A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com Last time I said that there may not be a post for this Saturday due to posting this coming Wednesday for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG). But when I heard about Independent Bookstore Day , I had to post at least a brief write-up about it. This special day, which occurs on the last Saturday in April, has been going on for five years. Yet as much as I’m a supporter of independent, locally owned bookstores, I only found out about it two days ago. So maybe not enough people are sharing about it on social media and/or maybe news media isn’t covering it enough. I can’t say for sure. What I can say for sure is that I felt compelled to do my part and share this special day with fellow avid readers and fellow writers who may be in the dark about Independent Bookstore Day like I had been. Independent Bookstore Day started in California in 2014 and went nationwide in 2016. Each store that participates celebrates in their own special way. W...

Credit: Pixabay.com I have some Lightning News Flashes for this post. The month of April has sadly seen the loss of two science fiction writers but it’s also seen some good news, too. N ew TV shows based on science fiction and fantasy novels have been announced as being in the works and also an Edgar Allen Poe Museum ha s acquired a genuine letter written by Poe. For longer versions of these stories, click on the links below. Obituaries Science fiction and fantasy author Vonda McIntyre passed away at age 70 on the first of the month. She wrote several Star Trek books, including the novel adaptations of movies ST II: The Wrath of Khan and ST III: The Search for Spock . Her 1978 novel, Dreamsnake , had won both a Hugo and a Nebula. According to Geekwire .com, McIntyre started the Clarion West writers’ workshop in Seattle in 1971. Geekwire also says she completed her last novel, Curve of the World , “in less than two weeks before her death” from pancreatic ...

The thing that I don’t understand about some science fiction writers is how they can straight out deny the genre as prophecy. The late Ursula Le Guin (may she rest in peace) did this and Corey Doctorow does do it, among others. It’s nearly obvious that yesterday’s science fiction has become today’s science fact. Even so, authors such as the above like to explain away this fact with their rationalisation. But does prophecy have to be unexplainable or supernatural (at least directly)? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even have to predict the future correctly if at all. And so, like science fiction, prophecy doesn’t always get its visions of future society right. The science fiction writers who like to deny the genre being prophecy often use the rationale that sci fi is a criticism of today ’s issues re-im agin ed as futuristic ones. While this isn’t completely wrong, Ursula Le Guin thought of the genre in this way and Corey Doctorow does similar. Using Isaac Asimov as an examp...

Credit: Pixabay.com I have some lightning news flashes on the releases, including re-releases, of dark fantasy and horror novels. But first, in case you missed it, my second post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) is up. So you can view it here .   The IWSG is a network of author-bloggers who discuss the challenges of writing and how to deal with them. Even if you aren’t a writer, the posts that IWSG puts out can give you some fascinating insight on what goes into our work. This is especially a plus if you are an avid reader who digs behind-the-scenes! So check it out if you haven’t already. And now for literary lightning news flashes on releases of some dark fantasy and horror novels . . . Pan’s Labyrinth Novel Adaptation The 2006 Oscar-winning film, Pan’s Labyrinth , is being adapted into a novel according to / Film . The film’s director, Guillermo del Toro (the Hellboy movies) is collaborating with best-selling author Corne...

You may have had this problem before: an idea for a story bubbles and boils, ready to explode from the cauldron of your mind and onto the paper or computer screen. But when you get to your desk you’re clueless to how to start writing the story. Or if you do start writing then you come to a halt not even midway through the draft, like when you’re driving a car and then it suddenly dies on you. That’s definitely happened with my writing , especially my fiction, and it’s frustrating as hell. You start with an idea or event for a story, such as an alien plague attack or a stolen talisman (which are not really original ideas but are simply examples I’ll use for the sake of argument) but have no idea where to go with it when you try to write. Sometimes you may not have that problem because, for whatever reason, you already have one of the most important elements of the story in mind--character. However, a lot of times we don’t have our main character, or protagonist, in mind at the...