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Month: July 2015

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Location, Location, Location! or How to Find and Maintain Your Writing Space

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Location, Location, Location! or How to Find and Maintain Your Writing Space

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Write in the tub-smallIn a perfect world, we could all write anywhere, anytime. But even seasoned writers sometimes have problems sitting down and starting a writing session or staying in a writing session once it’s started. While we all have these problems  – the pros find ways to get past it. Here are some suggestions on how to fight the urge to do absolutely anything but write. The causes are too numerous to deal with in a single blog post, but lets start with some basics.

Location of Your Workspace

Don’t try to work in the line of fire. Don’t place your workspace near the TV or PlayStation. Even if you’re not tempted to watch or play (And aren’t we all?), almost no one can write when there’s that much background noise. Don’t fight the battle of “I ought to be able to work anywhere.” Save that mental sword arm for your plot and prose.

Wherever your family most often gathers, whether it’s the den or the kitchen, is the worst possible place for you to try to write. For most, writing requires a measure of silence and solitude, and time away from distractions.

The amount of silence, and the type, vary from writer to writer. You’ll have to experiment to see what works best for you. I often write to music. Others find the white noise and anonymity of cafes creates a protective bubble they can concentrate in – so long as you’re not sitting with a companion who keeps asking if they can interrupt for just a moment.

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane

Discovering Robert E. Howard: Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane

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Kane_MoonMartial arts expert Frank Shildiner has forgotten more about Adventure Pulp than I’ve ever known. His writings have included new tales starring  pulp characters Richard Knight and Thunder Jim Wade (if you’re a Doc Savage fan, you should check big Jim out).

Solomon Kane is probably Robert E. Howard’s second best-known character after a certain well-muscled barbarian, and one which influenced Frank very early on. So, I turned to Frank for a look at the puritan sword slinger, as Black Gate continues its summer look at Robert E. Howard.

Solomon Kane. I can still remember when I first read the name. I was 11 and looking through books and comics at a flea market, my mother one row over looking through the Robin Cook section. I pulled a slim paperback from the pile, the cover showing a cold eyed Puritan staring at me with open condemnation (at least that’s how I interpreted the visual). But then I read the name… SOLOMON KANE. And there wasn’t a prayer on Earth of getting me to let go of this book that day.

And that first short story, “Red Shadows,” changed me forever. I became a fan for all things Robert E. Howard, but especially Solomon Kane. Caught by the enemy he’d chased from Europe into Africa, Kane looked up at this man he’d hounded relentlessly for years, and the following thought summed up why this hero became my favorite.

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August 2015 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

August 2015 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

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Asimov's Science Fiction August 2015-smallI buy Asimov’s for the fiction, but I always read Sheila Williams’ editorial first. This issue, she write some wise words on what appreciation means to authors — even authors who’ve made it to the pinnacle of their field.

Isaac Asimov… told me that he hadn’t felt himself a complete success until his peers, the Science Fiction Writers of America, named him a Grand Master… On our way to the Readers’ Award celebration that year, I mentioned Isaac’s wistful comments about the Grand Master Award to Stan [Schmidt, editor of Analog]. Stan was stunned. Despite all his accomplishments, even Isaac Asimov needed reassurance? Did this mean the situation was hopeless for the rest of us?…

I’ve always thought that Isaac’s desire for SFWA’s Grand Master Award had more to do with the human need to set goals and strive forward than it did with any further wish for career validation. After all, by 1987 Isaac had already won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards, and five Locus Poll awards. In 1982 he’d finally made the New York Times best sellers’ list as well. Yet if even Isaac was not quite satisfied, then what about all the unsung scriveners — those that only win one or two awards, those that only end up with one or two nominations, and those that are never even nominated?…

I recently came across an amusing Facebook comment by Daniel Hatch. “I’ve been publishing stories for twenty-five years now, and every time someone says they’ve read one of them, I feel like I’ve won a Hugo. I think I have seven of them.”… So readers… let those writers know when you read and enjoy their tales. An appreciative comment may not be a Hugo or a Nebula, but it can be exactly what an author needs to keep producing their very best stories.

There’s lot of great fiction this month, with stories from Will McIntosh, Paul McAuley, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and many others.

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Vintage Treasures: The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

Vintage Treasures: The Green Girl by Jack Williamson

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The Green Girl-smallJack Williamson is a science fiction legend. He won the Hugo and Nebula award for his novella “The Ultimate Earth,” published in Analog in 2000, when he was 92 years old. He kept right on writing until 2006, when he died at the age of 98.

Of course, Jack Williamson first made a name for himself in the pulp era, when he was right at the top of the field, with novels like Golden Blood (1933), The Legion of Space (1934), The Cometeers (1936) and One Against the Legion (1939). That’s right, Williamson was a popular writer for more than seven decades. Sales records fall all the time in this fast-moving business…. but that one is likely to stay for a very long time.

Williamson is also highly collectible, especially his early paperback appearances. In my Vintage Treasures posts it’s routine for me to highlight highly desirable paperbacks from the 50s, 60s, and 70s that can be purchased for $5-$6, or less than the price of a modern paperback. (That’s what “highly desirable” means in the vintage paperback biz. Paperbacks that aren’t highly desirable usually sell for under $1.)

Not so with Williamson. His first book, The Green Girl, is one of the most collectible paperbacks in the field, with copies routinely selling on eBay from $25 – $150.

Of course, much of that has to with the eye-catching cover, painted by prolific pulp artist Ray Johnson. The novel was out of print for over 60 years (another reason for its collectibility), but that cover has spawned thousands of posters and t-shirts. Click on the image at left for a bigger version.

The Green Girl was originally published in two parts in Amazing Stories in March and April, 1930, and reprinted in 1950 as Avon Fantasy Novel #2, under editor Don Wollheim. While Williamson had had many popular appearances in the magazines by this point, this was his first solo appearance in book form.

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Every Kind of Story, All At Once: Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

Every Kind of Story, All At Once: Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

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The Enchantress of FlorenceIn some ways Salman Rushdie’s 2008 novel The Enchantress of Florence feels like a classic pulp fantasy entertainment. A bit less than a hundred years ago you could find a lot of pulp set in India, central Asia, and the Middle East: Harold Lamb recounting colourful histories of the great Mongol conquerors and Timur-Leng; Fritz Leiber imagining a pair of sword-wielding comrades he’d later recast as heroes of no-when; Arthur D. Howden Smith telling of the adventures of the Grey Maiden, the first sword made of iron; Talbot Mundy presenting theosophy-inflected occult sagas; Robert E. Howard, perhaps inspired by Lamb, writing grim war tales of battles against Genghis Khan and his great general Subotai. It’s interesting that when Michael Chabon tried his hand at a pulp-style adventure novel, he set it in Khazaria.

Naturally there are an awful lot of differences between The Enchantress of Florence and the pulp tales. Rushdie’s prose is more baroque even than Leiber’s. The structure of the book’s vastly more intricate, a narrative maze of stories and stories-within-stories. And, of course, The Enchantress of Florence is written as it were from the east looking west, rather than the reverse.

Still: it is a story set in a time of swordsmanship and adventure — the late sixteenth century, to be precise — and it glories in the lurid and the larger-than-life. It’s a tale of emperors and kings and generals, of subtle enchantresses and the brutality of war. It’s a book fascinated by what used to be called romance, by action and magic. And if its style and structure are more elaborate than anything in the pulps, that’s a sign that Rushdie’s book is actually even more charged with storytelling energy: with humour and grotesques and sex and politics and death and all kinds of things, one following fast upon another.

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Tom Piccirilli, May 27, 1965 – July 11, 2015

Tom Piccirilli, May 27, 1965 – July 11, 2015

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Tom Piccirilli-smallFour-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author Tom Piccirilli died today.

The first Piccirilli novel I read was A Choir of Ill Children, which I brought with me on an anniversary getaway to downtown Chicago with my wife a decade ago. We saw a lot of live theatre and shows that weekend, but none was as memorable as that slim novel. That one book made me a fan, and Tom Piccirilli became one of my favorite modern horror writers.

His other novels included A Lower Deep (2001), The Night Class (2001), November Mourns (2005), Headstone City (2006), and The Midnight Road (2007). He also authored eight short story collections, including The Hanging Man (1996), Deep into the Darkness Peering (1999), and This Cape Is Red Because I’ve Been Bleeding (2002).

Piccirilli was also an accomplished editor. He edited the Stoker Award-winning poetry anthology The Devil’s Wine (2004), as well as Four Dark Nights (2002) (with Christopher Golden, Douglas Clegg, Bentley Little), and Midnight Premiere (2007). He was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best paperback original mystery with The Cold Spot (2008), and World Fantasy Award finalist for his collection Deep into that Darkness Peering (2000). He was also nominated for the Macavity Award and Le Grand Prix de L’imagination.

Piccirilli was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2012, and suffered a stroke in 2014. His wife, writer Michelle Scalise, posted this brief message to his Facebook account today: “Tom died today. He was the love of my life, an amazing writer and the best person I have ever known.” He was fifty years old.

Patrick Rothfuss Confirms Bidding War For The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss Confirms Bidding War For The Name of the Wind

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The Name of the Wind-smallThe Hollywood Reporter is reporting that several major Hollywood studios are in a high-priced bidding war for Patrick Rothfuss’s debut fantasy The Name of the Wind. Perhaps most interesting, the publication notes that, while the book has been around for eight years, the recent frenzy was likely triggered by the upcoming third novel, The Doors of Stone, which presumably provides the series with adequate franchise potential for studios looking to replicate the runaway success of Game of Thrones.

Warner Bros., MGM and Lionsgate are among a group of studios locked in a heated bidding war for Patrick Rothfuss’ mega-best-selling fantasy novel The Name of the Wind, book one in The Kingkiller Chronicle series.

Nearly every studio — also including Fox and Universal — is interested in the book, and the pool of suitors is expected to expand. The Name of the Wind centers on Kvothe, a magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. But unlike most literary bidding wars, The Name of the Wind will see top brass from each studio descend on Comic-Con in San Diego this week to court Rothfuss…

Like George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, another fantasy series of books that sat idle for years before generating Hollywood interest, The Name of the Wind has been around for nearly a decade. The book was published by DAW in March 2007 and spawned a second book, The Wise Man’s Fear, in 2011. A third book, tentatively titled The Doors of Stone, is expected in 2016, and likely sparked the renewed interest in The Kingkiller Chronicle. The fact that the series is seen as having enormous franchise potential [has] stoked the frenzy.

Rothfuss previously optioned the series to New Regency Prods, who were developing it for 20th Century Fox Television, but the option recently lapsed and the rights reverted to the author. Rothfuss confirmed the news on his Facebook page (in a post that’s generated over 1,000 comments in 9 hours), saying “So. Yeah. Here’s some news.”

Read the complete article here.

Future Treasures: Bonesy by Mark Rigney

Future Treasures: Bonesy by Mark Rigney

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Bonesy Mark Rigney

Mark Rigney’s Renner & Quist novels — The Skates, Sleeping Bear, and Check-Out Time — feature the unlikely team of Unitarian Reverend Renner and retired investigator Dale Quist, who solve thorny and twisted occult mysteries. The first three novels have been widely praised. As William Patrick Maynard wrote in his review of Check-Out Time:

Rigney builds his fiction around his characters’ faith (or their lack thereof) in the supernatural and preternatural. The series is thought-provoking as much as it is entertaining…

Funny, moving, enlightening, entertaining – Mark Rigney’s Renner & Quist series is in a class of its own. The recommendations come no stronger. Do not pass this up.

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The Collections of Tanith Lee

The Collections of Tanith Lee

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Cyrion-small Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer-small Tamastara-small

We’re continuing with our look at the extraordinary 40-year career of Tanith Lee, who passed away on May 24th. So far we’ve covered 13 of her novels; today I’d like to look at her equally dazzling short story career.

Lee published well over 300 short stories during her long career, an amazing accomplishment. Her first three major collections were all published by her long-time publisher DAW, starting with the sword-and-sorcery collection Cyrion in 1982.

Cyrion (Sept 1982, 304 pages, $2.95, cover by Ken Kelly)
Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (January 1983, 208 pages, $2.50, cover by Michael Whelan)
Tamastara, or The Indian Nights (March 1984, 174 pages, $2.95, cover by Don Maitz)

A lot has been said about Cyrion over the years, but I think perhaps James Lecky, on his blog Tales from the Computerbank, said it best in his 2009 review.

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Get Your Own Star Trek Communicator — At Last

Get Your Own Star Trek Communicator — At Last

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Get your own Star Trek Communicator-smallEver since Leonard Nimoy was spotted using the Motorola StarTac phone in 2000, I’ve dreamed about getting a cell phone shaped like a Star Trek communicator.

Now Engadget reports that the long, long (long) wait may finally be over, as The Wand Company has procured a license to make and sell a Bluetooth accessory shaped just like a communicator.

In January of 2016, you’ll finally be able to buy an official, screen-accurate, Bluetooth-enabled Star Trek Original Series Communicator.

Technically, the replica prop is just a simple Bluetooth handset with pretty basic functionality: it takes calls and plays music. That’s about it. It’s pretty snazzy looking though — the Communicator is a die-cast metal, aluminum and ABS replica modeled after a 3D scan of the original “Alpha Hero” prop, made and manufactured by The Wand Company. Its magnetic charging connector turns the unit into a pretty nice display piece, too. It’s pricey, though: the Communicator will cost $150 when it starts shipping in January — the same price as the replica phaser (and TV remote control!) the manufacturer made last year.

Read the complete article here.