I’m no expert, but apparently I’m knowledgeable enough that Ana and Thea of The Book Smugglers thought that they would ask me to define steampunk as I understand it. I said:
To me, steampunk is a subgenre of alternate history in which technological progress diverged and developed along mechanized lines rather than digital. In steampunk, computers [...]
Posts under ‘Essays’
In Which I Define Steampunk
Part 3: A Manifesto of Imaginative Literature by Justin Allen
For the Love of Pete, Don’t Mix Your Genres;
Or… The New York Times Book Review Hates YOU, but I Don’t;
Or… Why Where Your Book Gets Shelved Determines Your Intelligence, Work-Ethic and Value to Society
Read Part 1 at SF Signal
Read Part 2 at Debuts and Reviews
Part 3: For the Love of Pete, Don’t Mix Your Genres
Or [...]
Finding Epic Fantasy Comics
I love fantasy, and I like comics, so when Harry Markov asked me to contribute to his comic book appreciation month, I thought I would talk about some of the comics I have found that are strictly of the epic fantasy variety.
Click here for all my recommendations, including Mouse Guard, Red Sonja, and George R. [...]
When Characters Come to Life by Leona Wisoker
Debut author of Secrets of the Sands, pub date 3/30/10
Listening to a colleague’s radio interview, I was struck by her comments about characters taking over and redirecting events in ways the author didn’t expect. While I know exactly what she meant, I can visualize friends and family members wrinkling their foreheads suspiciously at something [...]
Grasping for the Wind’s Best Reads of 2009
Welcome to my favorite reads of 2009! Below is a list by category of the books I most enjoyed reading in 2009. Obviously, this a list based on my personal tastes (which often clash with the accepted preferences I’ve found) and does not mean that other 85 books I read in 2009 are no good, [...]
Peter V. Brett responds to negative review of The Warded Man
If you have been reading this blog for the past month or so, you may remember my long essay where I opined on the subject of authors responding to book reviews.
Well, Peter V. Brett author of the The Warded Man, and someone whom I respect a great deal as a writer and friendly author [...]
A Golden Age for Short Fiction by Joe Sherry
Despite what you may or may not have heard, and rumors of its demise to the contrary, short fiction is very much alive and kicking in the SFF genre and we are surrounded by short fiction on the highest quality.
Now, I can only talk about the experience of the reader here. Things may be [...]
The Things An Author Does by Pamela Freeman
Or: Why There Is So Little Time Left For Writing
Most people I speak to seem to think that writers sit in the attic and scribble, full of inspiration. So when John asked me to do a guest blog, I thought it might be interesting to his readers to describe how a writer’s time is [...]
Science Fiction Ain’t Dead (So Shut Up) by Shaun Duke
Whoever keeps saying it needs to have a giant, Transformer’s robot pop them one in the mouth. SF ain’t dead. It ain’t dying. It ain’t even struggling to breathe. In fact, science fiction is probably doing better today than it ever was before. SF literature isn’t losing its place; it’s [...]
Shared World Fiction: Spinning Stories Out of the Unmapped Bits by Rosemary Jones
I love writing shared world fiction, especially when the creators of those worlds let me go exploring into the unmapped corners and tell the tales that I want to tell. So far, I’ve been very lucky in my forays into other people’s sandboxes.
I fell into shared world fiction much like Alice dropped down the [...]
