Ask the Bloggers: How did you get your start? – SMD Version
I’m not a selfish guy, so I thought I would repost SMD’s response to several of my ask the Bloggers questions while he is away. You can see other responses at my blog, Grasping for the Wind, but for now, enjoy SMD’s. What got you started in blogging, and why did you choose to become an SF book reviewer? I guess technically my blogging started long before I created http://wisb.blogspot.com/. I had a LiveJournal that I used to babble about my personal life, but I stopped that after about six months when I realized that whining and complaining about life wasn’t really all that interesting. Besides, I got over that stage and came to the conclusion that there was no point being depressed and upset all the time when you could spend your days being happy (or at least try to be). So I stopped blogging for a while. Some time later I started getting the urge to write a novel noticed that some folks were doing blog novels. After looking into it I thought, “What the heck. Why not try one of these things?” I did, creating WISB (which went through several name changes beforehand). I spent almost a year writing and posting The World in the Satin Bag and babbling about science fiction, fantasy, etc. After I finished the novel I decided to keep blogging and plan a second book, and I’ve been doing it all for almost two years now. As for doing reviews: I started doing them randomly on my blog, decided I liked it, and ended up becoming involved with SQT’s blog (http://fantasyscifibookreview.blogspot.com/) doing reviews. Now I review for small presses and the occasional big press and it’s fantastic. Not sure why I chose to become involved, though. I enjoy reading and enjoyed writing the reviews. There’s always that side of you that goes, “Hey, I get free books.” That’s always a perk. I also have the fortune of reading new works I might not have seen in the bookstore or maybe never would have picked up in the first place (and should have). Once I got involved I couldn’t stop. I love small presses. Some of the best works I’ve ever read have come from such places. Hopefully I’ll get to keep doing this too. It’s opened up a few doors for me, I think (such as becoming a judge for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards and speaking directly with writers/authors/publishers).
Debut Showcase: The Gargoyle
(This is Tia, guest-blogging from Fantasy Debut, where I often showcase debut novels like this one.) The Gargoyle(Amazon UK, Canada)by Andrew Davidson (website, other website)HardcoverDoubledayExcerpt (also available as PDF) Blurb:The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul. A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne’s care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished. Gosh, I don’t know what to think about this one. The narrator doesn’t sound like he’d be very likable at first; maybe he is compelling otherwise. But the idea of the carefully planned suicide made me sit up. One 0f the websites is burnedbylove.com, and you might think that I linked there mistakenly; I did not. Scroll down to see the relevance to this novel.
Last Argument of Kings Available a Month Early
Hi Folks, John from Grasping for the Wind guest blogging for SMD. I wanted to let everyone know about a super secret little surprise. Don’t tell anyone, but Last Argument of Kings is already available for sale at Amazon, a whole month early!
WBM: Magic (Part One)
Ah, magic, the one thing everyone loves to have in fantasy. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about this, mainly because in my world there isn’t a whole lot of magic, or at least the magic is more of less uncontrolled, or unaccessible. So, yesterday my girlfriend and I were walking to one of the national parks around these parts and I started thinking about it. My world is quirky as it is (what with there being evil gnomes in New Timberfax and haunting, man-stealing faery creatures in Barksville). That very quirkiness means my magic has to match it. I can’t have stuff that will seem too, well, magical when everything else is magical in a strange way.So, let’s get down and dirty on the whole magic thing. Who has it?Only non-human creatures, specifically spirits, faery, sprites, and other such mythical critters. Humans themselves have no innate magic, meaning they aren’t born with it and can’t “magically” gain magical abilities. There are no human wizards shooting fireballs in this world. How powerful is it?Depends. For the most part magic is relatively low key. There is lots of manipulation of the mind and the environment, but again, no fireballs or crazy magic (at least not intentionally). I don’t want magic to be a force that can essentially destroy the world through a single creature’s hand. No evil magic-weilding overlords and stuff. Can non-magic folk use magic?Yes, actually. Even though humans don’t have magic, there are elements within the world that contain magic within them. Gnomes, for instance, cannot come to life unless they are built by human hands; the clay itself is magical. Then there are other substances that can be manipulated using alchemy/chemistry, which produce results that can, for the most part, be controlled. Healing potions exist in Altern.Having said that, I do have one substance that I’ve created that will have unstable results: CacticlesVery similar to cactii. They’re sort of a mixture between a vine-like plant and a cactus. Cacticles, however, contain properties that are completely unstable and, for the most part, uncontrollable. Every time you use cacticles for any purpose, the results are random. A person chewing on the plant might light on fire, or turn to stone, or float away, or explode, or a number of other things. As a result, when experimenting with the plant, a lot of precautions are taken. For instance:A person chewing the plant will stand in a bucket, be chained with thick metal that can’t be burned or melted (and so the person can’t float away), then be surrounded by thick walls, in case of explosion, etc. Every time a new result is found that is potentially hazardous, a new element is added into the mix to prevent damage to innocent bystanders.So, the point is that cacticles are extremely potent, making them exceedingly valuable for study, since the potential of the plant itself is limitless. The problem is that controlling it is just about impossible (or so the human folk think). So, magic can be in the hands of the non-magical, just not in a way that is controlled by the individual, but controlled externally through chemical means. Why do I want it like this?Well, to be honest, I’m about sick and tired of all the fireballs and super magicians. I’m more interested in making the human more of an outsider, sort of how we might be outsiders in this world if magic were ever to be proven to exist (or mythical creatures for that matter). Or perhaps the magic folk would be the outsiders in this world? Well, in my world, the outsiders are the humans, since they are the ones mostly out of touch with the natural elements surging around them. As a result, they become isolated or targeted by the magic community. I wanted magic to be limited on purpose, because I don’t want there being the possibility of super overlords and what not.Humans will, of course, have ways of using magic, just not directly. They’re means of magic is limited too, since it revolves around understanding natural elements and plants and being able to manipulate them to do what one wants. One can’t just go “abracadabra” and make a magic healing plant. It takes time and dedication to find the right formula. Cacticles may have immense power, but that power is uncontrollable. One would have to have tremendous luck to use it for evil means and not explode or die in some other horrible manner. I think that’s more than enough on magic for the time being!
Oregon: Heading Your Way
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am going on vacation tomorrow. There are several guest bloggers lined up for the days I’ll be gone. I’m not sure how many posts will be put up while I’m gone, so if you see a reduction in daily posting, it’s cause I’m gone. No worries, though. I imagine some interesting content will show up from Tia and John and what not, since both of them are fantastic bloggers that I follow on Google Reader fairly regularly. Thanks to them for volunteering to help me out. There are some others I’m hoping will accept my invitation soon too, and if they do while I’m gone, thanks for blogging for me! Anyway. I will be gone for about a week. I’m going to Oregon with my girlfriend to see some of the family and to take a little roadtrip. We’re going to see some neat stuff, and a certain special location located in Portland that she’ll be excited for. Anywho!
SF: The Generation Gap?
Everyone else is talking about it, so I figure I should throw in my two cents. Firstly, I’m not going to go into the giant rants that others have, because I think the majority of what needs to be said has already been said. If you want in-depth discussion of this, then go here, here, here, or here.My thoughts on this are as follows: Should we be basing any of our discussions on voting population? I’ve never once voted on the Hugos and never really wanted to (no offense to the writers, I just don’t want to pay to be able to vote for a book). How many people are the same way? Also, in reference to the graph, that doesn’t really cover anything beyond a basic representation of the facts, and leaves out the fact that there aren’t a lot of writers in their twenties or thirties in the first place.I do believe there is a generation gap, but I think it will be nearly impossible to pin down to an exact percentage or number. There’s no way to be entirely certain that old folks only read old folks and young folks only read young folks. Heck, did anyone consider that a lot of readers might not even know what the hell the Hugos even are? Seriously. I didn’t know what the Hugo and Nebula awards were until I picked up a copy of Ender’s Game and read it on the cover. Even then I just went “oh, it’s an award, cool!” It wasn’t until my early twenties that I knew what the awards were and started to become more involved in the writing world. A lot of people may not even know the Hugos exist. After all, it’s not like the Hugos are on television or on the radio. The only time you hear about them is online or on a book and very rarely in regular conversation with folks.There are just too many factors in all of this for us to be even remotely capable of pinning down what the generation gap actually is. There probably is a gap, but I don’t know if it’s a significant one. It might be, though. Granted, I don’t know everything and perhaps I’m missing some valuable points on all this. What if the gap is accidental? It’s not like writers advertise their age’s, unless they happen to be very young and it’s needed to boost sales. I read just about everything, regardless of age, but I’m also not the average reader, I suppose. What do you all think about this? Do you feel there is a big generation gap in SF?