NPR’s Top 100 SF&F Books

Posted on October 4, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Probably everyone on the planet has seen this already—or at least that’s the way it usually works for me—but in August NPR announced the results of its reader poll to name the Top 100 science fiction and fantasy books.  I’m a sucker for Top X lists—Top 10, Top 25, or Top 100, it doesn’t matter.  I like to see what others think are the best of the best for two reasons: (1) I can find “recommendations” for something that I might not have located otherwise, and (2) I can scoff at the lister’s obvious inferiority.

Scanning through NPR’s list (suprisingly, I’ve read 54 of the 100, and 38 of the top 50), I see some curious selections.  In his post (a must read), NPR’s Glen Weldon notes that the list is really a popularity contest.  How else can the inclusion of George R R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series at #5 (it isn’t even finished yet) or four Neil Gaiman’s books (I like Gaiman, but four) be explained?  I would argue sliding some titles up or down the list (Dune is really #4?), but most of the books look like good selections for the top 100.  It’s nice to see A Canticle for Leibowitz (#34), The Forever War (#56) and A Fire Upon the Deep (#96) get recognized.  While some of my other personal favorites didn’t make the cut (e.g., Delany’s Nova, Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog), it would be hard to argue which books to remove to make room (although The Belgariad would be one potential contender, IMO).

So enjoy the list, and when your done there, be sure to head over to SFSignal and check out their fantastic flow chart.  It will help you decide which of those books that you haven’t read to tackle first.

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No Fish For Me

Posted on October 2, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

I submitted a story to an upcoming anthology called Fish, to be published by Dagan Books (the same publisher who is producing IN SITU with my story “Hoodoo”).  My story didn’t make the cut, which is always disappointing, but I saw the table of contents for Fish today and it has an impressive list of writers, including Ken Liu, Cat Rambo, and several other recognizable names.  Most importantly, however, fellow Hopefull Monster, Tracie McBride’s story “The Touch of Taniwha” will be included.  This is a wonderful piece that is structurally complex (multiple point-of-views) and rich with Moari folklore.  If Tracie’s story is any indication of the overall quality, I recommend you pick up a copy of Fish when it comes out.

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Pouncing Deadlines and Other Randomness

Posted on October 1, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

The end of September came out of nowhere, kind of like a tiger pouncing.  Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines—both at the day job and with my writing—and all of them on the last day of the month.  People put so much emphasis on the last day of the month as a deadline.  Why is that?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a September 23 deadline, or September 26 deadline.  You’d think with thirty days in the month of September, deadlines could come on days other than September 1, 15, and 30.  I think this just shows that people like order, in this case beginning, middle, and end. 

This desire for order extends beyond deadlines.  The other day, a co-worker and I were weighing sand—the “why” is not important.  When he saw the weight of the one of samples, he remarked, “Wow! Look at that.  It’s exactly 26.0000 grams.”  I immediately wondered why he was surprised.  It’s not as if 26.0000 was any less likely a weight than 26.3452, yet no surprised remarks came up on any of the previous hundred odd samples.  In fact, if the weights were randomly drawn (and in essence they are), both 26.0000 and 26.3452 have exactly the same chance of occurring.  Once again, that human desire for orderly and round zeros rears its head (which makes wonder what Western Europeans did before the concept of zero arrived in the 12th century…hmmm).

So what’s it all mean?  Nothing really, except that people like order and seek patterns for that order.  We like whole numbers, halves, and quarters, beginning and ends.  So if you want to set yourself apart from the general populace, start setting September 26 deadlines and saying things like “Wow!  Look at that.  The weight is exactly 26.3452 grams.  Who would have thought?”  Chances are, not many.

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NaNoWriMo is Nearly Here

Posted on September 28, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

For the uninitiated, you’re probably looking at the title of this post and wondering what the heck is NaNoWriMo?  For those in the know—I’d say hip, but I’m definitely not hip—that’s shorthand for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  NaNoWriMo occurs every November, and it’s a celebration of writing with a challenge for all those who wish to participate: write a short novel (50,000 words) in a month.

I first heard about NaNoWriMo three years ago.  I was only writing sporadically at the time, and I thought it would be an interesting way to motivate me to write more often and more consistently.  So I tried it, and I did it.  I didn’t write a complete novel, but I did write over 53,000 words that month (I finished the novel six months later).  More importantly, I found it exhilarating, and I managed to carry that writing-high into the next calendar year (albeit at a slower rate) and beyond.  In a sense, that first NaNoWriMo event got me on track to be where I am today.

I’ve since participated and finished NaNoWriMo two more times.  The second time I didn’t write a novel; instead I wrote several short stories that totaled over 51,000 words.  These have all been making the rounds for the last year or so, and I still have my fingers crossed that they’ll eventually sell.  For last year’s NaNoWriMo, I wrote more than half of another science-fiction novel, the one I’m dedicated to finishing as part of my writing goals for this year.  I’ve decide for this year’s NaNoWriMo I will finish that novel.

For aspiring writers, I’d suggest giving NaNoWriMo a try, especially if you’re having trouble focusing on writing consistently.  It doesn’t cost anything, and there’s a large community to help keep you motivated (if you need that sort of thing).  If you come at it with an open mind, you may just find the whole process of putting words on the screen without over-analyzing them to be liberating.  I did, and it fundamentally changed the way I approach my writing.  So check it out, and let me know if you’re going to give it a try.

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Last Day Front and Center

Posted on September 26, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Today is the last day “Thief of Futures” will be featured on the front page of Lightspeed Magazine.  If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, head over and read it.  Starting tomorrow, Ursula Le Guin’s “The Island of the Immortals” will be up. 

My story will remain in Lightspeed‘s archives, so if you can’t get there today, you can find it here in the future (provided no one steals it, that is).

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The Waiting

Posted on September 24, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

I like to think I’m a patient person, but I am of the generation that grew up on a steady dose of MTV (when it actually used to play music), 24-hour news cycles, and the internet.  I know I’m a lot less patient than my parents, so I’m not surprised that I find myself compulsively checking email as I wait to hear back on stories that I’ve sent off to publishers.

Even though publishing is crawling into the digital—a.k.a. modern—age, it’s still a painfully slow business.  While there are exceptions, it can take months for an editor to review a story and respond.  For someone used to measuring time by Google’s fractions-of-a-second search engine, that’s a long time.  To make matters worse, the responses are generally rejections.   I try to take my mind off the waiting by writing another story: write, submit, forget…write, submit, forget. 

Maybe I’ll hear back on one of my submissions today.  Given the likely response, do I want to?  Of course I do; I’m a writer.  I’ve actually chosen a path that is a gauntlet of ego-deflating punishment.  But I’m also an optimist.  Maybe the next response will be an acceptance that propels me into my happy dance.  Maybe I should check my—no, I should get back to putting words on screen instead.

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Inspiration: “Thief of Futures”

Posted on September 21, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

If you’ve been following my scribbles, then you already know that my story “Thief of Future” is available for free reading over at Lightspeed Magazine.  Also available is an author’s profile (by Robyn Lupo) in which I talk about the story setting and themes.  Something I didn’t talk about in the profile was the inspiration for the story. 

The central idea for “Thief of Futures” came out of a brainstorming session with my writing group, Hopefull Monsters (yes the extra “L” is not a mistake—at least that’s our story and we’re sticking with it!).  We were brainstorming things that could be stolen in a speculative-fiction story.  As is typical with brainstorming, the “ordinary” ideas came out first, but soon more interesting ones surfaced.  The idea that a thief could literally steal someone’s future was one of those ideas.  From there, Eshram, his daughter, Mr. Padwal, and Mr. Oduya quickly emerged.  The setting came with a major rewrite and was inspired by my travels through Indonesia, even though the setting of the story is actually Kuala Lumpur.  The rest, to be cliché, is history.

So if you haven’t already, check out “Thief of Futures” along with the other wonderful stories published in the in the September issue.  I hope you enjoy it.

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Artificial Intelligence?

Posted on September 20, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

My Google Alerts have been buzzing today now that my story “Thief of Future” has gone live at Lightspeed Magazine.  One of the alerts led me to a webpage called the Futures Trading Blog, a site that compiles articles on futures…as in commodity futures.  The site looks like one of those automated sites that compiles “relevant” articles based on key words.  All those brokers who click on that link are in for a surprise—hopefully it’s a pleasant surprise, and they decide to pop in for a visit here to find more of my fiction.

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“Thief of Futures” Now Available Online

Posted on September 20, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

A few weeks ago, my story “Thief of Futures” could be purchased as part of the September issue of Lightspeed Magazine.  For those of you who were patient—or maybe unwilling to fork over some cash?—my story is now available for free reading online.  Now you have no excuse, so check it out here, and if inspired, let me know what you think.

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What Motivates You?

Posted on September 18, 2011 by D. Thomas Minton

Some days I’m simply unmotivated, so I lounge on the couch drifting in an out dreamland.  On days like that, my life wouldn’t make very compelling reading—I expect when my biography eventually gets written <wink, wink>, it’ll gloss over those days.  People that lack motivation simply aren’t that interesting.  This axiom also extends to characters in stories.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve critiqued several stories whose primary issue, in my opinion, was a main character that either lacked motivation or had a motivation that wasn’t clear to me.  While such stories may be action-packed or have a lot of other great things going for them, they often leave me unsatisfied at the end because the main character is passively reacting to events or because it’s never clear to me why (s)he is doing what (s)he is doing.  People don’t do daring things for without a compelling reason; if a character is going to leap onto the landing strut of flying helicopter, (s)he better have a great reason for doing it.

When I’m writing, the first thing I try to figure out are the motivations  of the characters.  Why does a character care about what happens, and by extension, why should my reader?  If I clearly understand a character’s motivation, I find it’s easier to know how that character will react to obstacles I create.  The stronger and more personal the motivation, the more likely that character will strive to overcome those challenges.  In many ways, this is the same as real life.  I’m not about to crawl out onto a ledge of a fifty-story building for a five note, but I’ll be out there without thought if my daughter is dangling from her finger tips.  It’s all about motivation.  If a character has enough of it, (s)he can do just about anything, especially in a speculative-fiction story.

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