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Glamorous Fashions at Awards Shows
Usually I stay far, far away from the subject of Awards Shows, and even further from what the women at the shows are wearing. However, this weekend, happenstance caused me to pay attention for half an hour ( Read more... ) -
Jupiter Ascending
Saw Jupiter Ascending last night. As expected, it is a sci-fi action adventure, and as such it delivers a smooth, fast-paced and gripping conflict. I went to the movie expecting nothing else, and I wasn't dissappointed on that score. The action and the special effects (CG) are seamless and impressive. Moreover, the characters are interesting ( Read more... ) -
Magic in the World of Atria
Most of my fantasy writings are set in what I call the World of Atria. Atria happens to be the country in which my earliest (1978) creations (characters, stories) resided. Those who have read my Tower books will know it as the Atosian Empire from 2300 years ago ( Read more... ) -
Evening with Frozen
Yesterday evening, Susanna and I had dinner, ice-wine and a movie: Frozen. It was our first time seeing that movie. All in all we liked it. For one thing we both like musicals. Charles (who arrived home just after we finished watching the movie) and I also think it is a much better movie than Tangled. The characters have more depth, actually ( Read more... ) -
Magic and Technology (and Science)
Most of us are familiar with Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
I have just run across the reversed version: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from sciencewhich makes a lot of sense ( Read more... ) -
Now that's acting, and good storytelling
Just saw Roman Holiday, the original version with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. I've seen it before, more than once, but not since I started writing. By modern movie standards it is considered cheesy and dated, and the story idea has been used so much since that it has become a cliche. However, you can't blame the movie that started the idea ( Read more... ) -
Software to Use When Writing
Last week a friend mentioned that she'd heard the scrivener software praised in a writer's workshop. For anyone who doesn't know, it is software that helps a writer organize, plan, and ultimately write their work whether it is fiction, a paper, an article or a thesis. Therefore I decided to try it out, and as it has a generous non-consecutive 30 ( Read more... ) -
Picture of New Solar System
I saw this: Planet formation captured in photo. in the news the other day and the implications are staggering.
Scientists at the Alma radio telescope have captured this image of a new planetary system around HL Tau in its early formation.
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Character Tests
A friend and I were emailing about characters in our fiction. I commented that I have a test for characters in my stories:
Does each significant character have a humanizing internal non-defining characteristic that has nothing to do with the plot?I apply that to everything from short stories to novels. For the longer works like novels, novellas, ( Read more... ) -
The Curse of Chalion
I've recently read The Curse of Chalion and its sequel Paladin of the Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold. These are easily the best books I've read in several years. The first, I think, is the better but both are good. While not action-packed, the characters are interesting and the storyline compelling.
[Spoiler (click to open)]Actually I found one thing a little ( Read more... )