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What e-readers do people recommend?
Guided somewhat by A Guide To Ebooks in Australia, I think I'm going to go find myself an Ebook reader. I've been tempted before, but now I'm about to start buying ebooks and the reader in Calibre is, well, pants.
The e-ink based readers are nifty, it must be said. I have a colleague who has a Kindle and it's quite nice. But the biggest problem ( Read more... ) -
Storyteller versus Writer.
Do you call yourself a story-teller or a writer? How do you tell? And what would be the difference?
It's at once a subtle and an important difference. The art of telling stories predates civilisation. Stories have been told as part of religious and social instruction since the dawn of man. From such work we have myth and legends, rituals and ( Read more... ) -
Sir Terry visits the Sydney Opera House.
Sir Terry Pratchett took part in an interview on stage recently. It was at the Sydney Opera House and just about filled their largest venue, the Concert Hall. Obviously not a public speaker, as such, he was "interviewed" by Australian author Garth Nix for a little over an hour. I paid to be in the audience.
I would have been surprised if Terry was ( Read more... ) -
There is always a journey.
I know it's been a while, but I got interrupted with a journey, of a sorts ( Read more... ) -
Write what you like.
I came across an interesting link this morning, courtesy of Twitter. It was an article by an artist about how to go on being creative. It coves a lot of ground, but there are two things I particularly took away from it this morning: Write What You Know Like and Read What You Want To Write (Like).
For a long time, novice writers looking for a genre ( Read more... ) -
Realistic Fantasy
Amongst the works of Science Fiction, there is a significant subset called Hard Science Fiction. This is where the science is less wishful thinking and more possible. Even in works with faster-than-light (FTL) drives, as sometimes the explanation can be more scientific and less hand-wavy. Larry Niven is often held up as a writer of fairly hard ( Read more... ) -
How to begin a story.
Starting a story is sometimes regarded by writers (both new and old) to be one of the more difficult things to do in writing. I remember numerous "creative writing" sessions in school where there was a wonderful idea, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get there from a blank page. I never managed to independantly re-create "It was a ( Read more... ) -
Deconstructing Pratchett.
A few weeks ago I embarked on a re-reading of all of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. In order. Although I've read all of them numerous times, I'd only ever actually read them in order once before. It is, I must admit, a mammoth undertaking with more than thirty novels published. But you get to see the development of ideas, foreshadowing ( Read more... ) -
Epic, High Fantasy
It is hardly disputed that the standard for High Fantasy is Tolkien. The world of Middle Earth as described in The Lord Of The Ring has a massive backstory (largely told in The Silmarillion), and the story we see is the endgame of a much much longer story whose outcome will quite literally change the world. It's hard to get much more High Fantasy ( Read more... ) -
Tablet lust
Got to try a Motorola Xoom just now. Oo-ee. Now I understand why all the hype about the iPad. I want one, but I can't afford one. And my netbook would probably feel unloved ( Read more... )