Thursday, March 18, 2004
Talking SF ...
... with my friend Dale Price, and now with you all.
Go to the SF site to read good reviews of books, tv, movies, and catch the occasional interview. I should put this site on my sidebar; it is one of my most visited. Given the quantity of poor SF out there these days, I try to go to this site first before I even borrow a book from the library. If their editors and readers say it's good, I've yet to be disappointed.
As much as I loved Westerfeld's and Wright's books (first one: The Golden Age), I'm concerned about their being published as two and three volumes each. I don't have a problem with publishers making an honest living, but it seems disingenuous to "pretend" these works are more than a single story. Tolkien? I can understand not wanting to publish a single 1500-page tome.
Another SF pet peeve: all Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy, and all the other books derivative of another medium, especially tv. Takes away shelf space from writer who have original stories to tell.
Some day I'd like to take a real stab at writing a novel, and it will probably be SF. I had a great idea for one a few years ago, and actually got about 15,000 words into it, only to discover the idea had not only been developed elsewhere, it was nominated for a Hugo award. Since scuttling my project, I've been hoping to read Paul Di Filippo's A Year In the Linear City in this anthology someday.
