The State of Science Fiction, A Personal View

Exploding Planet, by Mico Niemi

I just finished reading Jo Walton's marvelous book, Among Others, and was delighted at the many references to science fiction in 1979/1980, when the story takes place. At that time, I was an avid reader of sf like the protagonist, and I well remembered the excitement of discovering new authors, new books, the exhilaration of new ideas and the idealist belief that through science and technology, we could build a better world (not to mention explore strange new ones and seek out new civilizations).

Walton's book made me want to run to my shelves and re-read all my old favorites. Then I wondered what had happened to the love affair with sf. Did we all grow up and give up, or did we get lost in Mirkwood and never come out? Is today's sf too technological for new readers? Has the sense of wonder disappeared? Or merely gone sideways, so that instead of tuning into Star Trek confident future, we are wallowing in angsty vampires?

GUEST POST: Brenda Clough on Arctic Centennial

March 16 or 17, 2012, is the 100 year anniversary of the death of Antarctic explorer Lawrence Edward Grace ‘Titus’ Oates.  He’s the quintessential British hero, a role model for the kiddies and a mine of inspiration for writers, including me. He died possibly one of the most dramatic deaths of all time; when you want an example of character being destiny Oates is a perfect case to cite.
Also along about now is the centennial of the death of Robert Scott and his party of explorers, of which Oates was a member.  The actual date of their demise is understandably fuzzy, since they froze and starved to death in a dark tent on the ice.   Uncounted heroes have died unknown and unsung, but what saved Scott from oblivion was his writing.

Kay Kenyon on recovering enthusiasm for a story that's stalled

Leonid Pasternak, 19th C.

Kay Kenyon, who is one of my favorite writers-on-writing (as well as a fine novelist in her own right) describes a situation many of us have faced. I'd say "all," except there might be a lone exception somewhere out there in Writerland.

Sooner or later in your writing life you are going to run up against a novel that just won’t spark to life. Technically the story appears to have all the needed aspects, but as a whole, it is less than the sum of its parts. The characters don’t engage, the plot wanders, and your beta readers are unmoved.

She suggests that the best strategy might be to not work harder. I talk a lot about being tender with yourself, especially when it comes to creative endeavors. Continuing to push, to flog ourselves, keeps us locked with whatever is blocking us in the first place. We often do better when we step back, take a deep breath, refresh the creative well, work on something else. Kay says:

Trying to write when you’re discouraged or tired might seem like a brave thing to do–and if you are often discouraged or tired, it is brave to keep on–but in most cases it’s a bad idea to flog yourself until you get back at the project.

Sometimes taking a few week’s break is not only good for your mental health, it can do wonders for your novel rewrite. Work on a short story or an essay. Pile up some reserve blog posts. Don’t be idle, but don’t work on the problem project.

There is an almost magical power you can tap into when you let your manuscript sit for two weeks or a month. It is called perspective. Perspective is what you lose when you’ve been too close to your novel, especially if you’ve read the draft a number of times either aimlessly fussing with style or remodeling the story arc.

The rest of the article is well worth reading.

A New Anthology: Beyond Grimm: Tales Newly Twisted

First of all, a Happy Editor dance... [dance, dance, dance]

This is the first anthology I've edited (actually, co-edited with Phyllis Irene Radford) for Book View Cafe. It began, lo these many many months ago, with an in-house discussion along the lines of "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to..." Book View Cafe has already published several anthologies (Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls, Dragon Lords and Warrior Women -- which has a story of mine! -- The Shadow Conspiracy I and  II), so there was some precedent. We knew to ask things like, Will this be reprint, original stories, or both? Will it be a benefit for BVC or will the authors receive shares of the proceeds? How will we define the theme? At a certain point, we'd reached a sufficient level of enthusiasm and clarity so that someone had to put on an organizational (aka editor's) hat.

Thinking this would be marvelous fun, I volunteered, and the way it worked out, Phyl co-edited it with me. I supplied time and my own editorial experience, and she had the expertise of working with the BVC anthology publication procedures. Because there were two of us, we could submit our own stories to one another, thereby avoiding the editing-your-own-work scenario.

One of the things I love about editing anthologies is watching the process, the landscape of that adventure, unfold, discovering moments of truth and hilarity and heart-wrenching sadness and sheer beauty and poetry in prose. Beyond Grimm was no exception. Although we started with "let's retell classic fairy tales," our imaginations took us in other directions as well - the sun-drenched islands of Greek mythology, legends from the frozen north, Arthurian tales, nursery rhymes, even my own riff on the plots of classical ballets. Fairy-tale lands, contemporary urban settings, magical and not-so-magical steeds, spells and epistles of the people's revolution, mysterious locked chambers and shape-shifters...moonlight and storms.

GUEST POST Madeleine E. Robins on Regency Romance

I wrote Althea, my first book, because I needed something to read.  I think most readers know that feeling: you look around wanting a particular something and you cannot, in that moment, find it.  What I wanted was more Georgette Heyer, new Heyer; but Miss Heyer had recently died, and there would be nothing new from her any more.

I discovered Georgette Heyer's books in high school, and read her entire oeuvre, including her medieval books and her mysteries; what I really loved were her Georgian and Regency romances.  They were witty and sparkling and filled with nifty sense of the time and place, and unlike most of the period fiction I had stumbled over up to that time, they weren't Victorian; call it aesthetic preference or just cussedness--the Victorians don't speak to me.  But the Regency, as depicted by Heyer, was bright and frothy and delightful.

Then I encountered Jane Austen, and fell into an entirely different and deeper love; Austen writes of love and money but without Heyer's fascination with the nobility of the nobility (virtually none of the titled characters in Austen are admirable).  Austen is deadly funny, observant, and firmly rooted in a real time and place (my favorite line in Sense and Sensibility comes at the end, when the heroine and her husband are so happy that "they had in fact nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better pasturage for their cows.").  I went through a brief period where my passion for Austen kind of spoiled Heyer for me.  But I got better.