EPPIE 2008 - Finalist!

I'm pleased to let you know that The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume 1 is a finalist in the non-fiction category for the EPPIE awards (for outstanding achievement in e-publishing). Winners will be announced at the annual EPICon Convention in March 2008.

By the way, the book is also now available in Kindle format for anyone who has purchased this device and in a variety of other eBook formats from FictionWise.

Now available in print and eBook formats...

Copies have finally shipped from the printer and are now available for purchase from Amazon. The SF Guide should be available from other distributors/online sellers shortly. The eBook version (at about half the price as the print) can be purchased from MobiPocket and it will be available from FictionWise within the week.

Dave A. Law
Editor

Call for Submissions: Elements of Fantasy: Magic (Final Call)

"Elements of Fantasy: Magic" is the first of a series of titles on writing fantasy and an author's guide to the various aspects of writing magic to be published by Dragon Moon Press Fall 2008, (in time for the World Fantasy Con in Calgary, Canada).

While the title is almost completely filled up we are still looking for chapters about magic based upon legends and traditions of specific cultures, such as Asian. We already have a chapter on East Indian magic, but any other culture would be considered. We would also consider chapters on more unusual topics of magic that we might not already been addressed within the title.

If you are interested in contributing please send us a short query about the topic you would like to write about, as well a bio of your writing credits and why you would be suitable to write such a chapter. The deadline for such queries by Aug. 15^th and any of those we are interested in will be requested to send a formal proposal thereafter.

Feel free to forward this call out to anyone who may be interested.

Dave A. Law & Val Ford
Editors

PS:

"The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume 1"
ISBN: 1896944396
From Dragon Moon Press is now available.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Writing-Science-Fiction/dp/1896944396

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 The cover on Amazon is out of date but that should be updated before release.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.

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."

DEFINING - Part Two

Here are what the author's have to say about the other chapters in the first section.


TIME LINE: A HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION
by Darin Park

"Of all I have written in the past, SF, Fantasy or any other genre, this chapter on Science Fiction has probably been the most difficult. When writing stories, the author delves into the imagination to create the scenarios, plots and characters, then intertwines "facts" from the real world to make those stories "live." In order to create this chapter, imagination was put to one side and facts had to be dredged up from the far reaches of history to create a timeline that would guide the reader from the beginnings of Science Fiction to its modern day incarnation. No easy task.

This challenge was one I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent many, many hours putting together information, setting the tone, and placing events into their proper slots - purely a fact finding mission that enlightened me on many things I didn't know about the genre that I was writing about.

My only regret about the chapter is that because of limited space I had to reduce this fascinating journey through time to a synopsis of SF history, which meant touching more on the major literary events and spending less time on the impact of SF through the ages. I think that would take a book all in itself and is probably not for me to write. I hope to see such a work in the future written by a major contributor to the field of Science Fiction. I'm sure all writers in the SF field would be fascinated by and could benefit from such a work.

I am very proud (and humbled) to be part of this project and I'm sure many people will benefit from and enjoy "The Complete Guide to Writing SF Volume 1 - First Contact."

SCIENCE FIRST, FICTION SECOND: THAT’S SCIENCE FICTION
by Bob Nailor

"What possessed me to write this chapter? Back in the 50s when I was a mallable child in fifth grade, I read a book about bat-like creatures on Venus when our explorers reached that planet. My mind wandered at the thoughts of such creatues existing. At that time we knew very little about Venus other than it was what some considered our "sister" planet, hidden under the swirling masses of clouds. Therefore the story had some credence. Today we know better; those clouds are extremely hot swirls of dangerous gases. That is science. My bat-like creatures vaporized. Was I devastated? Well, sort of but I got over it. I guess that was the fiction part of it and today that story would be considered more fantasy. One only has to remember that science changes over a period of time. Think back, prior to 1932, children were taught the names of the eight planets -- then Pluto was discovered. Up until mid-2006, we had nine planets. Pluto was down-graded. Science has again fluxed.

But that's not why I wrote the chapter. Science fiction is a story where the science should be an integral part, if not almost a character itself. Yet science does have its laws and those laws must be adhered to when writing science fiction or you will have the reader dropping out of the "realm" you have created. A man cannot fly by flapping his arms but he can appear to fly if the gravity is extremely less than what he is normally acclimated. So, in my chapter I touched on certain laws and their implications. Also, I reviewed some of the great writers of SF and their backgrounds which made them the "authority" on science in their field, or not. Wait! There are successful writers of science fiction without scientific backgrounds and I reviewed them, too. So, the bottomline is: science fiction is about science."

Next time, I will start delving into chapters on BUILDING.