A Bit of Authorial Brag

From time to time, Google Alerts pings me with a mention from the internet. Often, it's an article I've posted here on my blog. Today, however, a used book store described me thus:

Deborah J. Ross is an American author best known for her work in fantasy and science fiction. She has written numerous novels and short stories, often exploring themes of gender, social justice, and environmental issues. Ross is also known for her contributions to the "Darkover" series, which she continued after the original author, Marion Zimmer Bradley, passed away. Her style incorporates deep character development and intricate world-building. In addition to fiction, Ross has written non-fiction essays and articles on writing, and the craft of speculative fiction. She has served as a secretary and board member for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

I am chuffed, indeed.

Short Book Review: Baking as a Magical Art

 The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher

 I don’t know how I missed this delightful fantasy when it first came out, winning the Hugo and Locus Awards in 2021. It combines some of my favorite story elements: an intrepid young heroine, weird forms of magic, and baking. Yep, baking. Fourteen-year-old Mona’s magical talent is, by any standards, quite modest. She can’t summon lightning, resurrect a cavalry troop of dead horses, or control a flood. As an apprentice in her aunt’s bakery, she uses her magic to encourage bread to rise and, upon occasion to delight the customers, she makes gingerbread men dance. Her life of quiet joys takes a drastic turn when she discovers a dead body on the floor of the bakery. Before she knows it, she’s on the run, either suspected of being the murderer or convinced she is the next target. Worse yet, by the time the dastardly plot is revealed, the super-wizard who is the city’s primary defense has been lured away and Mona has only herself and a ragtag bunch of friends to keep everyone safe.

I loved Mona, her friends, the unusual twists on magic, and most of all, the voice of the author shining through these adventures. I think my favorite part was Mona’s gigantic bread “golem” defending the city gates against the ravening horde. And the zombie horses, who manage to retain both their personality and their loyalty, like true horses across time and imagination.

Recommended.

Reprint: The Moral Amgiguity of Xenotransplantation

 

Putting pig organs in people is OK in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not – why is that?

While research on human-pig chimeras is on an indefinite pause, xenotransplantation is moving ahead. wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Monika Piotrowska, University at Albany, State University of New York

In a New York operating room one day in October 2025, doctors made medical history by transplanting a genetically modified pig kidney into a living patient as part of a clinical trial. The kidney had been engineered to mimic human tissue and was grown in a pig, as an alternative to waiting around for a human organ donor who might never come. For decades, this idea lived at the edge of science fiction. Now it’s on the table, literally.

The patient is one of six taking part in the first clinical trial of pig-to-human kidney transplants. The goal: to see whether gene-edited pig kidneys can safely replace failing human ones.

A decade ago, scientists were chasing a different solution. Instead of editing the genes of pigs to make their organs human-friendly, they tried to grow human organs – made entirely of human cells – inside pigs. But in 2015 the National Institutes of Health paused funding for that work to consider its ethical risks. The pause remains today.

As a bioethicist and philosopher who has spent years studying the ethics of using organs grown in animals – including serving on an NIH-funded national working group examining oversight for research on human-animal chimeras – I was perplexed by the decision. The ban assumed the danger was making pigs too human. Yet regulators now seem comfortable making humans a little more pig.

Why is it considered ethical to put pig organs in humans but not to grow human organs in pigs?

Urgent need drives xenotransplantation

It’s easy to overlook the desperation driving these experiments. More than 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ transplants. Demand overwhelms supply, and thousands die each year before one becomes available.

For decades, scientists have looked across species for help – from baboon hearts in the 1960s to genetically altered pigs today. The challenge has always been the immune system. The body treats cells it does not recognize as part of itself as invaders. As a result, it destroys them.

A recent case underscores this fragility. A man in New Hampshire received a gene-edited pig kidney in January 2025. Nine months later, it had to be removed because its function was declining. While this partial success gave scientists hope, it was also a reminder that rejection remains a central problem for transplanting organs across species, also known as xenotransplantation.

Decades of research have led to the first clinical trial of pig kidney transplants.

Researchers are attempting to work around transplant rejection by creating an organ the human body might tolerate, inserting a few human genes and deleting some pig ones. Still, recipients of these gene-edited pig organs need powerful drugs to suppress the immune system both during and long after the transplant procedure, and even this may not prevent rejection. Even human-to-human transplants require lifelong immunosuppressants.

That’s why another approach – growing organs from a patient’s own cells – looked promising. This involved disabling the genes that let pig embryos form a kidney and injecting human stem cells into the embryo to fill the gap where a kidney would be. As a result, the pig embryo would grow a kidney genetically matched to a future patient, theoretically eliminating the risk of rejection.

Although simple in concept, the execution is technically complex because human and pig cells develop at different speeds. Even so, five years prior to the NIH ban, researchers had already done something similar by growing a mouse pancreas inside a rat.

Cross-species organ growth was not a fantasy – it was a working proof of concept.

Ethics of creating organs in other species

Short Audiobook Review: Harper Lee's splendid early stories

 The Land of Sweet Forever, by Harper Lee (Harper)

I listened to the audio version of this compilation of Lee's early short fiction and later nonfiction, splendidly narrated by Ellen Burstyn, who is a marvelous actress and perfectly captures Lee’s authorial “voice.” This book is a collection of Lee’s early short fiction and later nonfiction pieces. The stories are explorations of characters, settings, and narrative style that later became To Kill A Mockingbird. They are witty, richly detailed, and courageous. Every one of them is, in its unique fashion, a gem.

Highly recommended.

 

Short Book Review: A Complex, Nuanced Redwinter Adventure

Traitor of Redwinter, by Ed McDonald (Tor)]

I fell in love with Ed McDonald’s “Redwinter Chronicles” from the very first chapter of the very first book. His protagonist, Raine, is at once brilliantly flawed, self-doubting, and heroic. Her capacity for compassion and her clear-eyed courage are matched only by her conviction that she is worthless and unlovable. As an unreliable but deeply sympathetic heroine, she’s unmatched.

All is not well in the world of this second Redwinter novel. The king is dying, and a war of succession is brewing. With famine gripping the north, rebellious lords scheme for the power of the Crown that protects the living world from the forces of evil. Raine thought she had found a home in Redwinter, where those with magical powers can learn and flourish. But her mentor, Ulovar, is suddenly struck by a mysterious illness that slowly saps the vitality from his body, and her new friendships prove unexpectedly fragile. Meanwhile, the darkness within her grows, fueled by a mystical book that should not exist and that would mean her death should it be discovered. Everything comes crashing down when her erstwhile friend, Ovitus, puts together a new alliance to challenge the existing politics and wrest all power to himself.

Traitor of Redwinter is a complex, nuanced fantasy novel that does not hold back from difficult choices and dark themes. It builds on the events and system of magic from the first volume, shattering the established world and challenging notions of good and evil. It’s a brilliant, moving, ultimately compassionate tour de force.

Highly recommended, with the proviso that it’s not a stand-alone. Read the first volume first.