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For the reader and the writer, a story starts in vastly different places. You, the reader, will (I hope) shortly be reading a book called The Last Stormlord. You will open the cover and find the first page. That will be your beginning. But for me, that same story started a long time ago. Read the rest of this entry »

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by Glenda Larke •2 Comments • Categories: Commentary, Guest Post, Uncategorized • Tags:

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It’s not a popular opinion.  Certainly, it’s not a “sophisticated” one.  But I like black-and-white morality.  Not all the time.  Not every time.  But sometimes, I like good guys who are good, and bad guys that are bad.  I like to have someone to root for and someone to see fall.  I like that, and I like it a lot.  Honestly, I like it more often than not.

This is why I used to like comic books.  The Fantastic Four are good guys.  Doctor Doom is a bad guy.  I know this going in, and I’m cool with it.  I might respect Doctor Doom (more than I really should probably), but I also know that no matter how awesome his robot army is and how justified his egotism (the guy does build time machines in his spare time), he’s a jerk and evil and deserves to get his armored butt handed to him. Read the rest of this entry »

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by A. Lee Martinez •3 Comments • Categories: Guest Post • Tags:

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This is part two of an email correspondence between Robert Jackson Bennett and Philip Palmer. Part one is here.

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the kind words about Mr. Shivers! I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said, though, especially in regards to only SFF writers doing worldbuilding, and I find I don’t entirely agree.

There’s a common distinction there between novels about real things – or at the very least plausible things – that can happen in this world that we’re vaguely familiar with, and then there’s the other kind of novel, where it’s about totally impossible things that could never ever happen. These might include spaceships, or unicorns, or time travel, or even triple-breasted whores with erogenous zones several miles in diameter. I find I don’t entirely like that distinction. It feels a bit pat. Read the rest of this entry »

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by Robert Jackson Bennett •Post a Comment • Categories: Guest Post • Tags: Epistles

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Editor’s note: Here is Philip Palmer, in an email dialogue with Robert Jackson Bennett. (Publisher’s note: Don’t these guys ever do any work?)

Hi Robert

I finished Mr. Shivers a couple of days ago, and I’ve been mulling about it since.

Why does it make me think of the story of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil?  That’s not the story of your actual novel, but it has that feel about it.  Very haunting. And I loved the sequence in which [THIS SENTENCE IS A SPOILER AND HAS BEEN DELETED - The Guy from Orbit].

What made you pick that world?  And how did you research it?

One of the things I’ve been aware of in the last few years as a science fiction novelist is how ‘world building’ is both a blessing and a curse.  It’s a blessing because creating a world from scratch -  naming planets, creating civilisations, inventing styles of clothing, and sometimes even making up  jargon – is a joy.  And it’s a curse because, well, you can get lost doing that stuff.

My secret fear is that one day I’ll enter the realm of Debatable Space, sit down in a bar with a bunch of spooky aliens and scary space pirates, and never return. Read the rest of this entry »

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by Philip Palmer •Post a Comment • Categories: Guest Post • Tags:

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Back when I was a wee lad and just starting to write, I used to create huge, sprawling backstories for my works: Complete histories going back thousands of years, maps and other archival documents, diaries for characters—none of which was ever meant for the book itself. It was just for my sense of realism and to convey a sense of history to the work through the casual dispensation of details that were vetted against each other and thus quietly consistent.

Obviously, I could also have begun this essay with the sentence, Back when I was a wee lad and just starting to write, I had few friends other people could see, but let’s not go down that road. Read the rest of this entry »

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by Jeff Somers •1 Comment • Categories: Guest Post • Tags: Avery Cates, Writing