My third novel, Immunity Index, is on sale during the month of April. All ebook versions are only $2.99 at all retailers.

More information and links to booksellers are at TorForge.com: eBook Deals Aplenty: April 2023!

What’s Immunity Index about?

Library Journal: [starred review] “This dystopian biothriller reads like a 21st-century version of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, crossed with George Orwell’s 1984. The clone sisters and their creator each provide alternating perspectives of a chaotic world and evince that individuals can make a difference. The story they tell is hopeful, heartbreaking, and compelling at every turn. Highly recommended for readers of dystopian science fiction or political technothrillers.”

Publishers Weekly: “Burke endows her characters with distinct personalities and conjures a frighteningly real sense of national destabilization as events spiral out of their control.”

What I like the most about C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, is the celebration of creativity among the people who attend. Cosplay strolls down the aisles in all its glory, artists pass around inspiration, gamers revel in their enthusiasm, and writers join in the fun. Pro or amateur, we’re all fans, and we get energy from each other.

If you can’t make it to C2E2, you can still celebrate creativity on April Fool’s Day. Make something: art in any medium, a poem, a story, a meal, or don some fabulous clothing. If you see someone being creative, tell them they’re doing a great job. Nobody ever says or hears that often enough.

If you’re at C2E2, come see me Saturday, April 1, from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. in Room S403-B. I’ll be on the panel Imagining Tomorrow: World Building in Science Fiction. From The Time Machine to The Left Hand of Darkness, science fiction has given us some of the most enduring stories of all time. We’ll discuss our approach to imagining the worlds of tomorrow and some of the science fiction stories that inspired us. Veronica Roth, Sylvain Neuvel, Sue Burke, and J. S. Dewes, moderated by John Jackson Miller.

We know from previous years at C2E2 that aspiring writers come to panels to learn, and we’ll do our best to help you.

After that, I’ll be in the Celebrity Autographing Area from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the panel signing for Imagining Tomorrow: World Building in Science Fiction. You don’t have to buy something or want an autograph to say hi. Let’s talk about creativity. What are you up to?

A previous post included an idea for a story, and a reader commented, “Nice that you have so many ideas, you can give some of them away!”

Ideas are the easy part, and to prove it, here are more ideas — for free. They’re mostly for speculative fiction, although they can be adapted. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, so if you see one you like, take it and turn it into something great.

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This is a philosophical story about a human who tries to ensure a place in heaven by befriending the devil — Satan wouldn’t damn a friend, would he?

This is a thriller/martial arts story in which a freelance theologian travels to New Orleans for a showdown with the Seven Deadly Sins.

This is a humorous story in which a Florida bar owner identifies aliens among her customers.

This first contact story begins when the Moon suddenly disappears, taking with it Tycho Colony.

This cyberpunk story involves artificially reformed convicts who try to make their way in a society that doubts their transformations — transformations they themselves doubt.

This is a first contact story in which aliens have based their expectations of humans on a few horror movies that somehow fell into their hands.

This is the story of a gem broker who becomes obsessed over a new kind of stone discovered at a roadside market.

This is a heartwarming story set on a planet being terraformed where a family struggles with natural disasters.

This is a story about a ghost town that reveals its secrets to a wildlife biology team studying the creatures who have made homes in the empty buildings.

This is a romance story about the first marriages between humans and extra-terrestrials, which some states declare illegal because of claims that the humans have been coerced.

This is a military SF story about an officer who adopts alien tactics to win a war on an alien world, but is then condemned as a lawless warlord at home.

This story begins when a young woman recovers the magic sword she had hidden in a past life, but she can’t remember why she hid it.

This story begins with the first baby born after the human population exceeds the supply of souls for reincarnation.

This is a satirical fantasy about the suddenly failed disarmament talks between the cynical but well-read imps of the public library and the insular garden gnomes of the park next door.

This is TV movie about a sample of contagion sent to the future to speed up work on a vaccine, but it falls into the wrong hands.

This is a murder mystery set at a 12-step meeting where a detective discovers an apparent telepath who drank to blot out other people’s thoughts.

This is a young adult fantasy about a kind and misguided tarot reader who uses marked cards to provide more “appropriate” readings.

This story is set in a place that respects its various human sacred sites but unintentionally defiles a site sacred to bears.

This story is about children on a playground pretending they are Klingons and who are suddenly faced with a great and real test of their honor.

This is a ecological thriller about a university microbiology student who decides to poke around the local Superfund pollution site to see what’s there, and gets lucky, if you could call it that.

This story starts when a couple cannot agree on the genetic attributes they want to select for their first child.

This is a heroic high fantasy novel set during a hostage situation where a would-be rescuer must defy gravity to gain access to a floating city.

This is a culture clash story in which a superstition gets passed down among Mars colonists that Earth-born humans can sense the presence of water, and the colony desperately needs water.

This is an alternate ecology story in which a wrathful wood sprite endows northern Wisconsin wild animals with an understanding of hunting regulations.

My next novel, Dual Memory, comes out May 16. The publisher has posted Chapter 1 on its blog. It’s short, 1200 words, and ready for you to read here.

Find out how Antonio Moro came to have no job, no friends, no family, no money, no clothes, and an incomplete idea of where he was and what to do next.

By that I mean, don’t write info-dumps.

If you want to write fiction (and I know some of you do), you want to avoid information dumps. These are defined in the Turkey City Lexicon as: Large chunk of indigestible expository matter intended to explain the background situation. Info-dumps can be covert, as in fake newspaper or “Encyclopedia Galactica” articles, or overt, in which all action stops as the author assumes center stage and lectures. Info-dumps are also known as “expository lumps.”

For me, it helps to think of info-dumps in science fiction as writing for dead people. Often, science fiction is set in wondrous futures. Being compassionate authors, we don’t want our readers to get confused about these lovingly constructed settings (or alternate histories or fantasy worlds). So, we want to explain.

However, among the many ways to think about writing, we can consider science fiction as literature written for the people of its time and place. That means a short story set in the year 2200 is for readers in 2200.

If I set a story in 2023 — that is, in the present — I don’t need to explain a revolving door to readers. If you’ve never used one, you’ve probably seen one in movies or TV, so you understand the technology. If I write a scene about bored children playing with a revolving door (as a former child, I can attest to their entertainment value), I can simply show the rambunctious kiddos and the reactions from adults.

In the year 2200, bored children might get their hands on an invisibility suit. Alas, I’ll be dead in 2200 (you’ll be dead, too). If I pause the story to explain to you how the suit works because it’s made from a metamaterial that can alter how light bends and thus alter the movement of light throughout various parts of the material, then I’m writing for dead people: you will be dead. But, if I focus on what the children do with the suit, I can show you how the suit works.

It’s easier to write an info-dump than a fully realized scene or two, so to overcome my own laziness, I need to remember that the reader of the story lives in the future. In fact, in the future, you might own one of those suits and know all about it. Do you keep it in kid-proof storage?

(By the way, if you want to write a story about bored children who play with an invisibility suit, remember that ideas cannot be copyrighted, so you’re good to go. Have fun!)