Lots and Lots of Wild Cards

So Tor has a special on a Wild Cards book bundle.  If you’re interested to jump in here’s a way to start.  Wild Cards Book Bundle.  There is a new Youtube interview up where a number of us talk about Wild Cards.  Wild Cards Interviews.  And finally here is the cover for Tor’s reissue of ACE IN THE HOLE.  The amazing and really creepy cover is by the very talented Michael Komarck.

Reflections on Lord of the Rings

I’m re-reading Tolkien’s brilliant Lord of the Rings trilogy for, I think, the eighth time.  I first read the books when I was a kid visiting Los Angeles with my father.  My dad had business meetings and in an effort to keep me amused, Rodney Pantages’s wife, Lois, took me off to a bookstore and said, “Pick any book you want.”  I fixated on those amazing covers and cajoled until Lois agreed to buy me all four books, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.  I then...

When Reality Intrudes

So I’m working on the fourth EDGE book — tentatively titled THE EDGE OF INFINITY.  I’m writing on the plane coming home to New Mexico and I suddenly realize that this book is set about fourteen years after the events in THE EDGE OF DAWN. All three of these books have been very closely tied to the real world, and real world events and I suddenly realized that Donald Trump will be president and that is going to have a profound effect on the state of the world in 2031.  Advances...

Drama Versus Reality

Reality is so damn unforgiving.  I’m working on the third book of the IMPERIALS Saga, and one of my main character is the heir to the throne. Her aides aren’t going to let her go into actual combat unless it’s absolutely unavoidable, and she’s not stupid enough to lead the charge.  She’s also now an admiral in command of a large battle group that’s going in to rescue some captured soldiers.  So, she’s on the bridge, giving orders and others are...

Essential Writing Tools — The Hatchet

There’s a saying in writing that you have to be able to “kill your babies”.  Which means that sometimes there is a scene or a character that you just love, but it has to go.  It can’t stay in the narrative.  I’ve faced two of those in the past week.  Both times, on the Wild Cards story and on the novel, I wrote a scene or in one case a set up, and in the back of my head a tiny little voice went “Ah, come on!” It behooves writers to listen to that tiny...

It’s About The Theme, Stupid

Over the past two weeks I’ve seen two movies.  STAR TREK: BEYOND and last night SUICIDE SQUAD.  I only went to see the Trek film because I had been asked to do an interview about it.  I had been actively looking forward to Suicide Squad.  My reactions to both were polar opposites of what I expected. NOW THERE ARE GOING TO BE SPOILERS!!!!!!!  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED I ended up enjoying Beyond far more than I expected, (I kept murmuring to myself, “why oh why couldn’t we have had some humor and...