Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 37

On Sticking to Your Guns When the World Wants Posies

It’s no big news that I write a lot. Like, a lot. I’m attached to 400-600 projects a year at the day job. I do freelancing work for a couple of clients – blog posts, press releases, that sort of thing. Then I picked up an adjunct position at a local design school teaching copywriting (if you want to figure out your process and do a deep dive/study in copy, I recommend trying to teach it to other people. You learn a lot). Then there’s those pesky fiction books, which is the type of writing eve...

Dredd’s Sketchy Homage to a Dead Future

Note: Somewhat spoilery, but nothing you wouldn’t guess at if you read the comic.

Watching Dredd was like stepping into a time machine that took me back to the 80’s and the gloriously apocalyptic, overpopulated, crime-ridden society that the media of the time all insisted we were headed toward.

There are all sorts of theories about why this future never happened, including an uptick in policing and the legalization of abortion (yes, really), and it’s funny because when that future melted away,...

What living in South Africa taught me about racism in America

Beach goers in Durban, South Africa.

I’ve talked a lot about growing up in an area that was largely full of white people (I believe 98% of the county I grew up in was white during the 80′s). The effect this had on me, growing up, was not actually the one you might expect. Instead of (I thought) teaching me explicitly to be a racist,it taught me that racism was some kind of anomalous thing. I mean, *I* didn’t notice people of color. Everybody was the same to me! Racism was a silly thing that no...

Argo, and the Inconvenient Truth of Sahar

Spoilers: The hostages get away! The boat sinks! Etc.

When I saw the first trailer for Argo, I guffawed at the implausibility of the entire movie. CIA creates SF movie ruse to smuggle people out of Iran? Whatever, Hollywood. I figured it was just a good excuse for the media to fuel itself up for war with Iran (because we don’t have enough wars! And oh, those wacky Arab countries!).

It wasn’t until I looked this up on Wikipedia and saw that it was based on a true story that I realized I had to s...

Looper: On What Makes a Hero

Note: Post contains ALL THE SPOILERS for this film.

The shift to gritty fantasy over the last couple decades has been a long time coming. I’d argue that those of us who grew up watching heroes like Snake Pliskin and Mad Max and Ellen Ripley but reading about smarmy do-good boys with birthmarks and wilting heroines were inspired to spice up the old tropes with a bit of grimdark ourselves mainly because we’d watched too many 80’s movies and wanted our novels to look more like our films.

But for...

Get FREE copies of GOD’S WAR and INFIDEL

If you’ve beenhungry to readGOD’S WAR and INFIDEL, butwere justwaiting for the righttime – this is it.

In celebration of the release of RAPTURE, the final book in the trilogy, Night Shade is giving away totally FREE ecopies of BOTH GOD’S WAR and INFIDEL.

Yes. Both books.

Here’s how to get yours:

Just send an email to Beldamegiveaway@nightshadebooks.com. Night Shadewill shoot back an email to you withthe info you need to download the files forGOD’S WARand INFIDEL. Both Epub and Mobi files are avai...

On Hiatus – But Probably Still Alive

It occurred to me today that I’m dangerously close to burnout, and as I’m about to head down the rabbit hole with RAPTURE promo in early November, now is probably a good time to take a break from being social and actually knuckle down and get to work.

I’ve managed to get really far behind on projects. If you start spending too much time on stuff like book numbers, reviews, mentions, and all the rest of the businessbit of this game,it can really sap your headspace for creating new stuff, becaus...

“To whom are you referring?” vs. “Who are you talking about?” Writing the Way People Talk

I make the bulk of my living as a corporate copywriter and freelancer. That means I spend a lot of time writing spam and junk mail.

Oh, I could tell you I write “marketing collateral” or I “develop B 2B and B2C messaging campaigns” but unless you’re actually in marketing and advertising, that’s probably not going to mean much to you. But when I say, “spam” and “junk mail” general folks I bump into on the street instantly know what I’m talking about. We have a baseline. I can refine from there....

Books You Should be Reading

I would not call a lot of books “brilliant,” but OSAMA is pretty effing brilliant. I thought this book was going to be nigh unreadable, based on the concept – a worldwhere Osama bin Laden is the character in a series of pulp novels, anda private eye is tasked with hunting down the guy who writes the bin Laden novels. But wow. I’m so glad this got nominated for a World Fantasy Award. It crushes me this book hasn’t sold a bazillion copies, though.

What makes this book is the stark back-and-forth...

Writing Craft: How I’m learning to plot my way out of a paper bag

I’ve talked often about how I can’t really plot my way out of a paper bag. Much of this is simply due to lack of practice. When I started writing stories, I was far more interested in the people, and later, the settings, to care much about why and for what overall purpose and to what end all these people were exploring a haunted house, or another planet, or butchering unicorns (like you do). I was more interested in how they got along with each other and how the mountains on Mars blew out gre...