Game of Thrones meets Jack Reacher – The Vathiriel Blade is in the top rank of indie published fantasy novels. The collapse of a regime can be a brutal affair. It’s something we’ve seen too many times in the the last decade, as dictatorships across the Middle East have fallen…and sometimes risen again. It’s imageryContinue reading “A stranger comes to town in The Vathiriel Blade”
Category Archives: Writing Journal
The shameful joys of the franchise novel … and why the force is with them
Snobby attitudes to sci-fi and fantasy can mean missing out on great stories amid popular book series – a publishing genre that is sure to grow. Make of it what you will, but it’s a plain fact of publishing life that more people will read the latest Star Wars franchise novel than all the booksContinue reading “The shameful joys of the franchise novel … and why the force is with them”
Why your expensive education was a waste of money
There’s no such thing as an average human. The assumption that there is has distorted work and education for a century. Now science is changing that. Follow the author of this post on Twitter @damiengwalter A little over a century ago, the world made a decision. Businesses had a massive demand for educated employees thatContinue reading “Why your expensive education was a waste of money”
How can we make AI less like the Terminator, and more like the Culture?
It’s only March and already we’ve seen a computer beat a Go grandmaster and a self-driving car crash into a bus. The world is waking up to the ways in which a combination of “deep learning” artificial intelligence and robotics will take over most jobs. But if we don’t want our robot servants to riseContinue reading “How can we make AI less like the Terminator, and more like the Culture?”
Buddhism’s intricate relationship to modern psychology
Buddhism is called the “middle way” because it winds between two other paths. On one hand is the material path, which we follow in the belief that collecting enough possessions, wealth and influential friends will keep us safe from suffering. When that fails we turn to the spiritual path, the belief that by behaving inContinue reading “Buddhism’s intricate relationship to modern psychology”
Quality writing is not subjectve
This is a short sequel expanding on the question of why writing workshops fail (but why you still need one). So how do we end up in this situation, with groups of unskilled writers gathered together in workshops kicking the crap out of each others emotions to no useful purpose? Well it’s one of manyContinue reading “Quality writing is not subjectve”
Stan Lee : the greatest storyteller in history?
Creator of a host of enduring superheroes, from Iron Man to the X-Men, his own powers have enabled him to see far into the future. A billionaire industrialist developing technologies that others believed impossible. A team of heroes using science to understand the universe. A secret government agency protecting its citizens from threats that mayContinue reading “Stan Lee : the greatest storyteller in history?”
This is how you make a Fantastic Four reboot great
You cast the characters from Big Bang Theory in the lead roles. There have been three terrible film adaptations of the Fantastic Four, one so awful it was never even released. The two big studio adaptations both suck for the same reasons – they take a fun, very kitsch, self-referential comic like FF4 and takeContinue reading “This is how you make a Fantastic Four reboot great”
Science and superheroes : how close are we to creating real superpowers?
As Marvel’s Deadpool hits screens we ask: with three out of five fictional superheroes owing their powers to science, will we ever have real superpowers? There are, according to the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game (a source I am choosing to accept as 100% canonical), five general origins for all superheroic powers: Altered Humans (Spiderman,Continue reading “Science and superheroes : how close are we to creating real superpowers?”
The ominous ordinary: horror writers finding scares in the everyday
Some of the very best work in this genre comes from writers who embed their terrors into strikingly everyday settings. Long-lived short fiction magazines are a rarity today. And ones that have had a real impact on the wider landscape of storytelling are even rarer. So issue 50 of Black Static marks a important milestoneContinue reading “The ominous ordinary: horror writers finding scares in the everyday”
How do you balance complexity and simplicity in your writing?
I love this research revealed in The Guardian today from a scientific study that claims to have found fractal patterns in novels like Finnegans Wake. James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has been described as many things, from a masterpiece to unreadable nonsense. But it is also, according to scientists at the Institute of Nuclear Physics inContinue reading “How do you balance complexity and simplicity in your writing?”
Suicide Squad might yet save DC from itself
Welp…Batman VS Superman looks like it’s going to be one of the worst films in history. But Suicide Squad…actually looks quite good. It’s been a looong time since anyone could say that about a DC comics based movie! I’ve never read the Suicide Squad comics, but based on this trailer I will now check themContinue reading “Suicide Squad might yet save DC from itself”
Damien Walter 