May 2008

Thanks very much to Mr. Law for doing this interview with me. You can find check out my review of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction here. First, tell us a little about yourself and your relation to the speculative fiction field–a little history if you will. From my earliest memory I always wanted to be a scientist and from that grew a love of science fiction. In my teens I got interested in writing and at eighteen I was working as an editor/writer/letterer for a comic book company formed with some friends that I helped run but got nowhere. I went on to write and edit (as well as help run) a variety of comic book companies over the years. I started my own SF zine but couldn’t get it off the ground in the traditional format, so this eventually revised the format to an eZine that I ran for a few years. I got married, finally received my science degree and have been working as a software developer ever since. In more recent past I have been co-running an ePublisher, Virtual Tales, which though publishes various genres, is very heavy in SF/Fantasy. What are you currently reading (fiction or non-fiction)? Who are some of your favorite writers of past and present and why? Actually, I’m listening to a lot of audiobooks now. Between homeschooling my eldest daughter and spending time with my other daughter and wife, I don’t have a lot of time for reading, other than what I do editing, though I am looking forward to when my children are older and I can enjoy more traditional reading again. Audiobooks fit well within my life as I can listen to them on the way to and from work. What’s more, there are hundreds you can get for free off the Internet. Obviously many of these public- domain stories, but you would be surprised at what has become public domain, such as H. Beam Piper’s stories. I have “Little Fuzzy” on CD that I read years ago which I am looking forward to enjoying again soon. But beyond public domain, many authors have embraced the audio format with original fiction. One of the biggest is Scott Sigler, a SF/Horror writer, who claims to have produced the first podcast-only novel, EarthCore, though this novel has gone on into print. This is not a typical genre I read, but Sigler is a master of the audiobook format. Currently, when I do have a chance to read I’ve been slowly working my way through A. J. Cronin’s “Keys to the Kingdom”.As for favorite writers here are some of my current ones:– Spider Robinson– G. K. Chesterton– F. Scott Fitzgerald– Louis de Wohl How did you come to be editor of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One? Actually, this grew out of the Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, which was started by Darin Park and originated within an online group of fantasy writers, which I belonged to, as well. I was busy with other projects and not as interested in fantasy at the time, so I never attempted to get involved with this initial project. However, after this there was always talk of doing a similar SF guide, but it never got off the ground. Eventually, my time freed up and I proposed such a publication. Neither of the original editors was available to front the project, so to get it running, I offered to do this myself with Darin agreeing to help out. We queried the original publisher Dragon Moon Press, who expressed an interest, wrote up a proposal, and here we are today. Why do you think the project was difficult to get off the ground? Is it because SF is a difficult genre to do guides for, or that it’s not usually used as a medium for ‘how to’ books? Or is it just a more typical answer of nobody really stepping up until you decided to? (This isn’t meant to offend, but I find that there are so many more guides for fantasy than there are for SF, though there are quite a lot of SF books, so I’m curious if you might have insight into what makes SF guides a little less popular). In general, I don’t think people realize all that it takes to get a collective writing project off the ground. They think it is a “neat idea” but they are writers rather than editors, so they aren’t aware nor interested in the aspects that make it possible to pull off such a project and, as such, a lot more projects are started then actually ever get completed. As for SF guides, in general, I believe many people see fantasy as easier to write because you just make everything up (not true, but it is the assumption). Whereas SF is based upon science, which requires more research and knowledge to carry it off effectively, there is the perception that creating a fantasy writing guide is easier than SF. How exactly did you choose the articles in The Complete Guide? What is the process like for making a collection/guide such as this? As with the previous publication, this grew out of an online writing group, so this is where the first articles came from, as many of the previous contributors to the Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy also write SF and sent us article proposals. We also sent out a general call to various writing groups and organizations for submissions. We had a list of articles/topics that we wanted to get covered, so in additional to the general call, we asked specific authors to contribute articles in their area of expertise. A number of which accepted. What would you say sets this guide apart from the myriad of other books on writing SF that are already out there? What makes it more valuable to new writers or even veteran writers? There are several things that make this different. One is the