It sounded so simple, right?
Pick a few short story anthologies, and use them as a writing handbook. To learn how to write short stories.
Easy.
Until they ask you to actually name the frigging books.
To chose.
To make a list.
Because you need to make a choice.
Who’s in, who’s out?
The first book I ever read by pulp giant Walter B. Gibson was not a Shadow novel, but a beautiful hardback called The Book of Secrets.
As I think I have mentioned in the past – if I didn’t, I’m doing it now – as a kid, between ten and fourteen, having discovered a big box of magic tricks in my grandmother’s attic, I had developed an interest in stage magic.
I was pretty good at coin, card and sponge balls manipulation, but really I never got anywhere – a modest amateur. But I read a lot of books on the subject, and Walter B. Gibson, to me, was the guy that wrote books about magic I could not read because my English was not good enough.
In the end, my English improved, I stopped doing magic tricks, and I bought me a copy of The Book of Secrets. Continue reading
I was looking for a book, and I found two.
I did some digging on my shelf for Damon Knight’s classic Creating Short Fiction. As I mentioned, I started talking about short fiction with my friend Claire, and I wanted to check out if Knight’s book held some momentous secret I had forgotten.
For the uninitiated (but then, what are you doing here), Damon Knight was one of the greatest short story crafters in the field of science fiction – he is the author of To Serve Man, that was adapted in what is possibly the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone – and he also was an editor and critic. He was one of the founders of the SFWA, and of the Clarion Workshop.
He is the man that, as a critic, defined the idiot plot.
His writing handbook focuses on short stories, and it is quite good all things considered. It was originally published in the early ‘80s, but it is still well worth a look. Continue reading
I like those books that can disrupt your tightly-plotted schedule. I hate them too, but mostly I like them. We sometimes chance upon them, and we have to drop everything else and just read.
It happened me this weekend, via a strange discussion wit some online friends about, of all things, wrestling, and an ultra-cheap paperback offer from Amazon.
And so, I took a much needed break this weekend and got in bed with The Sweetheart, the first novel by American writer Angelina Mirabella.
It was a good choice on my part.
And yes, with that cover, I was for a briefest of moments afraid I was going to wade into MadMen territory – but thankfully I was not. Continue reading
Amazon keeps suggesting me books, and I am happy to report the very dubious books and DVDs about the Fascist Regime are gone – and gone are the books about the Arabian Nights and the Tits & Sand movies, alas.
Right now, Amazon is pretty sure I need a writing handbook and/or a programming handbook. Which is not all bad: I have just accepted a suggestion from the latest mail and splurged 99 cents on a book about data analysis with Python, because after all environmental data analysis was my “real job”, and I like to keep up to date.
Also, turns out data analysis in Python is one of the most requested skills in tech jobs right now – not that they’ll ever hire an old guy lost in the hills somewhere, but let’s power-up, the CV, what?
The writing handbooks are a different thing: those I’d like to add to my collection, such as the one by Scarlet Thomas or the one by Philip Pullman, are expensive as hell. And the cheap ones are really a sorry lot – including the handbook about characters of that (supposedly) noted author that manages to get an example character’s name wrong on page one. Not good. Not good at all.
Curiously enough, no matter if it’s suggesting me programming books or writing books, now Amazon slips into the list at least a title by Ursula K. Le Guin, and one or more titles by Virginia Woolf.
Many of which I already have, having bought them on Amazon.
Mysteries of the Algorithm.
What would be our life without a little mystery.
Here’s my little mystery from the last two weeks or thereabouts.
I get mails from Amazon.it.
My favorite pusher of books and assorted stuff sends me a mail once in a while suggesting stuff I might like.
Because evidently Amazon.it likes to play it safe, these lists of stuff I might like usually include ten items, eight of which are taken from my Amazon wishlist and/or from my recent browsing history, including stuff I have actually bought, with two other titles thrown in for good measure.
Now I find it markedly stupid on Amazon’s part to suggest to me I buy something I already wish to buy, but who knows, maybe it’s one of those psychology things.
Anyway, I got three such mails in the last ten/fifteen days, and something weird happened. Continue reading
You can’t do a post saying the war is over, that another (local) war starts.
Italian economist and politician Carlo Calenda revealed in an interview that he is not allowing his kids to play videogames, “so they won’t grow up illiterate.”
This was expressed as a personal opinion, and followed by the admission that he is not an expert, and indeed is looking for books to get into the issue and learn more about it.
Which is a rather healthy attitude from a parent, all things considered – I’m not sure, I want to know more, I’m looking for resources on the issue, meanwhile I apply a moratorium.
But the reaction was a blast.
Poor Carlo Calenda would have had it easier had he announced he was favourable to slavery, or that he believes the earth is flat. Or had he simply said he is not allowing his kids to be vaccinated right now, because he’s no expert and he’s looking for books to learn more on the subject before he takes a definitive decision.
And I agree that a politician should be more careful when expressing personal opinions, but it’s not this I want to talk about. Let’s keep politics and economy out of this thing. What I want to talk about is the objection, that some nerdz presented, that of course a gamer would shy away from books – because games are fast and furious and fun, while books are a slow medium.
The implication being, the written word is surpassed and obsolete, its slowness of fruition being a negative factor.
But really, who says that fast is always better than slow?
I’m not so sure. Continue reading
Karavansara 