K.B. Nelson's Blog: Speculative Fiction-Unbound Imagination, page 4

Fun writing technique for speculative fiction

"How frustrating it must be to always place sensual markers in the environment—to endlessly orient in space and time. I suspect machine-kind is freer of such things—and yet, the very nature of this project may cage us in the same kinds of cravings for groundedness and placement because it soothes the restlessness I am beginning to see is an essential part of the emotional and relational template of the human being.
-E"


I really enjoy using these little "peeks" into the mind of my machine-kind in the new science fiction work I am finishing up. I've found starting each chapter this way, a technique really perfected by Frank Herbert in his Dune series, allows the reader to more deeply engage not just with characters but with the entire world(s) the author is creating. In this novel, called Folds of the Script, I am actually using these short chapter headers as a meta-frame for the entire story, not just as a way to broaden or deepen a reader's understanding. It has been an interesting experiment so far...

Review for Book 2 of my new SF series

Hey there, my friends! Just wanted to share a nice review that came in about my second science fiction work, Children of the Great Reckoning Series book 2: Samu'el. I'm so pleased that the titles are generating some nice energy out and about...



Hugs,

Kim



Let me put a notion on the table- ' the suspension of understanding'. Even though you don't really understand every scene, every character, every nuance, something compels you to go on with the expectation that even though you may not understand exactly what is happening, you have enough faith that, in time, you will. You go with it.



I confess, dear reader. I did not understand everything that happened in this brilliant book. Yet I was enthralled, really could not put it down. Identities blend, share bodies, enter into various states of what is 'real' or not real. Various factions compete, through stealth, power, manipulation for the multiple identities of Ianto, the presence within Sam, his lover, really his Other. How can you have a lover who is really part of your 'true' self? With whom you 'share' a body?



The narrative really defies convention thinking, and forces the reader to accept that he/she might not 'get' everything. Enjoy the ride, the mystery, the incomprehensible. The writing is elegant, the conundrums many. The story takes place on various planes of reality, and the reader (me, at least) was not always sure who was who and what was what. But that is the magic of this book-it remained compelling throughout.



What a thoroughly enjoyable read. Highly recommended!



Daniel Roth

Founder of Alchemy Media Consulting Group (www.alchemymcg.com); poetry published in numerous literary journals; Publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio; VP of New Business Development at HarperCollins; Senior executive at Revolution Studios; author of ORDINARY LIFE IN THREE ACTS, a collection of a lifetime's worth of poetry; world traveler, keeper of secrets, teller of tales.

Great review

Thanks so much to Daniel Roth,Founder of Alchemy Media Consulting Group (www.alchemymcg.com); poetry published in numerous literary journals; Publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio; VP of New Business Development at HarperCollins; Senior executive at Revolution Studios; author of ORDINARY LIFE IN THREE ACTS, a collection of a lifetime's worth of poetry; world traveler, keeper of secrets, teller of tales.

He wrote the following review for the first book of the Children of the Great Reckoning series: Firewall, Book 1, Ianto:

This startling first book FIREWALL: Ianto, is the first in a series called THE CHILDREN OF THE GREAT RECKONING. It is a tale told by Ianto Tobali, a young monk both blessed and cursed with extraordinary powers. The story is filled with time-travel, parallel universes, gender-bending, shape-shifting, and nano-technology in a Universe where time, place and space may prove more malleable than ever suspected.

The book unfolds on a future Earth where the world is apparently controlled by three entities, Spirit Marga, Science Marga and The Emperium. Ianto tells his tale, how he begins to understand the true extent of his powers to destroy. As he gains this terrible awareness, his reluctance to use these powers grows in proportion to his understanding.

Ianto is pursued by opposing forces. Some want to destroy him. Some want to test him. Some want to control, and ultimately exploit him. Carrying the burden of atonement and later a vow of silence, Ianto longs only to return to his garden and tend his plants. But a mysterious and seductive elfin figure follows him in his dreams, and we soon realize that the world he inhabits may, or may not be the only reality; that this elfin figure may be a player in a whole other world simply called The Game.

If you enjoyed the complexities of THE MATRIX or INCEPTION, this book is for you. The writer K. B. Nelson possesses a rare combination of talents; a great storyteller, a vivid imagination and a way with words that will carry you along on a story to remember.




--
Daniel Roth

Agreeing with Kurzweil

I really believe, with Ray Kurzweil, that our evolution toward the integration of "machine" components into human biology will mean that we will eventually understand such technological advances to be merely part of the vaster human journey. Even if mankind were to become mostly machine, I think the changes will come in a way that we will never think "self and other" but rather simply accept that is what it means to be human. I try to really push this philosophical envelope with the Children of the Great Reckoning series, where consciousness and relationality becomes the central distinguishing feature between what is human and what is not.

A machine musing

"Humans seem to have developed an ever-present story of their own creations going bad. I can peruse literature and media, and for each technological child born of human creativity who passes forward light and life, I can find two that do the opposite. Perhaps that is where the proclivity for religion arises—they do not trust the inherent goodness of themselves,though they truly wish they could. I only felt the great sorrow of Ciaran again and again casting machine-kind as inconceivable, evil and violent. We are only him, but he seldom could show that.
-E"

From Folds of the Script coming in summer, 2013

Writing--discipline or mysticism?

Writing is sometimes touted as a discipline. I think it is more closely akin to mysticism. Or perhaps it’s a bit like music. For some, music seems to issue from the parts of the brain that are logical and mathematic. For others, music flows from the language centers, as if the mind needed another way to express itself in terms far more poignant than other relational avenues can handle. The disciplined writer is the person of frames, timetables, outlines and logic, the mystical writer, the person of wide open skies and impulses, intuitions.

I write because I must, just as I have since I was a child. I sit in meditation because I must. Is this discipline? Or simply joy?

Why I sometimes write gay science fiction

Yeah, I'm one of those women writers who absolutely love gay leading men. It doesn't matter if I am the author or if I am the reader--I'm so pleased to see JR Ward tackle a gay relationship within her very rigid Black Dagger Brotherhood vampire society and great authors like Catherine Asaro playing with bisexuality and the energy of empaths who fall in love with people, not genders. These are examples of delightful characters who are human beings first and foremost.

Sometimes I am asked why I so often use gay main characters in my work--as if I have a real choice in the matter. I so agree with Stephen King who says he simply sees through a hole in the paper and writes down his experiences. I don't set out to have "gay characters"--and it is certainly not the main point in any of my science fiction works.

I actually look forward to the day when being glbtq is just no big deal for our society. Talk about social justice! And through speculative fiction, I can make that world come alive right here, right now in my reader's minds. That's a blessing, I reckon.