great evening!