Prominent book blogger picks THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT as a favorite science fiction book of 2025
December 9, 2025 § 3 Comments
It’s an honor to be in such excellent company as one of Tam Sparks (of Books, Bones & Buffy fame) Favorite Science Fiction books of 2025!
“A thrilling and immersive adventure story, The Afterlife Project combines complex, thoughtful themes with relatable characters and bittersweet emotion . . . Tim Weed’s latest novel is a gripping and emotional time travel/post apocalyptic adventure with a fair amount of science backing everything up. It’s also full of themes like found family and even a bit of romance, but mostly it’s an ode to our planet’s natural wonder and beauty, as well as a cautionary tale about humanity’s downfall. Weed masterfully tells his story in two timelines with a great deal of distance between them—more than 10,000 years!—and it’s surprisingly effective. . . Please do yourself a favor and consider reading The Afterlife Project, which deserves every bit of praise it’s received and is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.”
See the whole list here.
Upcoming travel programs: Peru & Oaxaca
October 24, 2025 § Leave a comment
Peru: Ancient Cultures, Natural Wonders. April 8-19, 2026. As some of you may know, I have a long history with Peru (scroll down for photos from some of my travel there in the early aughts) and have been planning a friends’ trip back to the country in collaboration with my friend and fellow Middlebury graduate, distinguished documentary filmmaker Amy Bucher. It’s going to be an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience! We’ll be running the trip in collaboration with the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC): here’s a link with all the details. The deposit date is coming right up on November 7, 2025. There are still a few openings, but don’t wait too long to register. We very much hope you can join us!
Oaxaca Writers’ Workshop. November 14-21, 2026. I can’t wait to return to the enchanting valley of Oaxaca! This writing workshop will feature plenty off-the-beaten track exploration of the area’s amazing artistic, archaeological, natural, and gustatory riches, and we’ll have parallel activities during the daily writing workshop for non-writer friends and significant others, such as hands-on cooking and/or Spanish classes. Stay tuned for more on this, and if you’re already interested, please send me a note and I’ll put you on the list to receive further details as they come out.
Inca Stonework
Scroll down to see some photos from my early travels to Peru, when I became especially fascinated by the spectacular ways the Inca had of working with sculpted stone. It’s really quite amazing and speaks of a relationship between nature, spirituality, and architecture that I don’t think we’ve come close to fully appreciating in our own culture. We’ll be exploring these Sacred Valley sites and many more in April 2026!
New interviews, reviews, and book roundups featuring THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 20, 2025 § Leave a comment
This interview with LA-based journalist, gamer, and film buff Paul Semel was especially fun because the conversation ranged into questions of film influences, including my ideal casting choices for the main characters of THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT. Read the whole interview here.
Quick excerpt: “In terms of influence, film and TV weren’t as important as other books, but my guess is that movies like Interstellar, Contact, and Arrival sort of gave me permission to pursue a story foregrounding the kind of “big” ambitious topics I was interested in, like space-time, general relativity, and the future of humanity, while TV series like Battlestar Galactica reminded me that when the survival of the human species is an open question, it can generate high stakes and robust dramatic tension. And the popularity of the great nature documentaries, like Planet Earth, showed that the awesome spectacles of life on Earth could be intrinsically riveting for mass audiences.”
Very cool: THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT was featured in a new scifi books roundup at Transfer Orbit, a newsletter run by Vermont writer Andrew Liptak that provides regular look at the latest news within the science fiction community, featuring analysis and commentary and updates about fiction, writing, and the future of reading.
Also very cool: THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT was featured in a best beach reads roundup by The Cullman Times in Cullman, Alabama—with the article also syndicated by the Rome News-Tribune in Rome, Georgia. Making inroads in the American south!
I also loved this notably glowing review from Shannon at It Starts at Midnight.
Quick excerpt: “This is hands down one of the most thought-provoking books that I have ever read. Which is saying something, because thought-provoking books are kind of my thing . . . I have so much to say about this book, but I equally want to tell you no more. Because this is the sort of story that needs to be experienced to be appreciated.” Read the whole review here.
I enjoyed reading this thoughtful and generally positive (if at times slightly grudging ;)) review from the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Finally, I very much appreciated this review of the audiobook on Instagram from @bookboundblogger.
Quick excerpt: “I am very picky about my sci-fi books. This one hit the mark! It didn’t feel like reading a novel. It felt like witnessing a slow‑motion disaster unfold with stunning imagery and quiet heartbreak. The science felt authentic. The emotion was raw. The tension never let up. It gave geography class, climate awareness, and gut‑punch storytelling all in one, but never preachy or feeling like an info-dump. Just deeply human.” Read the whole review here.
Big Blog Round-Up: recent interviews, reviews, and features about THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 6, 2025 § Leave a comment
It has been such a pleasure as well as a humbling honor to receive a whole slew of positive attention from these amazing fellow novelists and book bloggers in the days following the official launch of The Afterlife Project. My profound gratitude goes out to you all. Highly recommended to click through, read the blogs, and subscribe.
An online interview with Mark Stevens for his blog, Don’t Need a Diagram. A highly accomplished mystery and thriller novelist himself, Mark is also one of the best literary citizens I know. His questions were acute and thought-provoking, leading to what was for me a highly substantive and enjoyable discussion about dark fiction, climate change, National Geographic, paleoclimatology, short fiction, and the solace of geological time. The interview is followed by a very perceptive book review.
Quick excerpt: “My hope for this novel is that it will offer a sense of solace, and even a kind of optimism about the future . . . to show how important it is to slow down and really try to understand what we currently have and what we stand to lose.”
An online interview with Cliff Garstang for his regular blog feature, “I’ve Got Questions.” Cliff is also a fellow novelist, author of the excellent The Last Bird of Paradise and several other books, and another very good literary citizen. Long ago we spent a very memorable week together in Tepotzlán, Mexico, taking a writing masterclass with the great American novelist Russell Banks. This brief interview touches upon the inspiration for The Afterlife Project, some of the food and music I associate with the book, and the potential of fiction to play a role in saving the human species.
Quick excerpt: “Fiction, more than any other art form, enables a reader to experience the world from within a consciousness that’s not their own. Imagining alternative lives and alternative futures—sometimes very dark ones—from the relative safety and comfort of the bedside or a favorite reading chair, putting ourselves in the position of fictional characters as they confront tense and difficult challenges, and then processing those experiences and the emotions they evoke into wisdom or at least working theories about life, is a cathartic, healthy, and uniquely human practice.”
I’m gobsmacked by this glowing review on @tamsparks’ influential book blog, Books, Bones & Buffy. Here’s an excerpt: “Tim Weed’s latest novel is a gripping and emotional time travel/post apocalyptic adventure with a fair amount of science backing everything up. It’s also full of themes like found family and even a bit of romance, but mostly it’s an ode to our planet’s natural wonder and beauty, as well as a cautionary tale about humanity’s downfall. Weed masterfully tells his story in two timelines with a great deal of distance between them—more than 10,000 years!—and it’s surprisingly effective.”
Very much enjoyed writing this guest post for Chuck Wendig’s powerhouse literary blog, Terrible Minds: “Five Things I Learned While Writing The Afterlife Project.” This post touches on the surprising power of dark fiction, one-way time travel, the nature of time, the fate of humanity, and more. My thanks to Chuck for the helping hand he regularly offers to less well-known authors. His is a blog every novelist should bookmark and read regularly, not only for the trademark madcap sense of humor, but also for its deep underlying wisdom.
Quick Excerpt: “Dark fiction isn’t for everyone, but if you like it—if you’re drawn to the writing of Stephen King, for example, or Shirley Jackson or Margaret Atwood or our own Chuck Wendig—then it’s possible that you’re the kind of reader for whom the horrific offers a particular kind of reading pleasure. Because let’s face it: there’s power in darkness. It’s an essential source of narrative drive for one thing—what keeps the pages turning—and it’s also a healthy response to personal stress and the ongoing shit-show of current events.”
My friend and Boston writing colleague Crystal King created a fascinating pairing for a book giveaway on her highly recommended substack, Tasting Life Twice. Quick excerpt: “The Afterlife Project pulled me into a chilling future that felt all too real, with a story so original and propulsive I couldn’t put it down.”
A very nice review from M.K. Tod on her blog, A Writer of History. M.K. is a Canadian historical novelist whom I first met back in 2014 when I published my first novel, also historical, Will Poole’s Island. At the time she asked me to write something about world-building in historical fiction — but it turns out those insights, as M.K. points out, are also very applicable to writing about the future!
Finally, this thoughtful review from Dr. Laura Tisdall, author, historian, and senior lecturer at Newcastle University (UK): “I was utterly immersed in The Afterlife Project, which covers some grim ground but . . . finds unexpected hope . . . And unlike so many recent eco-fictions that seek to show, as this does, that humans are merely a part of nature and not the be all and end all . . . Weed avoids nihilism, recognising the value of humanity but also its fragility. Highly, highly recommended, especially for MacInnes fans.”
New fiction craft essay at Writer’s Digest
January 5, 2025 § Leave a comment
Link below to this short piece featured by Writer’s Digest. If you’ve taken a fiction class with me you’ll likely be familiar with this line of thinking, though perhaps you haven’t seen it put exactly this way before. In any case I think it’s an essential thing to keep in mind if you want to create original work in this spoiler-obsessed story culture. There’s also a link in the bio you can use to preorder the new novel, which I strongly encourage!
“What is Dramatic Irony: And How to Use it to Create Page-Turning Fiction”
The Fiction Chronicles: a series of short videos for writers and close readers
April 30, 2024 § Leave a comment
Hello all,
I’m pleased to announce “The Fiction Chronicles,” a series of short videos for fiction writers and avid readers exploring such topics as why humanity needs fiction, what fiction can do that film cannot, the virtues of escapist fiction, and highlights from great classic and contemporary novels and stories that showcase the power and reach of this very special narrative art. This is something I’m having fun putting together, and the plan is to keep adding videos in the months leading up to the release of my new novel, THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT. So if this kind of thing is up your alley, stay tuned!
If you do watch and enjoy any of these videos, please feel very free to embed any of them in your own blogs, emails, social media posts, etc. I’ve made them with the hope that they be shared widely, and with anyone who might find them useful or interesting. For the same reason it’s helpful to me if you “like” the videos and subscribe to my YouTube page if you want to see more. Visit my YouTube page here.
With great appreciation!
Tim
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT shortlisted for Uncharted Magazine’s Novel Excerpt Contest
April 1, 2024 § Leave a comment
Happy to report that the new novel, a finalist for the Prism Prize in Climate Literature, has garnered another pre-publication recognition. Uncharted is a magazine dedicated to high quality genre fiction, and I couldn’t be more pleased to have made this shortlist.
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT will be released by Podium Publishing in all three formats—print, audio, and ebook—in early 2025.
If you’re interested in staying extra up-to-date on the book, and/or if you’d like to take advantage of various opportunities to get your hands on advance review copies, send me a quick note and I’ll add you to my email newsletter.* Otherwise, feel free to check in at your own pace here on my website or on my socials; I occasionally post as “vtweeder” on Instagram and Threads, and you can also find my pages on Facebook and LinkedIn.
*Given the current plague of spammy emails and social media posts, one of my goals with this newsletter is not to contribute to overloading anyone’s already-full inbox with junk. That’s why it is and will always be “very occasional but always interesting” — meaning that it will only contain information that is pithy, to the point, and, at least potentially, of interest and/or benefit to you. This may include book news, special deals and opportunities for friends, upcoming writing courses and opportunities for small-group travel experiences with creative and like-minded people. And I promise that it will land in your inbox a maximum of 2-3 times per year.
Podcast: The Rocky Mountain Writer
October 16, 2018 § Leave a comment
What a pleasure it was to spend part of a recent afternoon having this wide-ranging conversation with Colorado novelist Mark Stevens on The Rocky Mountain Writer podcast.
We discussed many topics of interest to writers and readers, including A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, travel and fiction, Ecuadorian volcanoes, Venezuela’s Orinoco basin, Eastern Cuba, fiction vs autobiography, the importance of place in fiction, dropping acid and pushing the bounds of objective reality, interiority and loneliness, The Grateful Dead and the Eleusinian Mysteries, fly fishing as metaphor, Ursula K. LeGuin, William Golding’s The Inheritors, Newport MFA & the Cuba Writers Program, and a recap of a talk I gave on “The Essentials of Voice” at RMFW’s Colorado Gold conference in September, 2018.
Listen to the entire podcast here. Mark also did a wonderful followup print interview here, in which we talked about life experience as a point of departure for fiction, the deep sources of story ideas, more on why I think dreams and hallucinations shouldn’t be off-limits for fiction writers, place-based writing as a response to environmental crisis, the challenge of endings, some of my favorite writers, and more. Enjoy!
New piece on rule-breaking for writers up at GrubWrites
March 28, 2018 § Leave a comment
“There’s an unwritten rule that dreams have no place in fiction. Perhaps you’re aware of it. No? Then maybe you haven’t taken enough workshops. It’s pretty high on the list of fiction-writing no-nos.”
Click here to read my thoughts on why fictional dreams AREN’T actually forbidden, and other thoughts on why breaking the rules is an essential skill for writers . . .
New short fiction out at Sixfold
February 1, 2014 § 7 Comments
Hey everyone, my short story “The Afternoon Client,” winner of the Crime Category in the 2013 Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards, is now up at Sixfold. You can read it on-line here, or, if you’d rather have a a print version of the entire winter fiction issue and at the same time support the efforts of this innovative little review, you can order the paperback here.
I hope you enjoy the story!
Tim Weed 