Saturday, July 14, 2007
Order your copy now...
The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction is scheduled to be released August 1st. You can preorder your copy at Amazon here. Be sure to let anyone else who may be interested. The cover on Amazon is out of date but that should be updated before release.
SF Guide featured in DMP's July Newsletter...
"The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction" is featured in this installment of Dragon Moon Press Newsletter. You can read more details about the guide here. You will also be able to see the new version of the cover there.
And if you want to keep up with what is happening at DMP be sure to signup for their free newsletter.
And if you want to keep up with what is happening at DMP be sure to signup for their free newsletter.
Building: Part One
As part of my series on previews on chapters within the guide here are a few of the ones within the building chapter.
ALIEN CREATION
by Michael McRae
"My name is Mike McRae, and I am a skeptic. It's a difficult thing to admit in some company as it often inspires thoughts of cynicism and solipsism. In fact, skepticism to me is the healthiest way of seeing the world. It allows me to dream and speculate freely, safe in the knowledge that I won't rapidly confuse the 'possible' with the 'probable'. I can dare to imagine all things that might be and still be aware that reality doesn't conform to our beliefs simply because we desire them.
As a skeptic, I'm always asked if there is anything I do believe in, as if the admission of being critical automatically makes me deny everything. I ask them what they mean by 'believe' - I am fairly certain, for instance, that the sun will come up tomorrow. I also believe that mankind is capable of producing amazing things one moment and destroying them the next, only to regroup and once again create items of sheer wonder. On another level, I believe that life on other planets is possible. This is not to be confused with the belief that this potential life has ever been witnessed by humans, something that would require an entirely different level of evidence. But I certainly feel confident that living processes have arisen elsewhere in the universe.
But in believing this, I also feel obliged to stick to the evidence we have in imagining what it might be like. There's nothing stopping us from dreaming of humanoid robots from Venus, or Arian seraphim from Jupiter, but by using what we know about life here we create certain parameters to sort what is probable from what is possible. Writing the chapter on Alien Creation was tricky in that I had to restrain myself from running wild on speculating what could be out there. It forced me to stick to my own rules of critical thinking, really focussing on what alien life could be like given the laws of nature we observe here on Earth. Some people might find such constraints of 'reality' too rigid. But isn't science fiction made all the more beautiful, all the more awe inspiring, when we read it and think 'one day, this could be revealed as reality'?
I was the kid who sat outside looking at stars, wondering who or what might be looking back. I was never content with just dreaming it, but really desired to know what was actually out there. We're little closer to finding those answers, unfortunately, but our imagination doesn't have to know that."
NAVIGATING YOUR WAY THROUGH OUTER SPACE: FACTS, THEORIES, AND CONJECTURES
by Jeanne Allen
"When Dave and Darin put out a request for a chapter on space travel, I jumped at the chance. Many hours of research and then writing about what I'd learned about the nature of space and how we just might travel to the stars was a most challenging and rewarding experience. It turned out to be a longer chapter than I had originally intended because the topics covered are wide-ranging (from effects of space on the human body to spaceship propulsion) and space is, well, so big. The scope of the chapter is even reflected in the mile-long title: "Navigating Your Way Through Outer Space: Facts, Theories, and Conjectures." I hope the chapter will be a source of exciting world-building ideas for writers of science fiction, and a springboard for further research. Many, many thanks to Dragon Moon Press and to Dave and Darin for undertaking this very exciting and worthwhile project and for allowing me to be a part of it."
ALIEN CREATION
by Michael McRae
"My name is Mike McRae, and I am a skeptic. It's a difficult thing to admit in some company as it often inspires thoughts of cynicism and solipsism. In fact, skepticism to me is the healthiest way of seeing the world. It allows me to dream and speculate freely, safe in the knowledge that I won't rapidly confuse the 'possible' with the 'probable'. I can dare to imagine all things that might be and still be aware that reality doesn't conform to our beliefs simply because we desire them.
As a skeptic, I'm always asked if there is anything I do believe in, as if the admission of being critical automatically makes me deny everything. I ask them what they mean by 'believe' - I am fairly certain, for instance, that the sun will come up tomorrow. I also believe that mankind is capable of producing amazing things one moment and destroying them the next, only to regroup and once again create items of sheer wonder. On another level, I believe that life on other planets is possible. This is not to be confused with the belief that this potential life has ever been witnessed by humans, something that would require an entirely different level of evidence. But I certainly feel confident that living processes have arisen elsewhere in the universe.
But in believing this, I also feel obliged to stick to the evidence we have in imagining what it might be like. There's nothing stopping us from dreaming of humanoid robots from Venus, or Arian seraphim from Jupiter, but by using what we know about life here we create certain parameters to sort what is probable from what is possible. Writing the chapter on Alien Creation was tricky in that I had to restrain myself from running wild on speculating what could be out there. It forced me to stick to my own rules of critical thinking, really focussing on what alien life could be like given the laws of nature we observe here on Earth. Some people might find such constraints of 'reality' too rigid. But isn't science fiction made all the more beautiful, all the more awe inspiring, when we read it and think 'one day, this could be revealed as reality'?
I was the kid who sat outside looking at stars, wondering who or what might be looking back. I was never content with just dreaming it, but really desired to know what was actually out there. We're little closer to finding those answers, unfortunately, but our imagination doesn't have to know that."
NAVIGATING YOUR WAY THROUGH OUTER SPACE: FACTS, THEORIES, AND CONJECTURES
by Jeanne Allen
"When Dave and Darin put out a request for a chapter on space travel, I jumped at the chance. Many hours of research and then writing about what I'd learned about the nature of space and how we just might travel to the stars was a most challenging and rewarding experience. It turned out to be a longer chapter than I had originally intended because the topics covered are wide-ranging (from effects of space on the human body to spaceship propulsion) and space is, well, so big. The scope of the chapter is even reflected in the mile-long title: "Navigating Your Way Through Outer Space: Facts, Theories, and Conjectures." I hope the chapter will be a source of exciting world-building ideas for writers of science fiction, and a springboard for further research. Many, many thanks to Dragon Moon Press and to Dave and Darin for undertaking this very exciting and worthwhile project and for allowing me to be a part of it."
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