Ubik, the Miracle Cure For All Your Needs

Here is my response to the novel Ubik by Philip K. Dick for my independent study course. Hope you enjoy it!

    Philip K. Dick’s fascination with what is real and what isn’t real is inextricably linked to his fictional and non-fictional dealings with aspects of the mind—psychosis and mind-altering drugs especially. The fascinating thing about Ubik is that it is illusive. Who is actually dead? Is it Runciter or Joe Chip? Or are both of them dead? Or perhaps nobody is dead, but they all think they are dead? Dick has taken liberties with the story for a good reason: to give you an ending which defies everything that had happened previously.
    On the one hand this produces a cyclical effect. If Joe Chip really did die, then at the end Runciter has died as well and the manifestations of Joe Chip in his half-life “reality” are nothing more than markers of what it is to have died—for Joe Chip it works in the opposite, with manifestations of Runciter being bizarre semi-hallucinations. The result is a recycling of the previous theme—of death and not-death—and a return to the beginning of the turning point in the original plot—the explosion on Luna. On the other hand this leaves the reader never quite sure what exactly happened. The ending is nothing short of illusive. The reader is left with those lingering questions about what is going on, but there isn’t any closure. This doesn’t necessarily come as a flaw, but more as a mind-bending moment that any attentive reader would be partially exploding cartoon question marks from their cerebellum. I can’t answer the questions any better than anyone else and the only person who probably can answer the questions—Mr. Dick himself—is no longer with us, since he died in 1982. Perhaps the true answer is meant to remain illusive, or perhaps the answer is hidden in the non-fiction and I have yet to see it. Regardless, the life-and-death themes are fraught with the real and unreal dichotomy.
    When looking at Dick’s introduction of “half-life”—a sort of suspended animation for the dead where the “soul”, or whatever Dick wishes to call it, is kept rooted on the Earth for past loved ones to peruse like zoo attractions with at least some measurable, though minor, ability to speak up for themselves—there is an impression of two worlds colliding: the real world of tangible, physical beings made of flesh and bone and living in a world of life and death, and the spiritual world, possessed by what would be considered hallucinations or manifestations of quasi-realistic worlds that only exist in the state of the mind. One could look at half-life as a psychosis, except that the characters experiencing the half-life dream world are perhaps fully aware that it isn’t real and that they are in fact dead—or at least they become aware of this fact eventually, depending on the circumstances. But during this point where they are unaware it plays out very much like a psychotic episode. Manifestations and hallucinations of things that normally could never happen are perceived as real. Money doesn’t magically change to the face of your former boss, whom you think is dead, and neither does the world around you regress on the time scale from the 21st century to the early, pre-WW2 20th. Yet to the people who experience this strange happening it is nothing short of real. They experience it as if they were experiencing any normal day.
    It’s left unclear whether these half-life “realities” are really common place or if they are only due to the influence of Jory—a half-life vampire. If they are only the work of Jory and no half-lifer is capable of existing in spiritual realities, then what is it that a half-lifer does to pass the time? They are caged animals in every way imaginable. They live in makeshift capsules that keep their bodies on ice for as long as the soul can live and, basically, they are trapped that way until someone pulls the plug or their half-life souls degrade and disappear. There must be something more to this life, otherwise who would ever volunteer for it—presumably Jory volunteered and his family keeps tabs to make sure he can continue to consume other half-lifers. Who would volunteer for the life of slavery, to be called up for a “chat” whenever a loved one, or someone with the appropriate contacts and funds, desires it?
    The novel’s focus on the real and unreal is probably the most important aspect, as mentioned. For Dick there are consistent representations of this dichotomy—such as in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where Mercer appears as a spiritual guide to Deckard. The jolt for Joe Chip into the world of half-life is so abrupt it remains invisible. We’re not aware of it anymore than Joe is. Runciter’s appearance is nothing more than one of a plethora of oddities that Joe has to figure out. Dick also takes the time to let us know that we’re already in a world of metaphysics by introducing psychics and people with bizarre psionic powers—such as Pat Conley, who can alter the past. And perhaps the ending is yet another attempt to try to tell us that there isn’t really a real, that maybe what we once thought of as the real world of the novel was nothing more than an un-reality. Maybe it’s all just a dream, and an elaborate one at that. Read more!

F & SF Magazine Subscription Offer

I feel rather stupid for not putting this up earlier. I recently opted to get a free issue of F & SF magazine to review. I'm about half-way through right now and expect to get it done this weekend to help promote the magazine. It's actually pretty decent and I'm enjoying it thus.
However, F & SF contacted me the other day to tell me there is a special offer to bloggers for subscriptions to the magazine (meaning anyone who reads this blog is eligible).
Here are the two links:
Regular subscription area and the Paypal subscription area.

I recommend if you enjoy the magazine to get a subscription and support one of speculative fiction's oldest and more prestigious magazines.

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Anticipation Station

I'm biting my nails off right now. Lindsey decided it would be a good idea to remind me that my story is still in the Writers of the Future Contest, Second Quarter, and also decided to mention that the honorable mentions (or most of them) are up, which means the contest is coming to a close. Why is that a problem? Well, first off, I have no idea how they deal with the semi-finals and finals, since I've never been there. Do they call you at the same time as the honorable mentions? Or is it right before posting? What?
I'm going nuts right now because I have a feeling my story didn't place at all, but because I don't know for certain I have the desperate desire to know. I don't mind losing. Really, I don't. What I hate is realizing that some people already know their fates and I haven't a clue. It's...insanity.

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P.S.: This is in no way an attack on the WOTF folks. They can't really help how it works and I'm not saying they need to do a better job. They're doing it fine. I'm just impatient. Read more!

Ethanol = Bad

Right now on Channel 8 in Santa Cruz they're talking about something I seem to recall saying myself when ethanol first was released and ethanol cars came out: it's bad.
Well, it's being blamed for a food crisis, which is exactly what I was saying before. Since ethanol uses something called corn, and we Americans, and much of the world, seem to like this particular vegetable when it comes to food, the result is that food costs are going up, particularly in lovely places like Mexico, which has enough problems as it is with poverty.
Here's a word of advice: how about we stop being retarded and thinking about TEMPORARY solutions and get us some PERMANENT solutions instead? Or is that too logical for the world? Where the hell are the Japanese on this? Shouldn't they be firing off a bunch of cars that run off recycled soda cans or something?

Yeah.

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P.S.: Apologies for the short posts, but in an effort to keep active while this quarter begins killing me from the inside in the last weeks I've resolved myself to write witty little remarks like the above. Yes, some more interesting articles are bound to come in the near future. Just be patient and enjoy the random bits of potential hilarity. Or don't. Read more!

Woes of Living On My Own

Things I didn't want when I moved:

• Loud argument, screaming matches, and the stress that comes with it.
• People who don't pay the rent.
• Problematic relationships between the owner of the house and tenants, often resulting in the above screaming matches.
• The unfortunate desire to remain like a hermit in my room at all times, only coming out to get water and rarely coming out to cook food.

Things I got:

• All of the above.

Yeah. Not feeling it right now.

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Do Electric Sheep Have Android Dreams?

Yes, that is a clever pun and it's entirely intentional. I've been incredibly unproductive today, mostly because I wrote two essays yesterday (still have two left) and my brain literally just wants to sit around and do nothing. I spent most of today trying to think of a good topic for one of my other essays and finally came up with one. Still, I feel that I've fallen away from this blog a little so I thought I'd present one of my earlier essays. This is a reader response, so it isn't a typical essay (for the record it's on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick). So, enjoy:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a trip into the subconscious of one of science fiction’s most renowned authors since the fall of the Golden Age, the Age of Science, and, for the most part, the Age of Sociological SF. Dealing with the overrunning theme of empathy—from a human perspective and from an android perspective—the text reflects some of Dick’s largest concerns with human culture in general.
Dick wrote much about the death of the empathic culture in his non-fiction work and often referred to modern society--in his day--as a form of mechanical android devoid of the ability to truly empathize with fellow human beings. During Dick’s life, and particularly when this novel and some of his non-fiction work was written, it seems as though this idea of a dead youth culture--a mechanical youth culture--doesn’t fit. The novel was written in 1968, a year which sits right in the middle of the Vietnam Conflict (the intention here is to avoid using the term “war” since there was no official declaration of war by Congress, which makes the military actions in Vietnam something else entirely, even though the scale was that of a war), and would also have been influenced by the anti-war protests which really dug in around 1965. It would seem that Dick’s personal concern with empathy in his more personal writing is nothing short of a personal opinion. Or perhaps what Dick saw was a different side of the anti-war protests that is often glossed over today—the treatment of the troops.
The ultimate question is: what does it mean to be human? Is it only the ability to feel for the self and for others? Are the androids human? It’s difficult to look at the novel and assume some sort of humanity to the androids simply because they are labeled as “androids”, not humans. They are instantly identified not only by the characters--who are human--but also by Dick himself in the narration as something not human. Whether androids are nearly human or not is really irrelevant.
What matters is that the relationship between Deckard and the android illegals--Pris, Roy, etc--is entirely occupied with the question of the human. Deckard wonders this question about himself: Is he human if he can feel for the androids? Certainly the arguments Deckard gives for what is and isn’t human makes sense. The androids are cold, almost heartless, a fact which Isidore learns when Pris plucks off all but four of a spider’s legs. There is something strangely inhuman about them beyond the fact that we as readers know they are androids. They react differently and in a lot of ways they are almost like sociopaths. Towards the end of the novel characters like Roy Batty actually begin to call for the death of Isidore even though Isidore is probably the only human being willing to provide some level of support for the androids. Thinking of them as sociopaths--at least to a certain extent, since they are perfectly capable of interacting together, which says plenty about how androids relate to humans--gives a perfect example of the inhuman. Sociopaths are not considered normal in regular society for good reason: they care nothing for the rights of others and are incapable of living by the rules of society. The androids, to a certain extent, are an example of the human “God complex”. The Bible declares that man is made in the image of God and yet the androids are made in the image of man, creations by the hand of humanity in every sense of the word “creation”. Just like with the relationship between God and mankind there is something missing in the relationship between mankind and the androids. Humans are not almighty, limited in scope and vision in comparison to God. The androids are incapable of having the same empathic responses to normal humans--normal humans being those that aren’t tuned in to the mood organ, who actually feel and exist as human beings rather than post-human cyber-entities fixated on mechanical, electronic, and computational control of the nervous system, or any other system within the biological body. They do possess a certain amount of human empathy, just as humans possess a certain amount of God’s creative powers, but it is stunted, as if the growth of that empathy were halted. The androids possess an aggressiveness that moves beyond the human. By the end of the novel the question is answered: androids aren’t human. They can’t be. As sociopaths they lie outside normal society, and the fact that they aren’t known as human and they refuse to call themselves as anything other than androids only adds fuel to the fire. Androids simply aren’t human.
But the question still stands about what it is to be human. Deckard is, in some ways, far from human himself. He and his wife tune in to the mood organ every day, dialing the perfect collection of emotions and feelings. Yet it is Deckard’s wife who becomes more human than her husband. Instead of constantly tuning herself into emotions of happiness, she finds out ways to give herself depression. The interesting part about her depression is that it acts out normally, as if it were a real depression. While she has no desire to tune in to a different mode on her mood organ, she doesn’t have to. Her natural human qualities seem to bring her back from the brink and by the end of the novel there is something hugely more human about her. This moves like a transitional period from an almost addictive relationship to the mood organ to a more level-headed, perhaps more “human” existence. Like any addiction, withdrawal is generally brutal. Dick would have some understanding of this feeling--he seems to discuss the drug world as if he had actually been there, which he probably had to some extent. Either way, for Deckard’s wife the use of the mood organ to dial in depression is in some ways a rejection, a form of resistance against the very concept of mood control, while at the same time acting as a transitional period from the addiction to the mood organ. Her empathic responses to Deckard are real emotions, not dialed in, fake emotions. She truly feels for him when the goat is killed and shows concern about his taking on the androids. At the start of the novel, however, it’s almost as though she doesn’t care—she had dialed herself into a seemingly irreparable depression.
Deckard also changes, becomes more human. His responses to the androids, however, never become fully human. While he does gain empathy for androids, it is limited to female androids. Regardless, Deckard questions what he does for a living, and rightfully so. The androids are living, sentient, self-aware beings far more human than any other living creature that once moved on the Earth. Yet he kills them without feeling anything at all, at least until the end of the novel. This isn’t quite enough to redeem Deckard of what must have been years of prior wickedness—in his eyes. It does end his career and the introduction of some measure of empathic response to the androids, and in particular to Rachel, makes him question what exactly is right about the enslavement of androids and the extermination of them on Earth.
Perhaps looking at this weak relation to empathy is fuel for Dick’s idea of the youth culture of his time being a sort of semi-Android--though in some ways his idea of an android in his non-fictional work is closer to a cybernetic, proto-Android than anything else. The human being becomes less empathic over time, devolving into a biological robot that does what it’s told. We see this in today’s world of consumer culture. They call all those small, mostly useless items near the registers in most any store “impulse buys” because they act as attention getters. You probably don’t need another set of nail clippers, but you see them at the register and you think “we keep losing them; maybe I should buy a pack of twelve”. Consumer culture works like a robot where people buy things because it’s an impulse, or because everyone has one, not thinking about whether one really needs it or of it’s the right thing for an individual. Commercials, the government, organizations, and religion are all factors in Dick’s android youth. I wonder whether we really are an android culture. Are we truly post-human or have we always been human and what we do to ourselves to survive is nothing more than being human? If we become androids ourselves, aren’t we still human beings who have done what comes naturally to us? Survival is part of the social framework of human culture, which explains why we create and maintain laws in our respective countries: doing so means maintaining an order that essentially brings us together as a selective proto-hivemind. If this is being the android, then perhaps there is a certain amount of grace to such a world. Perhaps the positive outweighs the negative. Or maybe this is exactly what Dick is concerned about when he talks about the android youth culture, that we will sacrifice our humanity for social order. Read more!

Essays Galore

I just wrote two essays today. Needless to say my brain is almost dead. I have two more to go. Not fun. Luckily one of them is going to be somewhat entertaining, since it is for my Philip K. Dick course and the other won't be so bad since all I have to do is a simple observation of an animal (I've done it before and it can be somewhat entertaining).

Anywho

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Does the Genre Tag Matter?

I recently came upon an article featuring Michael Chabon and Jeffrey Ford in which both authors gave some reasons as to why tagging fiction with certain genre tags isn't really that important. Chabon states that, "the people it matters the least to are the ones who are doing it. In so many other artistic mediums, it's not weird at all." This got me thinking about whether or not tagging novels within certain genres really matters and I'll send the question in the direction of the reader as well.
To me it seems like this is a difficult question to answer. To a certain extent the genre tags are important. They help book stores figure out where to put things and are great for categorizing in libraries and online. I think the question applies, however, to the growing number of works that don't really sit into any one genre. Take Zoran Zivkovic's work. His work is highly literary, in my opinion, but there is a lot of that "fantastic" element within each story, some more so than others. It would be somewhat difficult to pin Zivkovic's work into any particular genre. I would call his work "magical realism", but at the same time it is a bunch of other things. You just can't pin his work down. However, there are other writers who are easier to pin down (and I don't mean this in a negative manner). Tobias S. Buckell's novels Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin are rather easy to define. Well, at least the latter is. The first reads very much like a steampunk/fantasy novel, with SF stuff towards the end, and the latter is very much an SF work.
I will concede that there is obviously little need for genre tags for novels that are just too difficult to pin down. After all, I think it is something unfair to stick something into the fantasy section that is also literary, since people who read literary fiction might not read fantasy and therefore wouldn't find that novel.
But I think that the genre tag is more important than Ford and Chabon seem to think. I think writers do have a certain level of interest in how their books are categorized. If you wrote a science fiction novel and they put it in the westerns section, you might be a little miffed about it. After all, you worked hard to write a science fiction novel and now all the people who would be interested in your work won't find it. Folks who write very specifically within certain genres probably care a lot more than people who don't necessarily write in a genre.
Then what about the reader? I don't read a lot of literary fiction, except what I have to read for school. I just don't like literary fiction. It bores me and quite honestly I read to be entertained. Reading shouldn't feel like a chore to me. So, I don't go into the regular fiction section or the literary fiction section when I'm at the book store. I have no reason to. I spend my time wandering the scifi/fantasy section, and occasionally I'll go to the literary criticism section to see if they have anything interesting in relation to SF/F, or into the science section, or something similar. I'm not the only one that does this. There are a hell of a lot of readers who do the same thing. Why? Because many of us simply don't like anything else. We like space ships and swords and the like. All fiction is escapist. For me, escaping means actually escaping, not pretending that real life is the same thing as an escape. I live real life and quite honestly, I don't want to read about it. That's me.
If you took away the genre tag I would be extremely irritated. It already takes me an hour at least to go through the science fiction and fantasy sections at Borders or at Logo's (this awesome used bookstore downtown). What would happen if you suddenly got rid of all the tags? Well, a lot of new SF/F authors might find themselves in a bit of a pickle. The great thing about the SF/F section is that I can find new authors whose work is of interest. If you take away the tag all the authors will simply be put into a giant fiction section. There's a good chance I'd never find a new author into the field because of this. There is a huge market for SF/F and if there are works that clearly belong in those genres that aren't labeled that way it can be a big problem for that industry. I think there is a lot of value in having genre tags, particularly for the fantasy market, which has sales through the roof and is showing no signs of stopping. If everything that was fantasy suddenly became nothing, people would actually have to pull every book off the shelf to see the cover to make sure it is what they'd like to read.
Keep the tags. They're useful. Read more!

Aww, the Bachelor Life

There are great advantages to being on your own. One of the best ones is that I don't have to fight anyone over the toy in the cereal box. That's right, it's all mine.What is that in my hand? Well it's certainly not a razor, because why would I be flashing around a razor instead of shaving off my rather rugged-man beard? That is a plastic, light-up Indiana Jones spoon that I managed to procure in a box of Cocoa Krispies. Another benefit is that I can eat all the cereal I want and my brother can steal the good stuff.
Oh and I'm fairly certain I will become a green tea junkie.Yeah. Green tea is good. Read more!

How to Tell When the Religious Right Has Lost Its Damn Mind

Really? Are you sh*tin' me?
Since when has doing a magic TRICK been considered wizardry? Alternately, how far backwards have we gone when someone can be fired for doing something as silly as making a toothpick disappear and reappear? He did a circus trick...who gives a flying fig?
So if you can't tell, this is a prime example of why the religious right has completely gone off the deep end. This guy should sue.
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Interview w/ Dave A. Law

Thanks very much to Mr. Law for doing this interview with me. You can find check out my review of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction here.

First, tell us a little about yourself and your relation to the speculative fiction field--a little history if you will.

From my earliest memory I always wanted to be a scientist and from that grew a love of science fiction. In my teens I got interested in writing and at eighteen I was working as an editor/writer/letterer for a comic book company formed with some friends that I helped run but got nowhere. I went on to write and edit (as well as help run) a variety of comic book companies over the years. I started my own SF zine but couldn’t get it off the ground in the traditional format, so this eventually revised the format to an eZine that I ran for a few years. I got married, finally received my science degree and have been working as a software developer ever since. In more recent past I have been co-running an ePublisher, Virtual Tales, which though publishes various genres, is very heavy in SF/Fantasy.

What are you currently reading (fiction or non-fiction)? Who are some of your favorite writers of past and present and why?

Actually, I’m listening to a lot of audiobooks now. Between homeschooling my eldest daughter and spending time with my other daughter and wife, I don’t have a lot of time for reading, other than what I do editing, though I am looking forward to when my children are older and I can enjoy more traditional reading again. Audiobooks fit well within my life as I can listen to them on the way to and from work. What’s more, there are hundreds you can get for free off the Internet. Obviously many of these public- domain stories, but you would be surprised at what has become public domain, such as H. Beam Piper’s stories. I have “Little Fuzzy” on CD that I read years ago which I am looking forward to enjoying again soon. But beyond public domain, many authors have embraced the audio format with original fiction. One of the biggest is Scott Sigler, a SF/Horror writer, who claims to have produced the first podcast-only novel, EarthCore, though this novel has gone on into print. This is not a typical genre I read, but Sigler is a master of the audiobook format. Currently, when I do have a chance to read I’ve been slowly working my way through A. J. Cronin’s “Keys to the Kingdom”.
As for favorite writers here are some of my current ones:
- Spider Robinson
- G. K. Chesterton
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Louis de Wohl

How did you come to be editor of The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction Volume One?

Actually, this grew out of the Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, which was started by Darin Park and originated within an online group of fantasy writers, which I belonged to, as well. I was busy with other projects and not as interested in fantasy at the time, so I never attempted to get involved with this initial project. However, after this there was always talk of doing a similar SF guide, but it never got off the ground. Eventually, my time freed up and I proposed such a publication. Neither of the original editors was available to front the project, so to get it running, I offered to do this myself with Darin agreeing to help out. We queried the original publisher Dragon Moon Press, who expressed an interest, wrote up a proposal, and here we are today.

Why do you think the project was difficult to get off the ground? Is it because SF is a difficult genre to do guides for, or that it's not usually used as a medium for 'how to' books? Or is it just a more typical answer of nobody really stepping up until you decided to? (This isn't meant to offend, but I find that there are so many more guides for fantasy than there are for SF, though there are quite a lot of SF books, so I'm curious if you might have insight into what makes SF guides a little less popular).

In general, I don’t think people realize all that it takes to get a collective writing project off the ground. They think it is a “neat idea” but they are writers rather than editors, so they aren’t aware nor interested in the aspects that make it possible to pull off such a project and, as such, a lot more projects are started then actually ever get completed. As for SF guides, in general, I believe many people see fantasy as easier to write because you just make everything up (not true, but it is the assumption). Whereas SF is based upon science, which requires more research and knowledge to carry it off effectively, there is the perception that creating a fantasy writing guide is easier than SF.

How exactly did you choose the articles in The Complete Guide? What is the process like for making a collection/guide such as this?

As with the previous publication, this grew out of an online writing group, so this is where the first articles came from, as many of the previous contributors to the Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy also write SF and sent us article proposals. We also sent out a general call to various writing groups and organizations for submissions. We had a list of articles/topics that we wanted to get covered, so in additional to the general call, we asked specific authors to contribute articles in their area of expertise. A number of which accepted.

What would you say sets this guide apart from the myriad of other books on writing SF that are already out there? What makes it more valuable to new writers or even veteran writers?

There are several things that make this different. One is the topics that we cover. There are many excellent SF writing books out there; however, virtually all of them either only cover specific topics within SF or are more general writing books that just use SF as the basis. Our guide is the only one that specifically covers SF, and, admittedly, the subject is so large that this is simply only volume 1. The guide is valuable to new writers in that it covers all the basics from world building to plotting and final editing and revision, but from a purely SF basic. If you want to write SF, this is the book for you. For a more veteran writer, we have chapters about helping to get an agent for your book or after your book is published, how to market it. In essence, this book can help guide you from starting out to making your way within the field as you get published and become more experienced.

You wrote an article that addressed the field of graphic novels. What advice would you offer to a writer who wants to work in that field? Is it as difficult and cut-throat as the fiction business?

Don’t assume this is an easy road to success and publication. You still have to have the mechanics of writing down pat. Writing a comic script isn’t simply putting down the words, you have to write as much or more than any other writer to ensure that your words are properly interpreted on the page. To become successful, you really need to hook up with a talented artist, as people will initially pick up a comic purely based upon the illustrations rather than the story. However, your fiction is what will keep the readers coming back for more. In one sense, it is easier to break into the field as there are always small publishers starting up, and if you have a few thousand of your own money, you can get published and distributed your own title, though if you don’t have any business sense, this money will likely be wasted without anything to show for it.

This probably less of a follow-up than a random rant. I don't think anyone should ever assume that the road to publication, whether doing comics, novels, short stories, etc. is easy. It's difficult for almost everyone and can be filled with loads of failures. Some writers get hundreds of rejections before getting anywhere. Jay Lake, who has published a lot of stories, has hundreds of rejections and still gets them. So there's nothing easy about it. The only good rule is to write. Personally I find comics/graphic novels to be an exceptionally difficult medium. I'm talking with a friend who is an artist to turn a novel I wrote last year into a free graphic novel, and thinking about how to translate it to something that is primarily visual is really difficult because my mind doesn't quite work that way. So I fully agree with you that it is a lot of work (I didn't start considering this project until after I'd sent my questions to you, so between then and now I've learned a lot about this subject).

I believe there is the assumption by some writers (and publishers) that it is easy to take an existing novel or shorter story and simply translate it into a comic, whereas this really isn’t the case. Just as with written fiction and writing for the screen, there are aspects which work better in one medium than another. Personally, I see comics as the middle ground between the two, allowing to encompass the visual aspect of the screen with the written aspects of a paper book. As with any form of writing, it takes a while to learn how best to utilize the medium to tell your story.

The Complete Guide includes several works by huge authors in the speculative fiction field (Orson Scott Card, Piers Anthony, Kim Richards, and others). What was it like working with these authors?

These writers were a pleasure to work with as. They tended to give me exactly what I wanted the first time with little need for editing and were easy to work with for changes I requested.

Were there a lot of articles that you couldn't put in this volume? Do you have plans to put together a second volume, such as Dragon Moon has done with the fantasy guides?

Most of the articles we did try to fit within this volume but yes, there is definitely going to be a Volume 2 and, I hope, a Volume 3. Volume 2 is going to be more of a technical reference guide than the first one was.

What other projects, if any, are you working on and would you mind telling us a little about them?

Typically I have too many fires in the iron, but I like it that way. Beyond Volume 2 of the SF Guide, I’m also working on a series of fantasy writing guide for Dragon Moon Press on specific elements of fantasy field. The first guide is on Magic and is scheduled to be released at the World Fantasy Convention later this year. I also have a young adult novel in its 3rd of 4th draft that I hope to finally put to bed this year and find a publisher for. I also plan to work on a series of illustrated Catholic children’s books that I wish to write and self-publish. Other than this, I’m busy with the publishing company I co-run.

Do you read a lot of YA fantasy/SF? If so, what about that level of writing do you enjoy?

I read a wide variety of stories from YA to adult, as well as children’s books my four- year- old asks me to read to her.  As for YA, in specific, I like stories that can be considered more “all ages” rather than first chapter books.

Since you're writing a YA novel, I figure I might as well ask. What differences beyond the obvious (language) do you see in writing YA over adult? Do you find it a significant challenge in comparison to other projects you've worked on?

I’m fairly comfortable writing for a YA audience; however, the most difficult part is writing story content and language that is age appropriate without talking down to the reader.

There has been a lot of hubbub in the genre field talking about the future of science fiction, particularly by authors like Brian Aldiss. What do you feel is the future of SF? Is it a grim future or a good future, or neither? Do you feel that SF is neglecting environmental subjects such as global warming?

SF has been around a long time, in one form or another and will be for some time to come. The genre fills a need for people to think out what-if scenarios. It also gives voice to cautionary tales, when the author sees a concern in the world and wishes to bring attention to it. Personally, I see other issues such as euthanasia (how close are we to becoming a world of “Logan’s Run”?) and abortion greater concerns. We are becoming a society of death and while people in the past were concerned with overpopulation you look at the birth rates in much of the western world and you see quite the opposite is happening. While I am optimistic by nature it is troubling. SF at its best can be warning people about the problems of today and the consequences to the future and perhaps we aren’t doing a good enough job of that.

What are your favorite things about science fiction? What attracts you to the genre?

Science Fiction is the genre of possibilities and how to solve the problems of the world, these are both what attracts me to the field and my favorite things about it.

And for a completely random, fun question: Ninjas or pirates? Why?

Pirates. Never heard of a good Ninja, except purely through humor. These are killers whereas pirates can have a “heart of gold”, whatever their otherwise nature may appear, and a chance of redemption. A possible roguesh goodness appeals to me. Read more!

SF Crowsnest Nabs Another!

I'm a little late with this news, but SF Crowsnest nabbed another of my interviews to put in their latest issue (May 2008, #174). You can check that out here if you haven't read the interview with Mr. Melko yet.

(Don't click the read more, there isn't any more after this!) Read more!