Monday, June 29, 2009

Incandescence - Mini Review

Wikipedia defines hard sci fi as "a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both."

By that definition "Incandescence" by Greg Egan is by far the hardest science fiction book I've read in my entire life. We're talking diamond hard here! If you're into the action-packed drama of space-time geometries, general relativity, and interstellar panspermia...have I got the book for you.

There is a decent story (lost alien race in peril at the forbidden center of the galaxy) buried throughout what amounts to a novel-length discussion of Einstein's theory of general relativity and Newtonian physics, but as a right-brained artist type, I found my eyes glazing over for significant chunks of this book.

Not at all the author's fault as you can tell it's a well-written and carefully reasoned book, but I'm not the kind of reader who's smart enough to appreciate the effort Mr. Egan put into it.

I like sci fi stories about people (alien or otherwise) who have an adventure. I don't need to know about the extremely complicated physics behind that adventure.

Seriously, if you're a gifted scientist/mathematician who delights in theorizing about plasma accretion disks around black holes, you'll totally groove on this book. If you're a dummy like me, not so much.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Finally!

Well, it took longer than I'd expected but I finally finished my screenplay rewrite and sent it off to a trusted reader. He'll give notes which I'll incorporate before sending it off to my writing agents (who will no doubt have additional notes). All part of the process.

I'm very pleased with how this script is turning out. Full of sci fi action and with a healthy dose of comedy, it'd be a movie that I'd like to see if I were a kid. Hopefully that translates into appealing to the current batch of fresh humans.

Like I mentioned before, it'll either make a cool cgi-heavy live action flick or an awesome animated adventure in the style of Japanese anime (with characters not quite as bouncy as the figure to the left). I wouldn't complain either way.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Done! Done! Done! Well, Almost.

Finished up a rough first draft of my Script Frenzy screenplay this weekend. It ended up being 124 pages long. I'd say the last 24 pages took me longer to write than the first 100 for a variety of reasons including time travel, world building logic, and an intense action sequence at the very end. My tiny brain is throbbing but it felt great to type "The End" at the bottom of the page yesterday.

Now the fun part begins -- the editing. The goal is to crank on the rewrite this week and hopefully get it to my trusted beta readers by early next week.

Eater of the Dead: A Dragon Friend Excerpt

Just in time for Halloween! Check out a featured Dragon Friend excerpt on the BestSelling Reads blog: "The spooky season is upon us! H...