Author Archives: Damien Walter

GUEST POST: Serious writing must mirror both reality and imagination

Will Ellwood asks the simple question, can serious writing succeed without facing both the real…and the fantastic? Follow Will on Twitter @fragmad Discovering your voice as a writer is more complex problem than is often acknowledged. This is not a problem of simple replicable craft that can be taught in a classroom, but is insteadContinue reading “GUEST POST: Serious writing must mirror both reality and imagination”

Definition: Genre Sausage

Will Ellwood provides a perfect and succinct definition of ‘genre sausage’. Maybe we need some European Union legislation forcing publishers of such sausage to reveal exactly what percentage of original imagination is in every book? Fiction produced for any genre written using the mechanically reclaimed ideas blasted from the carcasses of other stories and shovedContinue reading “Definition: Genre Sausage”

Samuel Delany on creativity

The sad truth is, there’s very little that’s creative in creativity. The vast majority is submission – submission to the laws of grammar, to the possibilities of rhetoric, to the grammar of narrative, to narrative’s various and possible restructurings. In a society that privileges individuality, self-reliance, and mastery, submission is a frightening thing. Samuel Delany

Can we have better pulp fiction please?

So. I’m trying to get an Advance Reading Copy of A Dance With Dragons, because everyone is excited about it and Vandermeer has one and I feel left out. So far, no luck, although I’m told I’m on the list as soon as any arrive in the UK. Which is cool. So why are soContinue reading “Can we have better pulp fiction please?”

Genre needs to stop applauding crap, and respect its best writers

Sarah Crown has started a fascinating discussion on the resurgence of fabulism in literary fiction over on The Guardian book blog, brought on by Tea Obreht’s surprise win in the Orange prize. I didn’t need to read the comments to know there would be at least half a dozen from irate members of fantasy fandom,Continue reading “Genre needs to stop applauding crap, and respect its best writers”

Murakami Murakami Murakami

I’m in the midst of a Haruki Murakami binge. I finished Norwegian Wood a few days ago, and had to go right back to the beginning and start reading it again. I’m tearing through After Dark, and have Sputnik Sweetheart at the top of the ‘To Be Read’ stack. (The ‘To Be Read’ stack lives byContinue reading “Murakami Murakami Murakami”

not a game a man is supposed to grow strong in

I’m writing whilst debating whether to spend £6.99 on the iTunes download of Rollerball, the original Norman Jewison version of 1975. (There are of course other options, including renting the 2002 version for £2.49, but this is not really even an option). It’s not the money alone giving me pause, but the irony of purchasingContinue reading “not a game a man is supposed to grow strong in”

Mieville, Embassytown and radical SF

Is SF becoming cool? If it is, as China Miéville claims, then the award-winning author, whose new novel Embassytown hit the shelves yesterday, may have something to do with it. In our current era of austerity, with the largest-ever protest march on the nation’s capital and a previously apathetic youth culture rallying to the UKContinue reading “Mieville, Embassytown and radical SF”