Now and then like clockwork there will be grousing about the quality of reviewing in the field, especially in short fiction. Shouldn’t be a surprise that the talent pool in reviewing is somewhat uneven. Excluding reader reviews (see Amazon.com) many online reviewers are also writers of various levels, and that talent pool is about as uneven as things get. Still, a little perspective may be in order. Continue reading
Author Archives: ogresan
Don’t Fear the Kitten
This came up in another writer’s blog some time ago, was discussed roundly there, and keeps coming up so I’m going to talk about it here, too. The question was about whether to add a certain element — in this case a kitten, but it could as easily been something else equally dangerous: a certain character, explicit sex, non-standard gender roles — knowing even as you do so that it will make the story harder to sell. To emphasize the point, an editor pointed out how hard it indeed would be to sell any such story to him. Not impossible, but very very hard. My position is: if the kitten is required then put the kitten in and damn the consequences.
I can be dogmatic at times (Gee, ya think?), but I know there are times when compromise is required. We don’t live anywhere near Perfect, as the drug store ads used to remind us constantly. And yet…there’s a limit. There has to be. Trends fade. Today’s hot topic is tomorrow’s fishwrap. Prejudices morph. “Marketability” is a will-o-wisp if ever there was one, and trying to second-guess and anticipate it leads to bog-downs and hackdom. Continue reading
Review – RED DUST by Paul J. McAuley
1993, AvoNova/Morrow
I know I’ve discussed the difference between reviewing an ebook and a paper book before. It seems I have a penchant for reviewing paper books long after their “shelf life” and so from that aspect, it’s a pointless exercise. That’s assuming, of course, that you’re reviewing the book in order to raise its visibility or otherwise call attention to it. Since Red Dust was published in 1993 and, so far as I can tell, has no ebook edition, that really doesn’t apply. So why do it? Because I like to think about what I read, and I think best when I’m writing things down. So I do.
Red Dust was written at a time when readers and pundits in the genre were constantly announcing the death of Cyberpunk. Remember cyberpunk? A literary movement centered around “street” uses for technology, specifically computer power. Arguably launched by William Gibson’s Neuromancer and precursed (Love that word. Love the sound of it and its obvious double-meaning. And if it’s not a word, it damn well should be) by John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider, among others. Once any literary movement is announced, there’s always a cadre that immediately starts gathering ’round the guillotine, waiting for its inevitable death. Continue reading
Excerpt – All the Gates of Hell
This is from a novel with the working title Kuan Yin in Hell. (Edited to note–the final title is All the Gates of Hell. Inviting, no?) The premise is that the Buddhist bodhisattva of Mercy, Kuan Shi Yin, is undergoing a mortal incarnation as Jin Hannigan for reasons she can’t remember, and those who know, refuse to say. While she’s trying to figure that bit out, she still has to fulfill her function as the “Goddess of Mercy,” which is to release suffering souls from hell. She’s just met the first of her divine helpers–who she also doesn’t remember–currently a mortal called “Frank” because his real name takes too long to say. She’s about to meet the second.
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Jin sighed. “I think before now I’ve really been more pointed and led than called,” she said, “but if I understand your meaning, then yes — I think I have definitely been called.”
The only questions remaining so far as Jin could tell were “where” and “who.” She already knew why. If she didn’t yet know “where,” she did know which direction to go, and for the moment that was enough, though she did wonder why she also felt an extreme sense of urgency.
“What’s the hurry?” she asked aloud.
“You’re setting the pace,” Frank said. “Or was that question rhetorical?”
“Not exactly. I feel we need to hurry.”
“Then I suggest we do so,” Frank said, maddeningly calm as usual.
Jin gave up her brisk walk and broke into a run. Continue reading
Speaking of Which, Time to Blow the Horn
I got an email yesterday letting me know that I’d sold a story, “The Sorrow of Rain” to Weird Tales. I have a fondness for that old magazine, in all its incarnations. I hadn’t placed a story there in years, so I was doubly pleased.
That is all.
Richard Parks 