Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 2

Why I Don’t Like Fantasy, Explained (Part Two)

The other day, I talked about why I don’t like fiction in the fantasy genre. I admitted that I was using a rather specific definition of fantasy, and I went over a specific example of a fantasy story that didn’t work for me.

So what does work for me? I would say that I’m capable of enjoying any successful piece of fiction. Ah… but what is “successful fiction,” and how does one know if one’s creating it?

Writing successful Fiction comes down to the question of “What’s in it for me?” “Me...

Review: “The Dragon Masters” from The Hugo Winners, Volume II

(Or…Why I Don’t Like Fantasy, Explained, Part One)

Short intro…

Dragon Lords…

What I don’t like about it…

What is successful fiction?

What is fantasy?

Why I don’t like what I don’t like…

I don’t like fantasy. “But all fiction is fantasy… waaaaaah…”

Stop that. You know what I mean. Well, maybe you don’t. I know what I mean.

I mean Tolkein. Conan the Barbarian. Shanara. Xanth. Hell, I have trouble getting into Heinlein’s Glory Road, although I’ve read it three times. All...

The Highland Clearances… coming to a suburb near you?

After promising a weekly blog, I posted on two successive Fridays, then skipped two Fridays and did a Monday. I started this one resolved to miss only one week, assuming I posted it by Friday, August 26th. Then I realized that I needed to do a lot of background research to write this piece, and that was not a realistic date. I did another review in the meantime, and now, here’s the piece I intended to run. Hopefully I’ll be back on a weekly track through the Fall.

I missed a few postings ...

Review – Marvel Team-Up Annual #1 (1976)

This week, while working on a blog post about Scottish politics (not kidding—just got back from Scotland and was fascinated by some comments made by an excellent tour guide),

I decided to take a detour into nostalgia. I quaffed down a Slurpee and inhaled a couple cans of Pringles and re-read a favorite comic book. Okay, I read a comic book. The other stuff will stay a pleasant memory, because, while 11-year-old me had the metabolism of a blast furnace, 57-year-old me gains eight ounces ju...

Review – Flowers for Algernon – The Hugo Winners

August 9, 2022

This story has always haunted me. They made us read it in 8th grade, and my almost-next-door neighbor Brian had told me the story of the film. He told me the stories of lots of films. He was two years older than I, and far more worldly. The novel was on the shelf at our school library, where I spent most of my recess periods. The cover is one of the things that haunted me. It depicts a Rorschach inkblot, with some flowers laying on top of it. When I was 10 or 11, I didn’t k...

Review: Rissa Kerguelen

Review – Rissa Kerguelen

This is my second time reading this book. Actually, the first time I read it in two parts. The publication history is confusing. Rissa Kerguelen was published in Hardback in 1976. The Long View followed the same year. In 1977, both books were released as a single, 630-page paperback, confusingly also titled Rissa Kerguelen.

In 1984 Berkley publishers split the two volumes into three, releasing mass-market paperbacks Young Rissa, Rissa and Tregare and Th...

Review: The Hugo Winners – “The Darfsteller”

Review: The Darfsteller by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

It’s been a while since I blogged. When I started blogging weekly, a decade ago, I did reviews of books, comics and movies, with occasional essays on overall themes from science fiction and popular culture. I also occasionally talked about politics and social issues. In the years following my father’s death, I talked about the house that he had started building in 1967 and my work to move it toward completion.

Around 2019, life… happened. It...

About this Farpoint Situation…

Many readers of my blog don’t keep up with social media—a healthy practice, these days. For them, here’s a capsule description of the events I’m writing about:

Renee and I are Deputy Chairs of an annual science fiction convention called Farpoint. We founded it in 1993. It’s a family endeavor that has included our parents, our siblings, and our children. It is not a profitable venture. Trust me. It’s a labor of love. There’s not enough money in the world to make us do this job if we weren’t do...

Don’t Look Up (2021) – A Reflection

[SPOILERS AHEAD – I wouldn’t want to disappoint you before the movie itself does.]

“There’s a new movie on Netflix with Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio,” said my wife. That was enough for me. I enjoy the work of both actors. The Iron Lady, Mamma Mia, Titanic, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Said movie also starred Jennifer Lawrence and featured Timothee Chalamet. I like both of them as well, though neither name put a film on my “must-see” list. Said movie was directed by someone named A...

Sandy, the Secret Financier – Farpoint 93

I told previously how Sandy and I had discussed, even before OktoberTrek 92 began planning, that she might step down as the financial backer for the convention, and we talked about me stepping up to lead the new con, with George Laurence, our logistics expert, as my second. After all the heartache behind the scenes of that third year, Sandy did indeed decide she would step down. She announced this at the wrap meeting, after touching base with me.

I showed up with a proposal in hand to exp...