World in the Satin Bag

SF/F Links: A Little Something For June

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Well, I have more links for you all. No need to keep you waiting. Here goes: Want to know what those rejection letters actually mean? Here’s a post about deciphering them. The Magic District talks about objectification in fantasy. Good stuff. Widdershins Wizard offers a critique of fantasy and its cliches. Definitely worth reading. Topless Robot lists 10 blatant Terminator ripoffs. Wow, there are some really bad movies out there. The Torch Online lists the top eight fantasy villains. Darkness is a particular favorite of mine. io9 Lists 13 books that will change the way you look at robots. Some really good titles here. Beam Me Up asks: What is science fiction? They’re obviously not the first or only ones asking this and unfortunately it’s not a topic that will ever have a definitive answer… Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog lists five interesting Peter Pan books. If you like Mr. Pan, you might want to check those out! Pak Tea House links the Taliban to the Borg. Bizarrely amusing. io9 lists the 10 greatest libertarian science fiction books. Some good reading there! Check out the Save the Semi-pro Zine blog! Edward Champion points out some notable books not written by white people. There are some excellent suggestions there. And finally there is this recollection of a particularly horrible experience at a panel at WisCon. Read it. It deals with issues of rape in fiction and people being completely horrible human beings. Thanks goes to Mr. Tan of Bibliophile Stalker and John of SF Signal for pointing me to a handful of the links on this list.

World in the Satin Bag

Self-publishing Redux: The Good Books Three

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In the aftermath of my criticism of self-publishing I thought it would be a good idea to point out some of those self-published books that I have enjoyed. Since no further introductions are needed, I’ll just dig right in: The Dark Dreamweaver by Nick RuthBy far one of my favorite self-published fantasy novels. With a cast of bizarre and fascinating characters, this one gripped me when I first read it years ago and it’s been in my library every since. It’s the kind of book I can see reading to my future children (when or wherever they happen to spring up).You can find my review of it here (warning: this is an exceptionally old review) The Tales of Tanglewood: The Lon Dubh Whistle by Scott KessmanI guess it’s somewhat strange that two of the best self-published books I have read also happen to be novels meant for younger audiences. Still, Kessman’s work is fun, a bit quirky, and magical; it’s another one of those books that I’d love to read to my kids one day. We’ll see!You can find a link to my review here. Honeycomb by Israel Del RioThe one adult novel that I found to be quite remarkable. While it’s not a perfect book, it’s premise is fascinating and the writing is generally pretty strong. Contains some interesting examinations of the afterlife and the complicated relationships between a series of connected individuals. Certainly worthy of a good read, in my opinion.You can find a link to my review here. There you have it! Evidence that I don’t hate all self-published novels. Have any of you read any particularly good SF/F novels that were self-published? Let me know in the comments!

World in the Satin Bag

SF/F Links: Some June Book Giveaways!

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Here goes: SciFiGuy has a copy of Jacqueline Carey’s Naamah’s Kiss up for grabs. Bitten By Books has a huge giveaway that you have to see (too many things to list here). Darque Reviews is giving away three books in S. J. Day’s Marked series. J. Kaye has a copy of Ghost Huntress up for grabs. You can also find there a giveaway for the audiobook for Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception. Presenting Lenore is giving away a prize pack of three books she got in the mail while she was at the BEA. Awaiting Serenity has a copy of Fragile Eternity up for grabs. That’s it for tonight! Enjoy!

World in the Satin Bag

Reader Question: Should Writers Have English Degrees?

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(For some reason I did not write down the name of the person who asked this question, nor did I write down where it came from. So, if you asked this, please leave me a comment here letting me know so I can give you credit!) I think at one point people thought that they had to have a creative writing degree or something related in order to be a good writer. Perhaps a lot of people still think this. The reality is that there’s no reason that you have to get a degree to be a writer or to even be a successful one. While creative writing programs can be wonderful, they can also be terrible depending on what you write. Most of what you learn about writing comes not from taking a class, but from reading and doing. You can take every college course imaginable and there still will be no guarantee of you learning how to be a better writer, or that you will get published as a result. This isn’t to say that creative writing programs, or English programs, aren’t beneficial. You certainly can and probably will learn things from a creative writing class and professors of creative writing can help you develop your craft based on their experiences–the hope is, of course, that these professors have a significant publishing career behind them to add credibility to their advice. But the brutal truth is that having a B.A. in creative writing means diddly squat to most editors, and having one doesn’t automatically mean that you’re better than all those also trying to get published who don’t have such a degree. Creative writing programs tend to be a mixed bag. Some are fantastic, some not so much, but none of them can promise to churn out excellent writers–Iowa Writer’s Workshop does have an excellent track record, though, and that might be worth acknowledging if you’re interested in a degree. And then there is the fact that quite a lot of writers who are successful have no degrees whatsoever. Some have degrees not even related to the writing field at all–look at all the scientists who become science fiction writers, etc. Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter if you have a degree or not: you can be a writer either way. If you want a degree, however, get it because you want to have a career that isn’t necessarily based on something so obviously without guarantee. Creative writing degrees are good, but I’ve always seen them as being largely pointless unless you pursue them at the M.A. or PhD. levels. A B.A. in creative writing is essentially even more useless than a B.A. in literature or English–and let’s face it, a B.A. in almost anything is worth less than the cost of printing the certificate; this is the sad state of affairs in the education world. I’d recommend that those who want to eventually have writing careers should have a fallback plan. There is literally no guarantee that you will ever have a writing career, no matter how much work you put into it, no matter how you do it, whether it be traditionally publishing novels or short stories, or doing it on your own. Being conscious of that when pursuing advanced education will help you make an educated decision about your future. What are you willing to do for a career while you try to develop your fiction skills and get the publishing credits you need to reach that point where you can quit your day job? Thinking about that can certainly help ground your career goals. But let’s not leave it up to me. What do all my readers think about this? Leave a comment. ——————– If you have a question about science fiction, fantasy, writing, or anything related you’d like answered here, whether silly or serious, feel free to send it via email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com, tweet it via Twitter to @shaunduke, or leave it in the comments here. Questions are always welcome! If you liked this post, consider stumbling, digging, or linking to it!

World in the Satin Bag

SF/F Links: June June June

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Here are some leftovers from last month to keep June interesting, or informative, or something useful like that. Cinematropolis lists ten 2009 science fiction films with promise. A lot of interesting flicks coming out and hopefully this will be a banner year. Apparently people can’t make up their minds. Not too long ago they said that warp was impossible. Now they’re saying it’s not impossible, just really difficult, as if we didn’t already know that. I’m sure everyone has been thinking about how easy it is to make a functioning warp drive and wondering why it is that we don’t have them. I mean, come on! It must be a conspiracy, right? Oil companies. Blame them for no warp. Scalzi highlights a rather interesting idea about how we interacted with some of our non-human Neanderthal relatives: we ate them. And it’s not cannibalism, according to Scalzi. Here’s a lengthy list of science fiction and fantasy writers of African descent, in case you’re interested. Some new names in there! Discover Magazine reminds us of some rules for time travelers. Good stuff! The Incurable Disease of Writing recently posted their May edition of the Just Write Blog Carnival, which links to one of my articles and has a whole lot of other stuff you all might want to check out. And then there’s the late April Creative Writing Goodies Blog Carnival with a whole lot of other links that might be worth checking out. This blog looks interesting. It’s called Toxotai: The Galaxy Project and seems to be one individual’s attempt to build an entire galaxy. Sounds cool to me! Jeremiah Tolbert lists five rejection horror stories (meaning instances in which writers now rather famous were horribly rejected in their early careers). This should give those of us still struggling to get published some hope, or at least further our delusions. Apparently that’s a documentary coming out called Invisible Universe, which will discuss a history of blackness in speculative fiction. I’m really looking forward to it, actually, because it sounds fantastically informative. Jim Van Pelt has a list of ten science fiction books he recommends. Some excellent stuff in there. (Thanks to SF Signal) And, finally, Listverse lists fifteen influential early works of apocalyptic fiction. Some titles I’ve never seen in there and now want to read! And there you have it!

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