Raven Oak's Blog, page 78
October 4, 2014
Scrivener Saturday #2
TIP #2: Scrivener has a nifty built-in name generator. It’s not as great as some websites out there, but in a pinch or in a place with no Internet, it’ll do. Just go to EDIT–>WRITING TOOLS–>then click on NAME GENERATOR. Check out the screenshot below to see the details. You can pick genders, nationalities, forenames, surnames, etc. (Click on the image to view it larger.)What I love about this feature: The fact that you can pick various cultures and ethnicities to get your character names to f...
October 3, 2014
Flashforward Friday: Invisibility Cloaks
I remember when this was a thing:
When I still taught computer classes & we were covering future tech, I’d show that video and watch my students be amazed. Then this week, I saw this:
Photo credit: Image courtesy of University of Rochester
The image above is way behind anything in that several year old video. This particular project, conducted by Joseph Choi and John Howell at the University of Rochester, created a lens that prevents objects from being seen (optically anyway).
We’ve had cloaks be...
October 2, 2014
Book Cover Throwback: Heinlein
This week’s Book Cover Throwback is from Robert Heinlein.
Besides being an amazing story, the cover to this book is just breathtakingly gorgeous. I honestly miss the days when book covers were works of art, rather than the same photoshopped, stock-photo girl who’s on the other ten books released this month.
That’s not to say that you can’t make art with stock photos, but there’s a higher art involved in painting the cover to a novel, especially one as good as Heinlein‘s Stranger in a Strange La...
October 1, 2014
Dragonriders of Pern…the Movie?
Weyrworld by Michael Whelan
If you’ve read my Flashback Friday on Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey or my Book Cover Throwback on Michael Whelan‘s cover for All the Weyrs of Pern, then you know what a huge influence Ms. McCaffrey served on me as a reader and a writer. You also know that I love the Pern series despite all the little flaws that make it classic sci-fi.
Warner Bros. has optioned Dragonriders of Pern for a movie franchise. Movies get optioned every day. That doesn’t mean the movie will...
