My guest post on the gender gap in science fiction posted on the LibraryJournal SELF-e blog today, just as Iron Man 3 co-writer Shane Black revealed that Marvel's corporate interests forced him to change the gender of the movie's villain to sell more toys. According to Black, the original script featured a female version of antagonist Aldrich Killian,... Continue Reading →
How to Write a Novel, Part 2: Crafting Characters
Last year, a friend told me she had an idea for a story. “That’s awesome!” I said. “Tell me about your characters.” “The heroine is kind of a rebel who sees things differently,” she explained. “Then there’s another girl who represents the establishment.” I stopped her and threw down some emergency novelist knowledge: characters are... Continue Reading →
Review: “Dawn” by Octavia Butler
As a lifelong sci-fi geek, I thought I’d seen every variant of alien contact narrative the genre had to offer, from the invasion epics to the misadventures of benign visitors to thinly veiled social allegories. Even the enjoyable ones often rely on predictable tropes. But Dawn, the first installment in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, captivated... Continue Reading →
Wild Type 