New blogger alert!
No, I’m not new to blogging, but I am new as a blogger on Tor.com—and delighted to have gotten the invitation. Before inflicting my view of the world(s) on the blog’s many readers, I thought it only fair to share a little bit about myself.
I wasn’t asked here at random, of course. I’m a Tor Books author, with my fourth and fifth Tor Books titles due out this fall. That’s why the Tor.com folks (a separate but related group—just don’t ask me to explain the distinction) gave me this opportunity. That’s the closest I’ll come today to shameless self-promotion, although in upcoming posts you can expect that the SFnal topics that interest me are sometimes well illustrated by (gasp!) some of my own writing.
More generally, I’m a physicist and computer scientist by training. I worked in high tech for thirty years as everything from engineer to senior vice president—for many of those years, writing SF as a hobby—until, in 2004, I began writing full time. With that background, you’ll be unsurprised to read that I write mostly what’s known as “hard SF.”
(Who burdened the genre with the term hard SF? In any non-SF venue, I have to explain/defend that what I write is not hard to read. At least never by intent. My writing is attentive to what we think we know about the universe, and what we’re pretty sure isn’t possible. That said, I do commit the occasional trope. More on tropes and hard SF in an upcoming post. End of digression.)
What kind of hard SF do I write? Everything from near-future, Earth-centric techno-thrillers to far-future, far-flung interstellar epics. Both solo novels and collaborations (in the latter case, with colleague Larry Niven).
I write short fiction, too, and my stories have appeared in most of the major outlets. I’m a ranking member of the MAFIA—that’s Making Appearances Frequently In Analog. Less often, I write straight science (fact) and technology articles.
That just about covers it. In upcoming weeks I’ll be blogging about a whole range of science and SFnal topics (and with a lot less recourse to personal pronouns).
If this introduction left you wanting more (did I mention that much of my writing is optimistic?), check out Edward M. Lerner, perpetrator of science fiction and techno-thrillers, my website, or SF and Nonsense, where I most often blog.
ANYway … that’s a bit about the new guy on the blog. I look forward to sharing my thoughts—and, hopefully, having a conversation—about science and hard SF. Till next time.
A physicist and computer scientist, Edward M. Lerner toiled in the vineyards of high tech for thirty years. Then, suitably intoxicated, he began writing full time. His most recent titles include Fools’ Experiments and Small Miracles, and the Fleet of Worlds series with colleague Larry Niven.
