Posts Tagged: Featured Article

When We Were Executioners by J. M. Mcdermott
If, if, if.

Money problems that are public are like a social media alert button, like Google alerts, a magic wand that summons author attention to even the most obscure rumor mills of the internet.

There’s a kind of creeping horror that strikes the heart of an author when they discover the company with whom they have two novels out is slowly collapsing into a shambling mound, devourer of careers and eater of all working energy. Let’s be clear: Jason and Jeremy are not the subject of what I am discussing. There comes a point where people just sort of don’t make a difference much, because what matters is that the company is collapsing and it wouldn’t matter who was running the broken space ship into the wormhole. It’s sort of like working at any company that’s failing. It’s easy to play armchair quarterback and wonder at the decisions made. But, deep in the muck of collapse, what is it like?

Publishing isn’t the sort of gig that you go to work and go home and vent with your spouse about your day. It’s not like that at all. I work out of my house, and will have fewer than a dozen emails about a project in a year, unless there’s some serious marketing and promotion campaign happening, and then maybe two phone calls total. It’s not like there’s much water cooler chatter, most of the time. Most discussion channels are public. I can’t tweet about that rising uneasy feeling. I can only watch as news comes over the transom. Money problems, which are private, are sort of a low hum in the background of your mind. Money problems that are public are like a social media alert button, like Google alerts, a magic wand that summons author attention to even the most obscure rumor mills of the internet. Read More »

Thieves Quarry by D.B. Jackson
Ideology, Politics, and the Writer

This is a post about writing; it is not a post about politics.

This is a post about writing; it is not a post about politics. I want to make that clear from the outset. I am not trying to write a polemical piece, nor am I looking for a fight. Please, let’s try to keep comments and discussion to the writing issues.

My first series, the LonTobyn Chronicle (which I wrote as David B. Coe), was a fairly straightforward epic fantasy trilogy. But I originally conceived of it as something I called “an ecological fantasy,” because it played on ecological issues. I didn’t worry about putting off readers; in my callow arrogance I just figured that those who were interested in the issues would see what I was doing, and those who didn’t would still enjoy the story. The problem was, I used too heavy a hand in weaving those issues into my narrative. In its review of the final volume of the trilogy, Publisher’s Weekly noted this, saying, “Characterization, although present, plays second fiddle to ideology in this epic. It’s as if Robert Jordan began channeling Will and Ariel Durant.” Read More »

Has Fantasy Forgotten the Consequences of Violence?

It got me to wondering why there aren’t more fantasy (or science fiction) novels that deal with issues outside of violence?

I’m working on an idea for a secondary world urban fantasy about a young man who enters a very opulent city looking to become a master chef. The story follows his journey through various culinary-related careers — farmer, butcher, fisherman, baker, patissier, commis — until he opens his own restaurant and becomes a known quantity within the city. Although it doesn’t even sound like it would need to be set in a fantasy city, I’m still making it a fantasy because I’m comfortable with fantasy and I also want to explore the magic in food. Outside of writing and reading, cooking is a passion of mine.

However, as I’ve been outlining and drafting this novel (working title: Stock), it occurred to me that I was writing a fantasy novel with almost no violence (outside of a fistfight or two). The plot is resolved through hard work and cleverness. It got me to wondering why there aren’t more fantasy (or science fiction) novels that deal with issues outside of violence? Read More »