Great news! The preorder response for Smitty’s Guide to Interstellar Bartending has been large enough that my publisher will now be offering a hardcover edition, as well as paperback & ebook. Thank you. https://nazcapress.com/product/smitty/NP/52/
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Gandy Dancers
Pantsing for fun and profit. Essay. 800 words, 4-minute read. Gandy Dancers By Ray Tabler A gandy dancer was a railroad worker of days gone by. They laid and maintained tracks, shifting the rails into alignment with a purpose-built, 5-foot-long lever called a lining tool, or colloquially a “gandy.” Working…
Living in a Sci-Fi Novel
Buckle-up, Elroy. Essay. 1600 words, 8-minute read. Living in a Sci-Fi Novel By Ray Tabler Philip Jose Farmer’s 1967 novella Riders of the Purple Wage starts off “…If Jules Verne could really have looked into the future, say 1966 A.D., he would have crapped in his pants…” Decorum aside, this…
Backfield in Motion
Fun with backgrounds. Essay. 600 words, 3-minute read. Backfield in Motion By Ray Tabler Monty Python’s Holy Grail is a very silly movie to begin with. Squires scurry behind scampering characters, simulating hoofbeats with coconuts. Lonely nuns shine a beacon from their convent to lure unsuspecting knights errant. Savage killer…
Ray’s Worldcon Schedule
Happy to announce I’ll be appearing on 3 panels at the The 84th World Science Fiction Convention (LACon V) August 27-31, 2026 in Anaheim, California (Anaheim Convention Center, and the Hilton Anaheim & Anaheim Marriott hotels). If you’re there too, drop me a line!
AI – A Historical Perspective
Dance to the music. Essay. 1700 words, 9-minute read. AI – A Historical Perspective By Ray Tabler Five years ago, if someone had predicted that we’d be engaged in serious debates as to whether a computer program was self-aware, I for one would’ve scoffed. As a science fiction writer, that…
Smitty’s Guide to Interstellar Bartending Preorders are Live!
Release date August 25th, 2026. Order your copies now! I am happy to announce that my 5th novel, Smitty’s Guide to Interstellar Bartending, will be released by Misti Media’s SciFi/Fantasy imprint Nazca Press on August 25th, 2026. Print copies can be preordered now via nazcapress.com/product/smitty/NP/52. Smitty is an itinerant bartender,…
HRH The Rider – A Review
A cracking yarn. Essay. 800 words, 4-minute read. HRH The Rider – A Review By Ray Tabler Edgar Rice Burroughs was nothing if not entertaining, and frighteningly prolific. He published 91 novels and numerous short stories throughout his career, eventually running his own press, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Burroughs was…
Booze and History
Cheers! Essay. 700 words, 4-minute read By Ray Tabler People who know much more about the subject than I do, and have looked into the matter than I have, determined that large, stone troughs at the Göbekli Tepe archeological site were used to brew beer. Now, there’s a load of…
The Sharpest Blade
Reading is fundamental. Essay. 700 words, 4-minute read. The Sharpest Blade By Ray Tabler Recently, I attended a talk by novelist Jessica G. Guerrieri, about her books Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and Both Can Be True. One of the themes in her work is the effect…