A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com I was reading a good article the other day at Slate.com about the punk subgenres of science fiction. Much of what the article said about these subgenres was not good. But I still found it very informing and if you’re new to punk sci fi such as steampunk, diesel punk or atompunk, I suggest you take a look at it because it’s a good introduction to this category of science fiction subgenres. I did agree in part with what the article’s writer, Lee Konstantinou, was saying and so that the punk subgenres have been misused. He basically says that these subgenres work off of the template, or formula, that comes from cyberpunk, the first punk category in sci fi that started in the 1980s. The formula consists of the protagonist rebelling against the ruling system of power and its influence on society. Konstantinou says that such a formula constrains original storytelling. However, like the science fiction genre it branches from, a punk subgenre doesn’t necess...

The robot, Maria, from the 1927 silent film "Metropolis". Credit: Pixabay.com I apologise for missing a month’s worth of posts. Some unexpected events occurred within the last several weeks. One of these was a cold that put me out for a week. All of this put a hiatus on my writing projects and even on my creative energy. With the exception of journal writing and typing up some manuscripts, I wasn’t writing a lot and just didn’t feel up to it. In fact, there were a couple points where I thought, what use is it? But writing, especially science fiction and horror, is basically an inborn inclination for me and so sooner or later it sparks up again. One of the other things, however, that has made me question my writing is the outdating of science fiction. I’m not just talking about the outdatedness of sci fi from 30 to 70 years ago; I’m not simply talking about stories from the 1930s through ‘50s of tin can robots or rockets traveling to nearby planets. I’m talking...

A performer at the first Sacramento Steampunk Emporium Photo Credit: Steven Rose, Jr.  It's been a very busy month and so I apologise for the two or three week hold on my posts. Part of this has been due to a change of plans for The Fool's Illusion . I've been kind of working on the publishing part through a self-publishing organisation that I'm a member of. Part of the project in this group was to make a sample/excerpt of books that each of us are planning to publish. So I'm in the process of puting together my sample booklet of Fool's Illusion. I would like to give you  free e-copies of it once I put it together and show it to my self-publishing group. The problem is that I am not a digital graphic designer. That is not my primary line of work. I've taken some graphic design courses, including some that emphasises graphic design software such as Adobe and QuarkXpress. But I am not tech saavy when it comes to graphic design as I am saavy with fre...

Warning: This post may contain content considered obscene by some viewers. Sorry for ditching the blog for the last three weeks. The holidays really keep a person busy as I'm sure most of you know. Hopefully that won't be the case anymore until Christmas, but even then I'll try to post each weekend through the end of the year. A beautiful rainy Saturday, and I don't say it with sarcasm because I love the rain at this time of the year. For those of you used to white Christmases, I can't say I love the snow at this time of year since we don't get any here in Sacramento (except for Grass Valley maybe or somewhere around there, but I'm not even sure if they get that much snow).  So what do we Sacramentans do during this time of year when people elsewhere are making snow men? Simple. We make rain men. Don't ask me how, we just do it. Okay, so we don't make rain men (or rain women); at least nobody I know does.  Nevertheless, it's more the hol...

1958 paperback edition of a Ray Cummings sci fi novel Photo Credit: Amazon/Ace Books  There's been a heat wave here in the Sacramento valley for the last two days. It reached 104 degrees today is what I understand. I know that's nothing compared to other regions in the nation and throughout the world, but if you're a native of this part (like me) you would think the sun is moving closer to the earth at rapid speed! Kind of like in the 1951 movie When Worlds Collide. Which brings me to my discussion here. For the past week I've been working on a new short story of mine that's supposed to be an atom punk story. A lot of you probably don't know what atom punk is. It's just another -punkism of science fiction that derived from cyberpunk like steam punk did, only instead of cyber futures and alternative steam powered futures, it deals with alternative futures based on the 1950s/'60s anticipation of future society. Examples would be similar to w...