Book Themes and Fantastic Finds

How would you like this bird for Thanksgiving dinner? It will probably have you first.
Photo Credit: PDClipart.org

This post is going to be mostly a list of highlights of what’s been happening with me during the week, so don’t be surprised if you don’t find a unifying theme. Speaking of which . . .

I just started planning my new short story collection. Unlike with a novel, which consists of one main story arc, it’s hard to plan a book of short stories if you’re basing it on several different stories that you hadn’t necessarily intend to include in a collection. I rarely write my short fiction with a theme in mind for a larger work. So, when I plan a book to include my stories in, I have to look for a common theme that runs through several of them. Besides that, I need to make sure the theme runs through enough of my stories to total a sufficient number of pages to make self-publishing the book worthwhile.  When I finally have a theme and if only a small number of stories fit it then I have to write more stories based on that theme.

In the case of the present collection I’m planning, a couple days ago--after what seemed hours of reviewing the stories I had already written--I finally came up with a theme. This lead to a tentative title for the book. The theme is hidden things--things such as buried corpses, lost ancient tombs and corporate conspiracies to take over the world. The potential title of the book: The Hidden. I’m aiming to have the book out (of hiding) by summer of 2015.

Speaking about hidden things, they’re no longer hidden when people find them. So I’d like to list some interesting things I found recently. Found out about, that is. (These things had been hidden from me by nobody or nothing but my own unawareness of them, by the way.) So I’ve decided to call this list. . .

Far Out Fantastic Finds

Afrofuturism: I found out about this African science fiction movement when I was looking at the website for a British convention called Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder which is going on now across seas from where I’m at, so unfortunately I can’t make it to it this year since I’m not in a position to travel that far. But the con is featuring an event there called “Inside Afrofuturism” which is a conference of African science fiction writers, directors and other artists. Afrofuturism is a movement by black people exploring and expressing their race and heritage through science fiction and fantasy in all mediums. Even though this term is unheard of by most people, the movement has really been going on since the 1960s with Samuel Delany’s work and Jazz/funk musician Sun Ra’s who actually did a movie in the early ‘70s that I saw a clip of and seems really neat; it’s called Space is the Place. What I feel is so great about finding out about this literary and art movement is that it shows that science fiction and fantasy is not really the all-white genre that it’s been made to seem. I can somewhat relate to this because, even though I don’t look it to most people, I’m a minority of colour myself (I’m half Mexican).

John Scalzi was born in Fairfield, California. What’s so fantastic about this find? It’s fantastic to me because I was born only a few miles away in the Sacramento Valley (where I reside today) and so it’s great to know that there’s another big name sci fi author who once lived here in my home area (the other one being Kim Stanley Robinson, who still lives here). I found this out when I was searching the ‘Net for a Thanksgiving theme to add to the post since the holiday is already next week. And I came across Scalzi’s Thanksgiving prayer, a sci fi style one. You can read it here. If you’re not religious (I consider myself more spiritual than religious, really) then just consider it a sci fi/fantasy themed prayer, fantasy because of a magical god named Jehovah. So just consider it a fun, entertaining piece but please still be thankful even if not to any deity. We have a lot more good things in this country than most of us give credit for.

George Lucas’s new film, Strange Magic, was inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is an animated fantasy feature coming to theatres this January. However, it doesn’t look that fantastic to me as far as appeal goes. The movie blends modern pop music with the fairy world, taking too much of the otherworldliness effect away. Since some of the numbers are from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, it makes me wonder if the soundtrack is a knock-off of last summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy. So is that the best Lucas can do since he left Star Wars? And he’s always said that he planned to go back to doing what he always wanted to: making art house films!

That’s it for now. If I don’t see you here again before next weekend, then have a Happy Thanksgiving and don’t eat too much bird. Plenty but not too much. Also watch out for zombies. They will be looking for people for their Thanksgiving dinners and I doubt turkey is the main course.

Until next time . . .