1 Jun 2010
Posts Tagged ‘unpublished writers’
William Gibson recommends these 10 science fiction novels to you
By Thomas Mill at Sci Fi Wire
New York Magazine asked various notable literati to recommend a “mixed tape” of books for you in their respective genres. They picked William Gibson for the science fiction category (smart choice!), and he recommended these 10:
Tiger! Tiger! (aka The Stars My Destination) by Alfred Bester
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Arslan by M.J. Engh
The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Read the rest here
How to make your setting a character in your dystopian novel
By Beth Revis at io9
Science fiction writers and literary agents have been blogging the past few days about how to make your setting come alive. And young-adult author Beth Revis explains why this is doubly important in a novel about a future dystopia.
One of the most important things that separates a dystopian novel from all the rest is simply: setting. While the setting of any novel is important, the setting for a dystopian novel is key. It is, after all, the changing world that makes a dystopian novel really dystopian.
Nathan Bransford said there were three important traits of setting in a novel:
Change Underway: the setting should be dynamic, something should be happening in the outside world, be it a storm (King Lear) or a world that responds to outside influence (Narnia)
Read More here
An Interview with Lou Anders
by David Alastair Hayden at Redstone Science Fiction
Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books’ groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr, as well as many anthologies, including the forthcoming volumes Masked (Gallery Books, July 2010) and Swords & Dark Magic (Eos, June 2010, co-edited with Jonathan Strahan). Lou is a four-time Hugo Award nominee, a Philip K. Dick Award nominee, a World Fantasy Award nominee, and a Chelsey Award winning art director.
Within the last few years, the number of fantasy works set in our present day world, but with magical tweaks, has surged dramatically (as have romance hybrids). Do you think something like this will happen with sci-fi as well?
Well, we’ve already been through a wave of “techno-thriller” novels, with a lot of the big names of SF forgoing space for the near future. Greg Bear, David Brin, William Gibson have all been writing novels set in the present, Neal Stephenson even went back into the past for “historical science fiction”. I don’t want to misquote him but I believe Robert J. Sawyer has said something to the effect that he intends all (or most) of his forthcoming work to be like this. As to romance hybrids, I did recently notice a “my boyfriend is an alien” type novel on the mass market tree display in B&N last week, packaged exactly like an urban fantasy only with tentacles. I’m surprised there isn’t more of an SF incursion into urban fantasy already, as that crowd pushes out further from vampires and werewolves.
Read More here
The greatest stories almost never told
Katharine Hibbert at The Times Online UK
“We could have your book out there for sale tomorrow.” It’s the kind of offer wannabe authors dream of. Paul Andrews would take my hypothetical book, subject it to a modicum of editorial scrutiny (“We don’t say ‘no’ very often”), design a cover for it, then put it out as an app for the new breed of smartphones. It would also be downloadable onto e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle. Andrews has never seen a sentence of my writing.
An iPhone might not be the ideal format for reading, but it gets points just for turning up. As Andrews puts it: “People carry their phones constantly, so you’re never stuck without something to read.”
Read More here
It’s amazing to see that way Sci Fi is evolving, it seems to be having a popularity surge now that it hasn’t had since the 50′s and 60′s. Fantasy too, and now there are so many crossover genre’s that the books are attracting a wider audience. And I wish I had thought of a self-publishing iPhone app, that’s absolutely brilliant! And I love that big publishing houses are paying attention too.
What did you think of William Gibson’s recommendations? How important do you think the setting is in dystopian stories?
31 May 2010
BOOK NEWS FOR MAY 31ST: HARRY POTTER E-BOOKS, NEW YA FICTION AWARD, & MORE
Author: Chris54 | Filed under: Author News, Book News, News Blog
Rowling opens door to digital Harry Potter books
J K Rowling looks set allow Harry Potter fans to read her novels as e-books at last.
Neil Blair, partner at the Christopher Little Agency (CLA) which represents Rowling, said the agency was “currently considering all the options and opportunities that this evolving space provides”. The agency was “actively” looking, whereas previously it had just been “monitoring the developing area”, he said.
Richard Charkin, executive director of Rowling’s print publisher Bloomsbury, declined to comment on whether Bloomsbury was in discussions with the author on e-book plans, saying: “That’s between us and CLA.”
Waterstone’s e-books buyer Alex Ingram said: “Our customers have been asking for Harry Potter on e-book since we launched digital books on Waterstones.com in September 2008.
Read more HERE
Waverly graduate finds strength in family, friends, literature after car crash
Hannah Risner has lots of nerve — so much so that even a devastating family car accident nine years ago could not overcome her.
Thanks to the dedicated support of family, friends, professionals and the engaging characters in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, nothing could squash the 18-year-old Waverly grad’s will to live and to mend.
“I really couldn’t move or do anything,” she recalls of the long, long stay in Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, W.Va. But every night, her father read to her from the Harry Potter books and gradually she became absorbed in the characters’ vivid flights of fantasy and fell asleep with the current book tucked beneath her covers.
“I just wrote and wrote and told her how much I liked the stories and how much they’ve meant to me and how they’d gotten my mind off other things. Mom wrote to her, too,” she said.
The heartfelt letter brought a full-page response from the author — a letter Hannah always will treasure.
Read more HERE
A New Award For Unpublished Writers Of Teen Fiction
Storylines Trust and HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand are proud to announce an exciting new annual award on the children’s literary scene the Storylines Tessa Duder Award for unpublished writers of fiction for young adults, named in honour of one of New Zealand’s best writers for young adults.
Unpublished writers looking for an opportunity to emulate the outstanding writing careers of Kiwi authors such as William Taylor, Kate De Goldi, Bernard Beckett or Tessa Duder herself will be excited by this new initiative.
‘As someone who over three decades has seen New Zealand’s young adult publishing go from strength to strength,’ says Duder, ‘I am truly delighted that the new award will provide a kick-start for an exciting new talent. Storylines and HarperCollins Publishers are to be congratulated for setting up this first award specifically for a YA manuscript, and I confidently look forward to seeing each year’s winners go on to establishing solid writing careers.’
Read more HERE
What Science Fiction Books Should Be In Every Fan’s Library?
The folks over at SFSIGNAL.com had a great two-part post (Part 1 & Part 2) a few weeks ago when they asked a variety of panelists “What science fiction books should be in every fan’s library?” The panelists were allowed to recommend up to ten books, and could explain their selections to the readers. It’s a great read if you are a fan of sci-fi or are just looking for new ideas of what to read.
Classics
Dune(Frank Herbert) – First sci-fi book I read outside of school and it’s still one that I pick up to reread once a year or so.
Wrinkle In Time(Madeleine L’Engle) – This was the first sci-fi book I read, and it was a great way to enter the genre when I was young.
Moderns
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter(Seth Grahame-Smith) – Yes, it’s more Horror or even Biographical than sci-fi. Still, the story was so engaging and the topic of vampires was worked in so deftly and at the right moments that I like to recommend it to people to show how a vampire book can be great without the capes, fangs and eastern european accents
Read more HERE
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