"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."
---Kirkus
Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.
They’re replacing the furnace in our house, so as the living room gets colder and colder, I’m typing faster, as if that will provide some heat. But before I set up some space heater contraption, I thought I’d post this, before the new year: a relatively short outtake from Total Oblivion, More or Less. Consider [...]
Thu, December 31 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
The question should be seriously asked, how do [cognitive sciences] compel us to redefine the most basic notions of human dignity, freedom? That is to say, what we experience as dignity and freedom is it all just an illusion, as they put it in computer user terms, a user’s illusion. Meaning, for example, when you [...]
Sun, December 20 2009 » Movies/TV » 8 Comments
Of late I’ve been exploring and trying to fetter out online what in 80s parlance would be called a gamebook: a novel with choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) plot branching but also with more of an RPG element as well–usually with a character with attributes and chanced to impact the story through combat and chance. Some of the [...]
Sun, December 20 2009 » Fiction, Games » 1 Comment
Hi folks, for those in town, I’ll be signing (and chatting and the like) at Uncle Hugo’s in Minneapolis, this Saturday from 1-2 p.m. The last week, I know, has been full of these little semaphores as there’s been much busyness and much afoot, but I hope to get back in the blogging swing of [...]
Fri, December 11 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants this week, but wanted to let everyone know that I’m going to be on KFAI in the Twin Cities, on the Write On radio show that runs from 11-12 am Central (not sure when exactly I’ll be on during the show). You can listen live right [...]
Thu, December 3 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
Really brief notice, but today I’m going to be on the radio show Fictional Frontiers (5 pm EST), WNJC-1360 AM in Philadelphia. I’ll be on at 5:20 or thereabouts, but it looks like a fantastic show all-around! You can listen live via their webstream, or catch it on their podcast site later on.
Mon, November 30 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
Well, at the end of a long day, two dogs sacked out next to me and our oldest cat somewhat skittishly on the arm of my couch, I have to look back at it and really try to take stock of it. The book came out today, and I did, in fact, see it “in [...]
Wed, November 25 2009 » Life Studies, Total Oblivion » 1 Comment
It’s a bit belated, but Total Oblivion, More or Less received a starred review from Booklist: TOTAL OBLIVION, MORE OR LESS by Alan DeNiro: For 16-year-old Macy, the whole world has gone crazy, quite literally. Barbarians from antiquity have invaded America, while bizarre plagues and impossibly shifting landscapes ravage her Minnesota homeland. Together with her [...]
Mon, November 9 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
Your mileage may vary highly, and the rankings especially at the top are more or less arbitrary. If you want that “descending/ascending” order variation, you might want to start at the bottom. 1 Discovery, Daft Punk (2001) A perfect amalgamation of 1983 and the 23rd century–which, come to think of it, is the blueprint for [...]
Sat, November 7 2009 » Music » No Comments
Oh…oh hi! Anyway, I’m in San Jose for World Fantasy and am guest blogging at BSCreview. So feel free to swing by there!
Fri, October 30 2009 » Fiction » No Comments
I think my goal for “awards season” in the genre is to make sure “Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs” by Leonard Richardson wins the Hugo, the Nebula, the Sturgeon, the Malkovich… OK, I made that last award up. But it really should win it all the same. I’ve been trying to write a woeful [...]
Sun, October 25 2009 » Fiction » 2 Comments
…or as good as any, to start any discussion about the political efficacy and/or value of any artistic project (something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and which I hope to blog about more in the near future): 1. We must think steadily, honestly, and realistically about what it is that our works [...]
Wed, October 21 2009 » Fiction » 1 Comment
From Publishers Weekly: As this peculiar but entertaining first novel begins, geography and cosmology have shifted. Natural laws work unpredictably. The U.S. government has disappeared and plundering bands of Goths and Scythians roam the Midwest. Sea serpents close the shipping lanes, and oil companies convert their tankers into slave ships that cruise the Mississippi. Clear-eyed, [...]
Mon, October 19 2009 » Total Oblivion » No Comments
I’ve decided to post the first chapter of the long poem I’ve been working on of late. This is very provisional; even though Chapter 1 feels more “set” than anything else so far, who knows what will happen in the future. After all the title has changed thrice in a triad of weeks (“replace all” [...]
Mon, October 5 2009 » Poetry » No Comments
At last, international preorders for Cat Valente’s Under in the Mere are now available from Rabid Transit Press, with deeply discounted shipping, wherever you may be on the globe. We’re still working on interplanetary orders, so hang tight…
Sun, October 4 2009 » Rabid Transit Press » No Comments
Bruce Sterling’s essay on design, the potential of design, and the design of fiction, is something that anyone interested in those issues should read–moving away from the tired arguments of why science fiction is dying, why it’s not dying…anyway, I tend to get those two things confused. Of course the pulp era has left its [...]
Sat, September 26 2009 » Computers/Tech, Fiction » 3 Comments
So I got my latest issue of Literary Tiger Beat (aka Poets and Writers) and lo, on page 1, is an ad from the Missouri Review with the headline “Your 15,000 Muses Just Arrived”, with an etching of a muse-like women looking down at a down at a dreamy-eyed writer. And–here’s the clever part, see–she’s [...]
Sat, September 5 2009 » Fiction, Poetry » No Comments
Y!!!! Part of this is dwelling in novel-land…feeling like I have a permanent visa there. However, something more curious is going on that I’m interested in. Because I don’t really feel blocked at all. But the field in which the lines live remains uncentered. This could be considered the kinesis of the poem, what animates [...]
Fri, September 4 2009 » Poetry » No Comments
Really very happy with the way it’s turned out. Many thanks to the art department at my publisher.
Sun, August 30 2009 » Total Oblivion » 3 Comments
Well, not really, but you know what I mean. “There were other plots to rescue Napoleon from captivity including one from Texas, where exiled soldiers from the Grande Armée wanted a resurrection of the Napoleonic Empire in America. There was even a plan to rescue him with a primitive submarine.”
Sat, August 22 2009 » Uncategorized » No Comments
