Keith Stevenson's Blog, page 18

Pacific Rim: Front and Centre

Would you buy kaiju body parts from this man?

After the disappointment of Man of Steel, I was glad that I really enjoyed Pacific Rim. Often there's no substitute for a simple story told really well and that's what Pacific Rim delivers. What could be simpler than, 'giant monsters are destroying Earth, so we build giant robots to defeat them?' Actually the first few minutes of PR very

Man of Steel: In a World of His Own

You'll believe a man can fly!

If there had never been a superhero movie made before in the history of cinema, then Man of Steel would have been the kind of movie they made. The film is filled with such static moments that 'allow us space' to ponder the true import of having a super man among us, that it reminded me of the tag line from the very first Superman movie, 'You'll believe a man can

Opening new dimensions in 2014

Dimension6 is the name of the new e-magazine I'll be editing and producing in the new year. It's an exciting prospect, not just because I'll be working with short fiction again and hopefully discovering some new talent and great stories, but also because I'm learning how to put together an ebook magazine format using the latest InDesign software.

D6 is going to be pretty cool. An entirely

Kresh update - finding the finished form

Work continues on my two book (with potential for a third!) space opera, The Way of The Kresh. I'm up to 184,000 words and currently expanding the secondary protagonist's story line - and pouring on the pain for him just as much as for my lobster alien boy Jeldon. If a little suffering is good for the soul, these guys are preparing for canonisation.

I'm asked by writers what's the ideal word

Many movies to look forward to...

At this stage I'm thinking of just handing over my credit card to Hoyts. I can't actually remember another year where there were so many movies coming out that I wanted to see. So far the list looks like this...

World War Z, Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, Elysium, Robocop, Kick Ass 2, Riddick, Ender's Game, and Thor: The Dark World. That's getting on for $180.

2012 Aurealis Awards

I had a great evening at the Aurealis Awards last night, and I have to say a big congratulations to the SpecFaction NSW team for doing a bang up job over the last three years.

The other big congratulations go to Margo Lanagan who just about scooped the awards winning best YA novel (shared with Kaz Delaney), best SF short story, best Fantasy Novel and best Fantasy short story. Way to go!

Some

Star Trek: Moving Past the Darkness? *Huge Spoilers*

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The Publishing Diaspora

Ted Heller's 'Self Publishing is the Worst' article on Salon.com makes for sobering reading. It's indicative of


the effects of the publishing diaspora which is not only hitting writers but publishers too.

Everyone has been busy hailing the rise of ebooks and the breaking down of conventional publishing models. As a publisher the benefits of ebooks were obvious, removing traditional printing

Forward the Kresh

When last we spoke, I was busy reading through the 175,000 odd words of my current manuscript just to get my head around the stuff I've been writing for the past few years. Having come to the end of that, the good news is that it doesn't suck and the plot and character arcs actually make sense.

Yay me.

I've identified a few places where the various parts of the jigsaw need to be chivvied and

Hearts and minds

Increasingly these days private and even public sector
employers want their staff to be passionate about their jobs. Being passionate
about the environment is great if you work for Greenpeace or the Environment
Protection Agency; being passionate about animals is handy if you work for the
RSPCA; being passionate about ensuring excellent service for the customer is
great if you work in Maccas