Upcoming SF at Carina Press: Cyber Sparks

I’m a big fan of mystery elements in SF stories. One of my all-time favourites is Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, in which an intrepid human crew enters a giant, hollow alien cylinder adrift in our solar system. They know absolutely nothing about its origin or contents, and little by little, you could [...]

Milla vs The World

In the latest Resident Evil film, Afterlife, the franchise’s deadly heroine—known simply as Alice—appears as a small army of cloned warriors, each as gifted as the original. But during the opening action scene, they’re nearly all killed off. Bam! Okay, so it was a loopy idea to begin with, but come on, multiple kick-ass Alices—if [...]

Science Fiction at the Oscars

I like watching the Academy Awards and will always watch them. Shallow though the show itself may be, it’s a celebration of (some of) the year’s best achievements in entertainment, be they artistic or technical. It’s an opportunity to briefly meet the men and women behind the magic. And it can be a pretty good spectacle in its own right. But [...]

Creating a SF Novel: Part 1

To celebrate the upcoming release of my new SF novel, Sparks in Cosmic Dust (September 26, 2011, Carina Press), I’ll be posting a five-part look at the book’s development, from initial concept to book launch. I’ll also be giving away one SF title from my back catalogue with each segment, ending with a special Sparks [...]

SF Poetry: In Search of the Inventor

In 2004, before I’d written my first serious SF story, I was a member of an online writing community that critiqued poetry as well as prose. My particular fascination was with narrative rhyming verse–an all-but-obsolete form nowadays (shame)–and I managed to find a few fellow bards willing to collaborate. Yes, we exist…out there, somewhere. One of these [...]

Where No Great Story Goes Untold

I must admit, when I first saw that motto on the Carina Press website, my first reaction was, “Yeah, that’s what they all say at first.” Most digital publishers talk a good game, but very few live up to their early promise. The reasons for that are many and varied. I’ve only been published for [...]

Top 10 SF Movie Heroines

After finishing my latest SF novel, Sparks in Cosmic Dust, which features three tough, resourceful heroines, I decided to go back and pinpoint the major influences on those characters. Most of them are movie heroines. Though there are some actresses/characters I like from 1950s SF, they’re very much in their heroes’ shadows, and the birth [...]

SF Book Review: Ender’s Game

I read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game for the first time last night. I’d caught snippets of controversy over the years, heard bits and pieces about the plot, and I even recall one of my favourite film directors, Wolfgang Petersen, was attached to make it as a Hollywood blockbuster at one point (um, good luck [...]

Steampunk Week at Carina

We’re half way through already, but I’d to give special mention to our four intrepid steampunk authors whose ebooks dominate the new release section at Carina Press this week. In fact, Carina has chosen this last week of April to celebrate the retro-fantastical genre by releasing ONLY steampunk titles (including one absolutely FREE = get over there sharpish!). [...]

Your World-Building Franchise

One of my absolute favourite things about writing fiction is that no one, anywhere, anywhen will ever write this exact same story this exact same way (legally, anyway). There’s never just one “correct” way to write anything. The choices are kaleidoscopic, depending on your skill, mood, imagination, daring, health, alcohol intake, etc, and that can [...]