Here’s a thought for those writing SF novels about time travel: The hackneyed plot is always one of those ethically dubious stories about someone deciding to get into the time machine and kill Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Mao, or whoever. They do so because they are supposedly moral relativists and believe that killing one psychopath is better than letting that psychopath lead a society into the mass murder sanctioned by governments led by psychopaths like Pol Pot, Mao, and Hitler. The moral absolutist, however — say, the traditional Catholic — would argue that killing Hitler, Mao, or Pol Pot …
Tag: WRITING
The Immersion Book of SF — Available for Preorder on Amazon
Yes, the Immersion Book of SF (edited by Carmelo Rafala and published by Immersion Press) is now available for preorder on Amazon.com. Along with Tanith Lee, Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, and others, I have a story included in it, titled “The Broken Pathway” — a tale not only set in Korea, but in the very area where I have lived for the past five years (except, of course, it’s not set in the present day). It’s a tale of geomantic warfare, colonialism, love, regret, and harsh justice. You can find out more about my story here, and you can find out …
Honorable Mentions ’09 (so far)
Well, I haven’t seen this year’s volume yet, but it seems that for the 2010 edition of Gardner Dozois Year’s Best (the one dealing with publications for 2009), two of my stories got Honorable Mentions: “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands,” and “Of Melei, of Ulthar.” Not bad, though I’m hoping I can get a story into the next volume again! That’s in addition to “Of Melei, of Ulthar” making the British Fantasy Association’s long-list for awards in 2010 and the Locus 2009 Recommended Reading List, and “Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands” receving an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the …
An Update, Scattershot
Been raining hard occasionally, quite late at night. I’ve drawn close to the end of the first of three papers, which is pretty good considering all the crazy grading stuff I had to finalize last week, and some other stuff that came up over the weekend. I have some editing to do, I have a story on the go, I have some references to look up. I have a movie to go watch, maybe. We’ll see. But mostly? I have some serious laundry to do. And brewing of beer, but I have to find some place to crush my grains …
Strangely Like Oulipo
So, I’m taking a break from a paper that’s almost done. Something distressing happened the other day, and while it’s sort of looking resolved, I’m still having trouble focusing. It’s interesting, though: I’m sort of performing a narrative analysis of a couple of independent creative projects that my students did in some classes I taught back in 2008-2009. The narratives of their creative works can be read not just as a generalized social critique of TEFL and its impact on Korean society, but also as an encoded, implcit critique of particular gaps in mainstream classroom TEFL practice, as well as …
On by Adam Roberts
Imagine the whole world is a cliff, a wall stretching out above and below you farther than the eye can see. The sky arcs not above, not a dome above your head, but rather from the hazy depths below, to the hazy depths above, the otherness that hangs alongside the wall as you do. You are a young man who lives — who has always lived — on a small ledge of the cliff, among a small cluster of ledges where your village is situated. There are no trees, no roaring ocean waves nearby — you have no word for …
Clarion West Write-a-Thon, 2010: Sponsor Me!
Well, the Write-A-Thon has been going, and I’ve been writing like crazy — but it has been, and this is very appropriate, essentially “crits” for my students’ essays and Creative Writing portfolios. But I’ve also been wading through the last of my grading for final exams — final exams finished just a little under a week ago — and I’ve also been waiting for my Write-A-Thon profile to show up on the site, so that I could solilcit some sponsorships. Well, it’s up now, so if you feel like sponsoring me, here’s where to go! Basically, the deal is: I’m …
“Beauty, Sleeping” & Thoughts on This Semester’s Creative Writing Class
I write this on Friday evening, at 10:30pm, in a coffee shop I’m likely to be kicked out of in half an hour. The only other people who’ve been here as long as I have are a couple who seem to be locked into one of those fights that involve no actual fighting, just a pretty woman sitting silently with a frown on her face, and a handsome, baffled-looking young man who is sitting across the table from her with a frustrated look on his face, learning that sometimes, a pretty woman is also the hardest sort of girlfriend to …
A New Kind of Fiction?
Probably not, just as Stephen Wolfram’s book A New Kind of Science doesn’t really seem to have launched a new kind of science into being. (From the condition of the copy I have on hand, I’m apparently the only person ever to have signed it out of my university’s library — though perhaps that’s because it’s available online for free?) In any case, I don’t know how well-explored this field is, but it seems to me the logical extension of the online treatment of SF — moving from short stories to flash fiction and then to twitterfiction — might lead …
Another Draft Down… EDIT: Two, Actually!
Well, I’m pleased… I cranked out another 2,500-odd words today, bringing the total wordcount for “Capped” to 10,600 words. It will need some trimming, of course, and I hope I can get it down to at least 9,000 words, maybe 8,000 or 7,500 even. But it’s another story drafted, and I am pleased. Next up is a very short piece I’ve been thinking about drafting for a few days now. I should be able to pump out a draft of that tonight, too, if I can keep focus. If not, well, I won’t feel badly. I got 2,500 words written …