I am blown away by the effort of translating this book for the screen. Frankly, although I loved the novel, I like the film better — this is rare. Anthony Minghella managed the near impossible, translating this gorgeous prose into an equally lyrical visual style.
My freelance editor, the awesome Renni Browne, has officially declared my novel, The Darkening Dream, done, and ready for agents! Now bear in mind that “done” is a highly subjective term, and that as soon as anyone gives me an…
In 2008, I read this 722 page novel in Xian China during a single sleepless night, and I reread it just now for the second time in preparation for the sequel. NOTW is a beautiful book. Of all the Fantasy I’ve read in the last 15 or so years, this is perhaps second best after The Song of Ice and Fire. But that’s not to say that they have much in common, other than both being really good.
The first thing I did after getting my line editing back over the weekend was work on the ending of my novel. Beginnings and endings are so important, and as is probably typical, I’ve changed them a lot. The ending…
Derived from a fake preview in Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature, this film is just rollicking camp fun. The premise: that ex-federale Danny Trejo (the ugliest guy to grace the silver screen since The Elephant Man) is lured into a crazy scheme by various right wing racist nut-jobs and has to kick (and get some) ass in various escapes, revenge, etc.
This is a phenomenally interesting book about the London Underground of the 1720s. You think it was bad in Dickens time? — woah, things really calmed down in the century between.
The last batch of line edits for my novel The Darkening Dream are in from my awesome freelance editors. Now I just have to spend the next day or two groveling over them, tweaking, and then… Read the entire thing…
For my first novel, The Darkening Dream, I started in word and then switched to Scrivener about 60% of the way through the first draft. I’ve never looked back. Scrivener is a specialty word processor designed for those who write…
Now, in the interest of protecting my dear and tender readers, I’m not going to actually tell you the premise of this film. If you are so inclined, you may watch the trailer and decide for yourself. Be warned. Let’s just say it’s terrifying, gross, and of totally dubious possibility.
As the process of the revising my — hopefully — almost finished novel, The Darkening Dream, draws out the amount of work I have to personally do on it declines toward the limit of… well very little. More and more…
Ben was a pretty amazing guy, as influential in his own wry way as any man in history. And he didn’t kill thousands or conquer nations doing it. Ben was a man of rare genius. And he’s depicted here with all his very human faults. But fundamentally he was a spirit of curiosity, optimism, energy, and general good intentions.
So at long last we meander to the final, and worst, season. Not that it’s awful, but it does suffer from a number of serious problems.
Since I’m always cryptically referring to my novel in progress, I figured I’d post a few words about it. The Darkening Dream is a historial dark fantasy. It’s currently 95,000 words and I’ve just finishing up the line editing and polish. [ Updated…
The transition from season 5 into season 6 is the best of the entire series. After the season 5 finale, with its tear jerking “The Gift,” we slam right in with the two hour “Bargaining,” and it’s more or less continuation “After Life.” I’ve never managed to not watch all three of these together because until the end of the third hour things are so unsettled you just have to keep going.
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise is fine, set in a dystopian 2150 where teens are branded at 16 as”legal for sex.” Nina is almost 16, and is dealing with not only the stress of this oncoming rite of passage, but boys, the death of her mother, and a bigger conspiracy. But it just fell flat.
This 60 page short story is so up my alley. A story of time travel, set in medieval Baghdad, what could be better? If it were written in a lyrical style reminiscent of the Arabian nights! This is a gold and gem encrusted little dagger of a story.
This book is rather brilliant, but isn’t for everybody. It’s racy, written in a breezy first-person past with a kind of stream-of-consciousness lightweight quality that made me have to look to make sure it wasn’t present tense. The prose is very very good — fitting the material perfectly.
Season 5 and 6 pretty much tie for the best of the seven! Pretty incredible how this show just keeps on getting better and better until the final season. With this season everything slips into a serious groove, but what’s really surprising is the depth of emotion pulled out of the viewers. Nearly gone are the episodic “one off” episodes (discussed in my Lost vs The Love Boat post), instead the story just rolls from one episode to the next with only a few exceptions.
Title: The Windup Girl Author: Paolo Baciqalupi Genre: Sci-Fi Read: Jan 5-9, 2011 Summary: Interesting Science, mediocre Fiction. This novel won the 2009 Nebula and tied for the 2010 Hugo. It’s set in an approximately 100-200 years-from-now dystopian future Bangkok ravaged by…
In my pursuit to optimize the blog I’ve created yet more pages: Food Index Fiction Index On Writing Complete Archives Blog navigation is funny because the default themes make it difficult to to lure people into old posts. Given that…