A Twelve-Step Program for Writers • Part 4

   In 1997, in a few minutes of whimsy, I knocked off twelve lines of highly concentrated and somewhat snarky advice for writers seeking to develop or repair their writing careers. To my surprise these words of wisdom remain available on the SFWA web site. To my even greater surprise Guy Stewart has taken the time and trouble to explicate them in depth. Herewith,...

Read More

Write and Wrung Out • by Beth DeVore

&nb...

Read More

A Twelve-Step Program for Writers • Part 3

   In 1997, in a few minutes of whimsy, I knocked off twelve lines of highly concentrated and somewhat snarky advice for writers seeking to develop or repair their writing careers. To my surprise these words of wisdom remain available on the SFWA web site. To my even greater surprise Guy Stewart has taken the time and trouble to explicate them in depth. Herewith,...

Read More

The State of the Loon • 26 April 2021

 What began as a challenging week evolved into a challenging month. The Mrs. is back in daily radiation treatments and we expect to be getting the results of all of last week’s new diagnostic work later this week. You’ll know something when we know something. The Stupefying Stories 24 release date has been pushed back to at least May 15th, as I try to figure out what’s...

Read More

A Twelve-Step Program for Writers • Part 2

   In 1997, in a few minutes of whimsy, I knocked off twelve lines of highly concentrated and somewhat snarky advice for writers seeking to develop or repair their writing careers. To my surprise these words of wisdom remain available on the SFWA web site. To my even greater surprise Guy Stewart has taken the time and trouble to explicate them in depth. Herewith,...

Read More

Write and Wrung Out • by Beth DeVore

&nb...

Read More

A Twelve-Step Program for Writers • Part 1

 In 1997, in a few minutes of whimsy, I knocked off twelve lines of highly concentrated and somewhat snarky advice for writers seeking to develop or repair their writing careers. If you have any familiarity with 12-step programs these lines should seem familiar; to my surprise, these words of wisdom remain available on the SFWA web site. To my even greater surprise Guy...

Read More

Separating the Toxic Creator from Their Work • by Eric Dontigney

The speculative fiction community has had a rough go of it in recent years with so many beloved creators being outed as everything from jerks to outright sexual predators. I’ve steered clear of this topic because I’ve long been a champion of Joss Whedon’s short-lived, much-beloved Firefly (and the film Serenity). I’ve also been somewhat disheartened by the general approach...

Read More

Clash of the Schlockmeisters 2: Electric Boogaloo!

In honor of Earth Day, this week CLASH OF THE SCHLOCKMEISTERS! dips deep into the cinematic cesspool to dredge up these two outstanding examples of the eco-horror genre, which, trust me, really was popular for a while in the 1970s. Both based on successful novels, by John Christopher and Roger Zelazny respectively, these two films are the movies Roland Emmerich must have watched...

Read More

Ray Bradbury Week: The Wrap-up • by Bruce Bethke

For a bunch of people who insisted we didn’t have anything new to say about Ray Bradbury, we certainly said a lot. Nine years after his death, and some fifty or sixty years after the peak of his writing career, depending on how you define that peak, Bradbury remains a true giant of the genre.But of exactly which genre? That’s the question.This past week has been fun for...

Read More

Ask Dr. Cyberpunk • with your host, Bruce Bethke

So how exactly did “Cyberpunk,” the—well, rather cyberpunkish short story—go from being an urban high-tech lowlife tale to being Cyberpunk, the weapons-laden deep words military boarding school novel?The trouble began in the Spring of 1980, when I sent the first version of the story to George Scithers at Asimov’s. The original-original version of the manuscript, which very...

Read More

The Essential Bradbury • by Eric Dontigney

So, Bruce suggested that I write a blog post about the must-read Bradbury stories. I liked the idea at first. Any excuse to revisit Bradbury is usually a good one. Then, I did a Google search to see what turns up on all of these kinds of lists. Guess what? Those lists all resemble each other pretty closely. The list usually looks something like this:1. “The Veldt” [i]2. “The...

Read More

“The Long Rain” • Review by Peter Wood

There have been very few good visual adaptions of Ray Bradbury’s fiction. Bradbury adapted his own novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, in 1983; “The Elevator” (1985) in the reboot of the Twilight Zone; several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Almost all other adaptions are cringe-worthy. Most episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater are hard to endure, thanks largely...

Read More

How Ray Bradbury has driven my writing without me even knowing about it • by Guy Stewart

When Bruce emailed me with the announcement that this week was going to be “Ray Bradbury Week,” he asked, “How about a review of Fahrenheit 451, or something about the incredible impact of ‘A Sound of Thunder’?” To tell you the truth, I couldn’t remember that particular short story, and it’s been like…a zillion years since I read Fahrenheit 451. I asked if could write something...

Read More

Write and Wrung Out • by Beth DeVore

&nb...

Read More

The Bradbury Problem • by Bruce Bethke

Oh yeah, I’ve read a little Ray Bradbury. Even met the man once, and had a nice conversation with him. When Pete Wood proposed doing a series of posts on Bradbury and his work, I went to my bookshelf and pulled down some books for research. This heap is by no means complete; for example, I have at least three different editions of The Martian Chronicles around here … somewhere....

Read More