Jane Lindskold talks about her penchant for Hard Fantasy over at Tor.com. Even with the slightly sleazy connotations, I like the term. I’m not sure I agree with Jane’s shot at defibing it however, which sounds a bot too much like obessesive world building for my liking. For me, the hard bit about about writingContinue reading “Hard Fantasy”
Category Archives: Writing & Publishing
TOC Year’s Best SF 26
Gardner Dozois has announced the table of contents for The Year’s Best Science Fiction, twenty sixth annual collection over at the Asimov’s forum. As IO9 observes, there are a very large number of original anthologies represented in the TOC. Are the digests dead? Did they fall or where they pushed? Interzone, Postscripts and Solaris holdContinue reading “TOC Year’s Best SF 26”
Best of the Strange
Strange Horizons have invited their reviewers to round-up the best speculative fiction of 2008 and the results are profoundly interesting. Gwyneth Jones regrets the ever growing polarisation of the genre (agreed), whilst Jonathan McCalmont suggests the British SF boom may be turning to bust (case not proved) and Nader Elhefnawy continues to claim science fictionContinue reading “Best of the Strange”
David Gemmell Legend Award
David Gemmell was one of my favourite writers as a teenager. His high octane fantasy novels such as Legend and A Wolf in Shadow really rocked my world. In memory of his fantastic stories the David Gemmell Legend Award has been established to celebrate the best in fantasy writing (with a focus on epic andContinue reading “David Gemmell Legend Award”
Sandman, Angst and Change
I just stumbled into an excellent critique of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’, here at Grand Hotel Abyss. My soft spot for teh Sandman stories is pretty well catalogued, but I found a whole bundle of insights i this essay that I now thinking through with fascination. What makes it a superb work of literature is theContinue reading “Sandman, Angst and Change”
Clarion Opens for Submissions
Fancy six weeks of science fiction and fantasy bootcamp? Clarion is open for applications. Get to it people! ** Announcing the 2009 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop @ UC San Diego
Community Building
I found this via Tor.com but think it started here. In an effort to catalogue the many excellet SF writing blogs on the net this list has been started. Copy the list to your own blog, and a link to yourself in alphaetical order and then check back to watch the list grow. Wunderbar! ListContinue reading “Community Building”
Shine On
Not that long ago, I made the fairly safe prediction that some enterprising editor would put together an anthology of optimistic sf, and lo! my prediction has come to pass… Jetse de Vries to edit Shine, anthology of optimistic science fiction. I’m going to go out on a limb and make a further prediction thatContinue reading “Shine On”
Community is King
OK, so the stand out line from the Cory Doctorow interview I am currently transcribing is that ‘If content isn’t king, then community is’. Doctorow is a writer at the heart of a community of technologists, sci-fi fans, passionate readers and probably many other vectors. Its a community cross-section he shares with a writer likeContinue reading “Community is King”
The Politics of Gloom
The debate on positivity in science fiction continues. Co-editor of Years Best SF Kathryn Cramer makes a robust response to my Guardian article on the subject. Lou Anders, editorial director of Pyr, finds the middle ground and Jetse de Vries, who started the debate back in January, rebutts Cramer’s response. There have been too manyContinue reading “The Politics of Gloom”
Get Your Electric Velocipede Hot and Fresh!
Electric Velocipede is without doubt the magazine I most look forward to finding in my mail box. Yes, I know, I’m biased because I’ve featured in their pages. But even if I hadn’t, I hope I would have the sense to recognise what a great ‘zine editor John Klima is putting into the world. TheContinue reading “Get Your Electric Velocipede Hot and Fresh!”
Happy SF
With the news that Jetse de Vries has left the editorial group who make Interzone magazine, some discusion has arisen at the Asimov’s fourm about whether the tone of not just Interzone, but the whole of contemporary science fiction, has become too pessimistic. Its an interesting discussion and makes me wonder, are we in needContinue reading “Happy SF”
Damien Walter 