Category: Life As We Know It

Two Rocketeers posts-oops, missed one!

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Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day! I’m so excited, my sister is visiting for the first time since Covid. To that end this week’s POCKETEER is short, merely a preview of next week’s post when I’ll take a look at C. L. Moore’s last novel, “Doomsday Morning.” It’s a super timely book, all things considered. You can read my Thanksgiving post here. Going back one week, I neglected to post about last week’s ROCKETEER. In “Truth May be Hidden in Strange Places: The Metal Spy From Space” I look at a rare comic…

Keyhole Kerry, Newshawk of the Kilocycles

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Keyhole Kerry meme 2b_this one sm

I love puzzles, especially when they involve vintage stories. What was the writer thinking about when they wrote it? Were they influenced by something in their environment? Of course, without telepathy we can’t really know but thinking about it and looking for clues is a fun pursuit. Sometimes I discover a story (or series) that assumes knowledge of something contemporarily “pop culture.” I don’t usually know that at first, but often a lucky instinct or synchronicity will point the way. Previously, my favorite connection of this sort had been between…

Two items of interest today

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I just finished a pulpy commission for a fellow writer of science fiction, Sarah Anderson. She wanted an alternate cover for her new book, as well as something she could use for postcards. I was happy to oblige and here is the result. I have to admit that it’s fun to paint people with dramatic expressions. Screaming and running from a creepy monster…what’s more pulpy than that? You can find out more about Sarah’s new book here. Next, on this week’s ROCKETEER I talk about how I conceptualized my award-winning…

Interview with me! “PulpFest Profile — Sara Light-Waller, Artist of the Cosmos”

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PulpFest-logo-2020

I’m a regular contributor to the PulpFest profiles column and it was a great treat to take my turn in the interviewee’s seat this month. Check out my new interview with Craig McDonald over at PulpFest.com. Many thanks to Craig, Mike Chomko and the rest of the PulpFest committee for honoring me with this interview. Here’s how the interview begins: “Pulp magazines have influenced writers, artists, film directors, software developers, and countless others over the years. Our “PulpFest Profiles” focus on contemporary creators who have drawn inspiration from these rough-paper…

The Road to Neotopia

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Incorruptible print books

Many science fiction writers are interested in “future histories.” Perhaps it’s a desire to control future events. Or a wish to explore another sort of time travel. Possibly, it’s nothing more than a desire to control something during uncertain times. For me, it’s about Neotopia. I have written about this before. It is my belief that we can make a good future based on human-centered values rather than idealized, elite, or globalized agendas. It seems a common opinion that the world has fallen (or is falling) into dystopian times. Naturally,…

The Saucers Are Here!

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The Saucers Are Here!

Dear Diary, The funniest things happen sometimes! I recently found a small stack of my first coloring book, “My Day at the Horse Show.” I really thought the entire first run was out of print. As soon as I mentioned them on social media, I sold two! Since the Flying Sauce Party is coming up on the 17th I decided to put together a flying saucer coloring book for the event. This reminded me that I’ve had plans to do a series of pulp-based coloring books for some time (as…

New Article — “Allen Steele — Captain Future and Beyond”

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Allen Steele interview meme

One of the best parts of being a journalist is that you get to talk to interesting people. Allen Steele and I have a few things in common. We’re about the same age, have a long history writing for, or about, science fiction, and we both have a thing for Edmond Hamilton’s character, Captain Future. (And yes, I know, other people wrote Cap. Future besides Hamilton, but his stories were the best…no one wrote Curt Newton and the Futuremen like he did.) Contemporary author, Allen Steele, has written several new…

I just tiptoed onto Locus’ 2020 Recommended Reading List

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Locus 2020 graphic

No, it wasn’t one of my books. Not yet, anyway! Instead, I have an illustration in a book that has made the 2020 Locus Recommended Reading List! The book is The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom, Volume One: The 1930s and my illustration is “The Science Fiction Special.” First Fandom Experience Project got two books onto this prestigious list in 2020, the second being The Earliest Bradbury which is another peach of a book. Congratulations to the First Fandom Experience project for this wonderful (and well-deserved) accomplishment! Here is…

Two new articles

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Cover of 1st issue of Science Wonder Stories

In past weeks I’ve published two pulp articles that I’ll link for you here. Both celebrate the 90th anniversaries of pulp magazines, Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories. Both appear on the PulpFest blog. A Story of WONDER by Sara Light-Waller The first issue of SCIENCE WONDER STORIES hit the newsstands ninety years ago, on May 3, 1929. Behind the dramatic Frank R. Paul cover were included five short stories, the beginning of a serialized novel — “The Reign of the Ray” by Fletcher Pratt and Irvin Lester —…