Omicron, Top Gun, Spiderish Robots, and Cats

So after two-and-a-half years of dodging Covid, it caught me.

My experience was this: I had a fever for the first day, and a dry cough for the next four. Absolutely no symptoms whatsoever after that. I isolated and hydrated. My quarantine read was Orn by Piers Anthony, and my quarantine play was The Sinking City (a barely serviceable Lovecraftian game that in no way matches the cosmological excellence of the 20-year-old Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem). Meanwhile, my B and T cells did their thing.

How I got Covid is anyone’s guess, but what isn’t a guess is that my ability to shrug this off so quickly was due in no small part to being triple-vaxxed. Statistically, it was probably Omicron that I got, which (in conjunction with my vaccination status) makes it highly probable that I now have super-immunity, at least for a time.

While we’re all waiting for successful human trials of a universal coronavirus vaccine (they are in process) this is still a thing. Be safe everyone.

My quarantine ended right before Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters, and so Donna and I decided to celebrate our recovery with a theater viewing. The film was improbably good — a sequel to a 36-year-old Cold War film that feels like a natural second act. It leans into nostalgia while telling a solid story, and offers just the right doses of action, romance, self-reflection, and meditations about how things change and how they don’t. Tom Cruise continues to have a painting of himself that ages quietly in his attic. This is what a sequel should be: a thoughtful and respectful continuation of the original’s universe. It never stoops to self-parody or cartoonish exaggeration.

Incidentally, this was the first movie I’ve seen in the theater in more than two years, and it was worth the wait.

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I sold my story “I, Arachnobot” to Flame Tree Publishing. Originally published in Galaxy’s Edge, this story is at once a tribute to Asimov and an exploration of AI; in particular, it showcases the way the Three Laws of Robotics might be circumvented.

Last week, I also gave final approval to my galleys for Redspace Rising. T-Minus three months! And I completed final edits on my newest alternate history novel. All in all, a busy May.

Cyrus asking, “Are you done with that chapter yet?”

 

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