The Avengers, and Shared Fictional Universes

On May 14, 2012May 14, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, WritingLeave a comment

Saw The Avengers over the weekend. I was a little worried it wouldn’t live up to the massive amount of hype, but happily it did.

BEST. MOVIE. EVER.

For anyone who hasn’t been following what Marvel did to build up to The Avengers there’s a great summary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Wikipedia. This kind of cross-pollination of characters across multiple storylines to place them in the same universe hadn’t been done in cinema before, despite being very common in SF and fantasy. (That I’m aware of at least. Correct me in the comments!)

King and Gaiman Talk About Writing

On May 12, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, WritingLeave a comment

Neil Gaiman interviewed Stephen King a couple of months back. You can – and absolutely should – read about it on Neil’s site here.

That’s all.

A Proud Day for Sailing the Void

On May 11, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn WritingLeave a comment

Yesterday was indeed a banner day for this blog-o-mine.

STAT ATTACK:

110 views – new record!
11 new followers – new record! (Hi everyone!)
24 likes – new record!

Meanwhile, somewhere in Connecticut, Suzanne Collins’ deputy personal assistant is insulating her loft with this afternoon’s fan mail.

Aaaaaand . . . back down to earth.

From Hackery to Publication: Edit is Go

On May 11, 2012May 11, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn WritingLeave a comment

So my resolution to wait two months before editing lasted . . . 43 hours. Oh well.

First up was running through my scene synopses from start to finish, checking for flaws or holes in the main plot arc.

(A note on synopses: as I’ve been drafting, I’ve written a one-sentence summary of every scene as I finish it. The index cards on the Scrivener corkboard – see here for previous on this – make this an absolute doddle. But I digress.)

Link Dump: Resources

On May 10, 2012May 11, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Useful Links, Writing8 Comments

Time for another link dump, methinks. Lots to share.

And finally, for any newly-published authors saying goodbye to the day job:

29 Creative Ways To Quit

Worlds Without End – Legends of SF

On May 10, 2012May 11, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Reading, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, WritingLeave a comment

If you’ve not checked out Worlds Without End in my blogroll on the right, take a peek now. It’s OK, I’ll wait.

The site is an incredible resource, and ‘brings together the complete listings of novels, authors and publishers for 12 major awards in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror‘. I’ve mentioned ‘my inevitable Hugo Award’ enough times that you won’t be surprised that was the first place I went. And after spinning through the shortlists for the last 20 years I was awestruck by how many legendary names appear consistently, year on year.

Retro SF Movies that Everybody Should See

On May 10, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy4 Comments

More retro-futurism stuff from io9 here.

There are some classics in here, and real favourites of mine. Moon was fantastic, minimalist and claustrophobic with a nice turn in growing tension. Dark City was brilliant as well, one of those cult classics that not enough people have seen.

I was a little surprised to see The Truman Show in the list, but it makes perfect sense – the combination of the cliché of suburban white picket fence America with Big Brother-style hi-tech surveillance absolutely makes it retro SF.

But I’m sorry – Flash Gordon was terrible, though.

The First of Many Awards? Versatile Blogger

On May 10, 2012May 10, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Writing8 Comments

I’ll be honest, at first I thought this was one of those annoying chain-letter-type things. You know, the sort you see on YouTube comment threads, where someone says ‘If you read this and don’t forward it to 50 people then your cat will die in a plane crash!’

But after a little bit of poking around, there seems to be no harm in it. No-one’s eventually being asked to forward their bank details to the Crown Prince of Nigeria, so setting cynicism firmly aside… Read more…

Achievement Unlocked: Write a Novel

On May 9, 2012May 9, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Writing9 Comments

Boom. And the first draft is complete.

A mere eleven months, 90,401 words and 383 pages of double-spaced size 12 Courier New later, I can now say:

“Why yes, I have written a novel. Thanks for asking. I’ll have a glass of the Malbec.”

Retro Futurism

On May 8, 2012May 10, 2012 By Dan HarrisIn Sci-Fi and Fantasy, WritingLeave a comment

Nice post on io9 here.

I’m drawn to the Anachronista category – the others don’t do a lot for me. I’m no good at history so hardly qualified to suggest alternates. Cheese is . . . well, cheesy. And I think there are enough people writing steampunk – the best example of it, China Mieville’s work, doesn’t even get called it because it’s so much more as well.

But anachronista, that I could do. The next book I’ve got planned is somewhat tinged with this – it’s a Chandler-style detective noir, but set in the same technologically advanced far-future universe of my current WIP.

It wouldn’t quite fit the anachronista mould the io9 article talks about, as it’ll be stylistically redolent of 1930s/40s/50s pulp crime lit, rather than actually containing any technology that you might have found back then. But still – that’s one of the things I love about SF, the scope to combine it with another genre entirely and come up with an interesting hybrid. I’m looking forward to writing it.