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The Passing of Anne McCaffrey
I heard the news yesterday. One of the elder craftsmen and great figureheads of the SF&F genre, Anne McCaffrey, passed away on Monday. If I’m totally honest to you, dear reader, I’ve never read...
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Diabolus Ex Machina, Sanderson’s First Law, and the Watkins Corollaries
Today, I’m going to attempt to make a useful contribution to the lexicon and learning of the writing craft – it’s all in the headline of today’s post. Perhaps it’s a bit presumptuous of me – an...
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Interrogating the Text #3: Michael Corradi Wields a “Ghiling Blade”
This is a continuation of my occasional series on what I can learn on the craft of writing from reading the stories of accomplished professionals and examining and understanding my reactions. For an...
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Interrogating the Text #4: Jay Lake takes a “Long Walk Home”
This is a continuation of my occasional series on what I can learn on the craft of writing from reading the stories of accomplished professionals and examining and understanding my reactions. For an...
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Interrogating the Text #5: The Hunger Games
This is a continuation of my occasional series on what I can learn on the craft of writing from reading the stories of accomplished professionals and examining and understanding my reactions. For an...
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Movie Adaptations
Dear Wife and I recently went out to see “The Hunger Games” movie, and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about my reaction to the movie, and about how it compares to my reaction to the book. And...
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Post-Tolkien Fantasy
Like a lot of fans of Fantasy literature, and especially of the Epic Fantasy subgenre, I grew up on what today you might call “Tolkienesque” fantasy. You likely know what I mean: Dragons and Elves and...
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Gender Gap
Some time ago I wrote a blog post about perceptions that there was a demographic shift occurring in the readership of speculative fiction: a substantial tilt toward girls and away from boys, such that...
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Writing the Book (of Kells)
I don’t do movie reviews, generally. By the time I get around to seeing most movies, you’ve already heard all about them and you already know if you want to see them. I just don’t get out to the...
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Epic Fantasy: Archetypes & Window Dressing
A couple months ago I posted a short essay in which I began examining the ideas and archetypes that are particular to the Epic Fantasy genre. This is important to me, because while Epic Fantasy is my...
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