Speculative Fiction That Asks Big Questions
I think I said in one of my blog posts earlier this year that I hoped to self-publish my work-in-progress by the end of 2018. Of course as we all know, plans are made to be changed, and mine was no different. Once I discovered Pitch Wars and the PW community, I decided I’d enter…
By Michael Mammay Harper Voyager; ISBN: 978-0062694669 Paperback, 384 pages. ©2018 When the son of a powerful politician goes missing on the front lines at Cappa Three, General Serata calls Colonel Carl Butler to investigate. Butler protests; he’s semi-retired, done years in cryo already, and besides, he’s got ugly history with that planet. But Serata…
Most of the writers I know aren’t only writers. They work day jobs, raise families, do volunteer work, have a life that requires tending. You know how those everyday pressures are sometimes enough in and of themselves to make you want to scream. Add deadlines (self-imposed or otherwise), long hours in front of the computer…
I’ve always poo-pooed the saying “Write what you know.” Bull, I’ve said. I’m pretty sure Mary Shelley never built a Creature from human cadavers in her basement, yet Frankenstein has become a classic. Great writers always write things they don’t know. If they can do it, so can the rest of us. It only recently…
Who wants to read a flat novel that leaves you on your sofa throughout the entire book? Nobody, that’s who. A really excellent story snatches you off your couch, plunges you into the story, and drags you—flapping in the breeze—along for the ride. You feel the tension along with the protagonist. You experience the disappointments…
By Ann Leckie Orbit, ISBN: 978-0316388672 Hardback, 448 pages. ©2017 Ingray wants nothing more than to impress her adopted mama, the powerful politician Netano. Her brother wants the same thing, but Ingray knows he is already way ahead of her in the race. One of them will be named heir, and Ingray has a unique…
Last week I mentioned that my fiction intensive class (with author Lydia Netzer) would be critiquing the first 25% of my manuscript. Everyone said they loved it. Many offered specifics on what they loved and why, as well as what drew them in. On the other hand, every student found issues that will require significant…
I am a huge jigsaw puzzle fan. Oh, it’s been a while since I put one together on my kitchen table; I seem to be too busy doing something else these days—writing. You know the drill. Worldbuilding, working out plot, defining and enlivening characters who you then “put up a tree and pepper with rocks.”…
If you are writing fiction, you must know your characters better than anyone else does. It’s helpful to get a good start on that before you plug them into the plot. Why? Because you can’t use them to their (and therefore your) best advantage if you don’t know everything there is to know about them…
Part One of the Medusa Cycle By Emily Devenport Tor Books, ISBN: 978-1250169341 Paperback, 320 pages. ©2018 On the generation ship Olympia, Oichi Angelis lives as a worm. Her job, as with all worms, is to serve those in the executive class without complaint or indeed without a word. The executives believe she is mostly…