Jason S. Ridler is a writer, improv actor, and historian. He is the author of A Triumph for Sakura, Blood and Sawdust, the Spar Battersea thrillers and the upcoming Brimstone Files series for Night Shade Books. He’s also published over sixty-five stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and more. He also writes the column FXXK WRITING! for Flash Fiction Online. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He lives in Berkeley, CA.
Website
Jason S. Ridler has the following works available at Clarkesworld:
Monsters are constructed from the passions of their age. In Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates life out of corpses using arcane science that defies the natural world. The creature comes to life but is an abomination to its creator, who abandons it to a world that will despise him. When Victor […]
During the Second World War, a new form of applied science emerged called Operational Research (OR). OR scientists came from nuclear physics, engineering, advanced mathematics, physiology and other disciplines and applied their knowledge to a myriad of military problems, from lethality of weapons studies to battle investigations. In many ways, these talented and unmilitary people […]
Type the name “Omond Solandt” in a search engine these days, and you will likely find these top four entries. First, a very thin Wikipedia article. Second, an entry for the scholarship named in Solandt’s honour. And third, you will find a detailed article I wrote about Dr. Solandt and his career. If these were […]
Over the past twenty-five years, Jeffrey Ford has earned a reputation for being one of the best writers working today. His short stories and novels collect tales from a wild and unique imagination steered by a craftsmen's eye for narrative and prose. His fiction could stand as comfortable next to Jonathan Carroll, Lucius Shepard, or […]
There's an old saw about writers, are you a Hemingway or a Faulkner? Do you travel the world to write, or hunker down and find the secret language of one place like no one else? Lucius Shepard's work ignores such binary sound bites. Instead, his fiction carries the weight of a scavenging world traveler accustomed […]
For twenty years, Elizabeth Hand has generated an accomplished and compelling body of work spread over short stories, novellas, novels, comic books, and media tie-in fiction. She often blends a literary flare for language, eclectic research, and realized worlds with occasionally sharp, dark, and painful human experiences that range from the punk to the mythic. […]
James Morrow is an accomplished novelist and short story writer, whose work combines a savage and sage wit with complex ideas and human concerns. From his highly regarded Godhead Trilogy to his recently acclaimed The Philosopher’s Apprentice, no subject matter is either too heady or humble for Morrow’s fecund imagination. His most recent outing is […]
Peruse the genre section of any bookstore and you will see a large chunk of shelf-space bending under the weight of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels. Lucrative and popular, media tie-in fiction is a sub-genre all to itself. It even has its own professional organization, the International Association of Media […]
“I’d like to throttle Frodo.” Gary Gygax (1938-2008) Take a group of socially awkward souls, a few gallons of Mountain Dew, a bag full of funny-looking dice, some sheets of paper, a rulebook or ten, add an argument about vorpal blades and Umber Hulks, and you have a scene that likely strikes a chord with […]
INTRODUCTION Pro wrestling is a form of fantasy storytelling, though Wrestlemania is never reviewed in Locus, the pseudo history of championship belts has no place in John Clute’s encyclopaedias of fantasy or science fiction, and there are no directions to “Parts Unknown” in Alberto Manguel’s Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Perhaps these good folks think wrestling […]
