The dead outnumber the living

The dead outnumber the living. Simple fact. You may be surrounded by more disembodied people right now than living. You may be sharing your house with several dead people, in fact.

The dead fly for free on Southwest

Well, at least I hope Southwest Airlines will never charge the dead for flying. OK, now that I have your attention, what is this all about?

Woke up dead and unemployed

Looking for work is probably not the first thing you’re going to do after waking up dead. You’ll have to suffer through all the stages of grief first and then you’ll have to learn how to use the AfterNet field so you can access the Internet. But after a while, you’ll probably give some thought to making a living, or whatever.

E-books very popular with the dead

The Tattered Cover has ordered 15 copies of Good Cop, Dead Cop to be sold at their three metro locations: Colfax, downtown Denver and Highlands Ranch. Obviously I’m excited at the thought of GCDC available at a real book store. Update: I just delivered the books today, July 15.

I should explain that the TC has a Rocky Mountain Authors Program where they highlight books by local authors, and since I live in Denver and the book is set in Denver, I thought I’d qualify for the program and so I dropped off a copy of the book for review. I also set a scene in the downtown Tattered Cover, which wasn’t just a clever ploy to get the TC to stock the book. It just seemed natural to set a scene at the TC, especially when I thought that one of the more popular pastimes for the dead would be reading.

The influence of A Christmas Carol

After writing GCDC, I was amazed at the influence of A Christmas Carol on the book. The story is a favorite of mine and I refer to it at least twice: Alex hoping he could clank chains like Marley’s ghost and he and Linda watching the Alastair Sim movie together.

The dead are not a minority

The dead, of course, are the largest majority group ever. Everyone, presumably, will end up dead and so the ranks of the dead, the most non-exclusive club ever, are growing every day.

Science fiction without the giant killer robots

Please don’t get me wrong, I love giant killer robots, and I would love to write a novel involving evil alien overlords or apocalyptic doom, but sadly my mind doesn’t work that way. I keep coming up with ideas where the world looks fundamentally the same — no flying cars or jet packs or giant killer robots — but at the same time the world is fundamentally different.