Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 43

End of the SF Gender War

The war raged on a few years ago, and I had hoped by now it was over. I’m talking about the gender war among science fiction writers.

The old stereotype was that male authors wrote hard science fiction, plot-driven stories that were true to science; and female authors wrote soft science fiction, character-driven stories that verged into magic and fantasy without a firm backing in scientific principles. Moreover, some considered the former true science fiction and the latter not SciFi at all.

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Medieval SciFi

Can Science Fiction trace its origins back further than Jules Verne? Further than Edgar Allan Poe? Further than Mary Shelley? Could you have read SciFi books if you lived in the Middle Ages?

Medieval scholars Carl Kears and James Paz think so. They wrote a fascinating article in The Conversation called “Science fiction was around in medieval times – here’s what it looked like.” They also co-wrote the book Medieval Science Fiction.

Their article cites some fascinating medieval examples of what...

Re-Launch and Dark Stories

Pole to Pole Publishing has done it again. They’ve launched another new anthology, this one called Re-Launch. It’s chock full of science fiction stories about launches and new beginnings.

Here’s the blurb:

Beginnings are always messy. ~ John Galsworthy

Spacecrafts hurtling toward alien worlds. Second chances for civilizations. First contact. Rebirth. Non-humans looking for a new life. Opportunities for fresh starts and do-overs far from Earth. These stories and more explore the theme of Re-La...

Could You Be A Salaried Novelist?

What if you could quit your day job and earn a salary as a novelist? You’d write full time and get paid for it, even before you sold your novel. Does that sound good?

Early time clock. Photo by Rodw.

According to this article in The Bookseller, that’s the plan for a new, London-based publishing firm. Headed by Jonathan De Montfort, De Montfort Literature (DML), intends to pay chosen writers a salary of £2,000 per month (about $31K per year) to write novels. The company will also coach these w...

You Are Scheherazade

Welcome, budding writer, into t he sultan’s palace in 9th Century Persia. The sultan’s former wife was unfaithful, and he now distrusts all women. For the last 1,001 nights, he’s taken a woman to bed and ordered her execution the next morning, to ensure she couldn’t cheat on him.

  Now, Scheherazade, it’s your turn.

Luckily, you know a story that might keep the sultan interested. You also know when to interrupt your story so the sultan will be forced to delay your execution so he can hear th...

Happy Bicentennial, Frankenstein

Two hundred years ago, author Mary Shelley wrote a remarkable novel— Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus—which endures in popularity and bears an increasingly meaningful warning for us today.

Title page from the original 1818 edition

(Yes, I know I’m a few months late. Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones published the novel on January 1, 1818. Amazing that a publisher was working on New Years Day!)

Today, we know Shelley’s novel mainly from its numerous movie incarnations and from...

Author Interview — Emma Whitehall

The humble author of your favorite blog has done it again. I got to interview author Emma Whitehall, another writer who has a story appearing in The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3.

Emma Whitehall

Emma Whitehall is a writer and editor based in the North East of England. She has been published in the UK, USA, Ireland and Mexico, and has been longlisted for the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award and shortlisted for the Fish Flash Fiction Prize and the New Millennium Writings Award. She is fascinated...

Hurry, the Smashwords Sale is Ending

We both knew what would happen. At the beginning of July, I told you about the price sale of my books over at Smashwords. These are the ones in my What Man Hath Wrought series, published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing.

You thought about buying one or two books.

Then you put it off until later.

Guess what? It’s later. The sale ends tomorrow, yes tomorrow, the 31st of July.

Ridiculous, when you think about it. $2 for a book? $1.50 for some of them.

In August, on Wednesday, they go back up to full...

Author Interview — Julie Frost

You surfed to this site just in time. I’m about to interview author Julie Frost, who recently had a story published in The Gallery of Curiosities magazine, issue #3.

Julie Frost is the award-winning author of over forty short stories in all the speculative genres and combinations thereof. They have appeared in various venues, including Monster Hunter Files, StoryHack, the Planetary Fiction series, Tales of Ruma, and Writers of the Future. Her novel series, Pack Dynamics, is published by WordF...

Author Interview — Donald J. Bingle

Today I launch a series of interviews with authors whose stories appear in The Gallery of Curiosities magazine, issue #3. With me today is Donald J. Bingle.

Donald J. Bingle

Donald J. Bingle is the author of Frame Shop, a mystery thriller set in a suburban writers’ group, Net Impact and Wet Work, spy thrillers which incorporate real-world conspiracy theories, GREENSWORD, a dark comedy about global warming, and Forced Conversion, a military science fiction novel set in the near future. Co-auth...