The Reagan-Era Game That Feels Like It Was Made for 2026


NEW NEWSLETTER: In 1985, an ambitious game simulated the ruinous long-term effects of a conservative political agenda on a Midwestern city. It now feels less like dystopian sci-fi and more like current events. Read it here.

Genre Exercises

I write speculative fiction, cultural criticism, humor, and journalism, with a particular interest in retrofuturism, video games, fandom, and forgotten corners of pop culture history. My work has been published by Wired, Rolling Stone, Slate, McSweeney’s, Adventitious, The Daily Tomorrow, Alta Journal, Flash Fiction Online, and Nature: Futures. I also publish the newsletter Pop Cultural Precursors.

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My story was serialized by The Daily Tomorrow. Their synopsis: "a deathbed codicil, a savage sport, a mechanical replacement, and further complications? Join us for a healthful outing in Chris Baker’s marvellous 'A Duty of Care.' Happy hunting!"Subscribers can read an afterword about the story's making. https://dailytomorrow.substack.com/p/a-duty-of-care-full-story

Everyone should subscribe to this excellent spec-fic quarterly edited by Scott Beggs. Very proud to have a short piece in it.

clock sisyphusses rolling back time

If you could rewind time and erase your mistakes, would you use that power responisbly? Or would you be undone by undos? Read my piece in Futures: Science Fiction in Nature, and subscribe for more sci-fi flash fiction.I wish more science mags still published speculative fiction. We didn't know how good we had it with Omni back in the day...