You know, it just doesn’t seem like it should be a new year. Again. Didn’t we just have one of those last week? I swear, with every passing year the time seems to scream by with increasing speed. Remember when we were kids and an afternoon seemed to last an eternity? Nowadays, it is gone…
Author: DremaDeoraich
Prayer
Years ago, I visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Woodstock, New York. It was my first visit to a Buddhist temple, and it was glorious — the designs and decoration on the temple itself, the many essentials in its construction (it must face a specific direction; it must have an unobstructed view; there must be…
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Harper Voyager, © 2016 ISBN 9780062569400 Print length 384 pages, $16.99 This stand-alone sequel to Becky Chambers’ debut novel, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, begins 28 minutes after a sentient AI personality has been transferred from the body of a ship to a human-like body. Nothing could have prepared her for such…
An Education In Craft
That first summer I worked with Paula on editing my manuscript, I read more than I wrote. Some of the books I read were helpful, and still sit on my shelf for future reference or inspiration. But the three that really stood out for me were Larry Brooks’ Story Physics and Story Engineering, and Christopher…
Where It All Went Wrong
How hard can it be? Remember that? Yeah. (Nostalgic sigh.) I must admit I was overwhelmed at the thought of reducing the 800K-word tome I’d produced to the manageable 120K draft manuscript recommended by an agent. After only a day or two of lingering freak-out, I took the figurative scissors to my draft and chopped…
Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
HarperCollins Publishers © 2015 ISBN 978-0-06-233451-0 880 pages, $35.00 When the moon blows up for no apparent reason, people first wonder what happened. Then the fuzzy, expanding cluster of seven enormous boulders that once made up Earth’s sole satellite becomes a curiosity. But once the scientists realize what’s going to happen next, the novelty quickly…
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
HarperCollins Publishers, LLC, © 2014 ISBN 9780062444134 Print length 467 pages, $10.81 When Rosemary’s feet leave Mars for the first time, it’s to take a cramped pod shuttle to rendezvous with her new employer, Captain Ashby Santoso, aboard the Wayfarer, a tunneling ship that digs passages through space, shortcuts for travel throughout the Galactic Commons….
It’s a Love Thang (or How I Fell In Love With My Characters)
Writers are omniscient, at least within their own worlds. They know who’s doing what to (or with) whom and why, what the probable outcome will be, what price will be paid by those involved, and where all the action is taking place. Ask any author about the city where her story takes place. She can…
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
Spectra Publishing, © 1990 ISBN 978-0553283686 Mass Market Paperback, 481 pages, $6.82 In a dark and foreboding universe, Hyperion is only one among many terraformed human worlds, though it may well be the oddest. Home to the Time Tombs, which move backward through time, Hyperion is also home to the Shrike, a horrific monster said…
Going with the Flow
As I said last week, my initial foray into writing fiction was flawed. In the science fiction market, the genre for my first novel, acceptable manuscript word count tops out at around 120K as a maximum for a first-time author; mine was greater than 800K and still going with no signs of ending any time…