Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 21

The Tyranny and Creativity of a Word Count

On the other hand, a really specific (short) word limit can force one to be more creative and improve the text. I love the Blaise Pascal quote: “This letter is very long because I did not have time to make … Continue reading →

Fall is…

Original photo by Rachel.

Tweeting in two places may break my brain

And god help me if I ever get confused! "When my brother and I go to the swinging singles bar, we look for the girls with the dog poopie on their shoes… " pic.twitter.com/ZUmCPUBjk4 — Mark A. Rayner (@markarayner) October … Continue reading →

Everyone’s a critic

Hank didn’t care that act had won the Most Unconvincing Bear Award six years running. He had been practicing on his flugelhorn, and he was sure that this season would be different. The crowds were going to love the new … Continue reading →

Academic Dumas-ery

Kane X. Faucher’s latest novel is a brilliant adaptation the classic Alexander Dumas tale of revenge, The Count of Monte Cristo. I’ve always loved the original, and Faucher’s book is a wonderful satire that cleaves to the original plot so … Continue reading →

The Halloween Feast of Madness Bird

Say what you will about Marge and Delia, but they served a mean turkey dinner. Sure they might have been witches. Sure, they tended to use a little too much salt when they were cooking. (Probably from all the dehydrated … Continue reading →

Star-crossed lovers

1960 … formerly unknown Mexican sci-fi!, a photo by x-ray delta one on Flickr. The being had crossed all of known space to find her, Lola LaBozla, the smartest woman on Earth. It had tracked her from Earth orbit using … Continue reading →

Writing: driving you slowly mad

… isolator isolates!, a photo by x-ray delta one on Flickr. This is an image of The Isolator, purportedly invented by Hugo Gernsback the science fiction pioneer, and clearly, loon. I haven’t dug into this, so it’s possible this is … Continue reading →

Planet of the Knob-heads: why do lit-ah-rary types look down on SF?

So what is it about science fiction that causes “literary” types to look down upon it? Like any genre, SF has its bad and good. No scratch that, like any writing, there is both bad and good. I’ve read plenty … Continue reading →

Ask General Kang: Do you own a typewriter? And do you have 999,999 co-workers?

I have neither, nor do I have an infinite amount of time, so don’t expect to see me write Hamlet anytime soon. I do, however, have this gripping script about an intergalactic overlord who comes to Earth, starts writing an … Continue reading →