John C. Wright's Blog, page 194

Speaking of David B. Coe

This author has a very clear description of the writer's life in an essay here at Science Fiction and Fantasy Novelists.

The money quote:

Writing a book is a little like maintaining a long-term romantic relationship. Early on, the excitement of beginning something new is intoxicating and consuming. Remaining committed at that stage is easy. It’s all you want to do. But when that early passion subsides a bit, you’re left with the work of keeping things moving, of overcoming problems and...

Why There is No Jewish Narnia

I thought this was an interesting article, appearing in the Jewish review of books:

http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/why-there-is-no-jewish-narnia

The author, Michael Weingrad, reviews two books: THE MAGICIANS by Lev Grossman and THE WATER BETWEEN THE WORLDS by Hagar Yanai, but uses these reviews to discuss a larger question of why there is no Jewish Narnia-type books. There are supernatural stories written by Jews, to be sure, tales of ghosts and magic and metamorphosis ...

Sales Report

I have managed to make two more sales, one to the unsinkable Mike Allen, and the other to the well-read and well-liked Jonathan Strahan of the Antipodes.

Just today I saw, read, corrected, and returned the galleys for CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3. It includes 'Murder in Metachronopolis' which is my attempt to do a Keith Laumer DINOSAUR BEACH-ish time-paradox story, which, because it is me writing it, goes into the moral philosophy behind time travel, in addition to gunfights between cataphracts, musk...

Wright's Writing on How to Write -- The Heming Way

In which my beautiful and talented wife finally explains why our children are chubby and manumitted.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/112604.html

Actually, it is an article on the advantages of writing in the journalistic prose style popularized by Hemingway.

Among science fiction writers,  you will notice that Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke (by many held to be the Big Three of SF) adopt the Hemingway style, and part of their fame in our genre is due to this: it is easy to ...

Progress Report

3000 words, and the end of volume one. Wrote thirteen pages tonight. Now all I have to do is go back and rewrite Chapter Three.

I may have something to send to my publisher before Easter.

Modernism and the Rejection of Reason

Part of a continuing discussion. We were discussing a story of mine that a reviewer disliked, and I suspect part of that dislike was because he interpreted the tale as a Christian message praising faith. To my knowledge (and one must consult the Muses for a clear answer) this tale was not Christian message but Stoical message praising skepticism, self-command, courage in the face of death. The symbols used were symbols of Stoic philosophy, since the writer professed Stoicism.

A reader commen...

johncwright @ 2010-03-08T16:13:00

I just came across a review (written in May of last year) of ‘One Bright Star to Guide Them’ a short story which continues to be my favorite of anything I have written.

http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/magazines/fsf-2009-04.html

"One Bright Star to Guide Them" by John C. Wright: The protagonist of this story is one of four children who had, in background, a great adventure to save another world from peril as a child. Narnia is an obvious inspiration, and the accumulation of Capitalized...

Someone explain it to me.

So I am reading a description by a well-read science fiction bigwig about Michael Moorcock's early work, COUNT BRASS. It is a series I remember reading and liking as a youth; I don't know what I'd think of it today. I do admire how the 'Eternal Champion' motif allows the author to tell and retell the same stories in slightly different versions over again--the idea of a Multiverse is simply sublime.

The writer is giving a sum-up of JEWEL IN THE SKULL, and complimenting (and rightly so, in my o...

POETRY CORNER: The Hashish Eater -or- the Apocalypse of Evil by Clark Ashton Smith

The Hashish Eater -or- the Apocalypse of Evil
Clark Ashton Smith

Bow down: I am the emperor of dreams;
I crown me with the million-colored sun
Of secret worlds incredible, and take
Their trailing skies for vestment when I soar,
Throned on the mounting zenith, and illume
The spaceward-flown horizons infinite.
Like rampant monsters roaring for their glut,
The fiery-crested oceans rise and rise,
By jealous moons maleficently urged
To follow me for ever; mountains horned
With peaks of sharpest...

The Elf-Thirst for Waters Beyond the World

In time past, I have attempted to define of science fiction, sometimes in earnest (I call science fiction the mythology of a scientific age) and sometimes not.

Specifically, I was wondering what in the world made the Titus Groane trilogy by Mervyn Peake a fantasy book? This led me to wonder how any genre was defined.

To answer, let us (as befits this genre) quest upon a journey, tarrying often. In the silver ship of memory, let us sail the Nonestic Ocean of fantasy, starting in the mists of t...