Pages

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Outside The Box - Available As Free Download At Lethe Press


My story Outside The Box (from the anthology Spicy Slipstream Stories) is avalable as a FREE pdf download at Lethe Press.

It's noir-ish and dreamy. It's Hollywood 2020, baby.

CLICK FOR FREE DOWNLOAD

Reviews for SSS can be found HERE and HERE

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Suite 101 Interviews and Reviews

Here's a quick link to some of the recent articles I've wriiten for Suite101. Click below!









Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Complex Characters

I've been thinking about some of my favourite complex fictional characters in print and other media. I've listed a few below. What are some of yours, and why?

Laura Roslin (Battlestar Galactica, 2003 - 2009)

The Secretary of Education laboured with the task of becoming the president of the 40 000-odd survivors of the human race. Dying, and shaped as an apparently mythic, spiritual figure, Roslin leads a dwindling human race through small victories and much strife via a sometimes dubious leadership, only to reach the Earth of prophecy to find it decimated and uninhabitable.


Bastian Balthazar Bux (The Neverending Story)

The shy boy who loves books and saves Fantasia in the first half of Michael Ende's iconic fantasy novel, and then proceeds to lose his own identity and almost destroying Fantasia, the very thing he saved.


Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Where to start. First you want to hate him, then you admire his cockey attitude, followed by revulsion toward his behaviour, and then feel sorry for him as he endures the state sponsored "treatment" to make him "normal" in order to fit into society.


Lucifer/Satan - Paradise Lost

Is he a dictator? Usurper? Evil serpent? Or is he simply doing what any oppressed individual would do by rebelling against the dictator oppressing him?


Hellboy


Summoned from a hell-dimension to fight for the Nazi regime but taken by the US Army, Hellboy grows up to fight occult forces and threats for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. According to prophecy, Hellboy's giant red hand will open a portal that will bring about Armageddon. Burdened by his destiny and the life he leads as a hero of Earth, Hellboy is a wonderful example of that thin line between the societal human and his Neanderthal counterpart, and the constant struggle between keeping that line fixed without one of the two parts encroaching over the other.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

People Are Creepy

A very good friend of mine, a well-known editor and writer, recently got bashed on Livejournal simply because he made a comment on a book review about an author's story, saying that said story didn't really work for him. There was nothing mean-spirited about it at all. Just a general comment. The story's author then proceded to get mean first, and eventually threatened my friend's life. I kid you not.

The plus side to this (if there can be one) is that the author in question pretty much killed his career by doing this on LJ, where all my friend's friends in the publishing industry (writers, editors, publishers) found out his real name. The authoroties were contacted, because of course, LJ logs your IP when you make a post.

How insane is that?

If you want to write, grow a thick skin and accept that you WILL be critisized. It is part of the learning process. And constructive criticism will help you become a better writer, by the way. Seriously, we could really do without the whackos.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

More Excellent Periphery News

Strange Horizons mentioned Periphery in their 2008 Review on speculative books. How awesome.

Gwyneth Jones' story The Voyage Out featured in Periphery has been selected to Gardner Dozois' Year’s Best Science Fiction Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection.

Congratulations Gwyneth!