Big Idea Category
The Big Idea: A.M. Dellamonica
Posted on April 13, 2012 11 Comments
Magic has been variously described and quantified, and we hear about white magic, black magic, good magic, bad magic — but how often is it compared to toxic waste? In Blue Magic, author A.M. Dellamonica makes that comparison, and expands on what that unusual approach to magic means for the world (our world, or one […]
The Big Idea: Lynne M. Thomas
Posted on April 11, 2012 15 Comments
When one’s last book of feminist essays on pop culture (Chicks Dig Time Lords) walks off with Hugos for you and your co-editor, what do you do next? If you say “maybe co-edit another book of feminist essays on pop culture,” then you’re thinking like Lynne M. Thomas, who with Sigrid Ellis has edited Chicks […]
The Big Idea: Mary Robinette Kowal
Posted on April 10, 2012 9 Comments
Hugo-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal had a pretty problem to solve with Glamour in Glass. The first book in Kowal’s series, Shades of Milk and Honey, had been a Nebula-nominated success, but she knew some people would come to Glamour without having read it. How to give those new readers a complete reading experience without […]
The Big Idea: David J. Silbey
Posted on April 5, 2012 12 Comments
The famous maxim says that history is written by the winners. But happens when the other side not only doesn’t write a history, but can’t? This was the challenge that Cornell historian David J. Silbey faced when writing The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China — The Boxers, mostly Chinese peasants, were ill-equipped […]
The Big Idea: Leah Bobet
Posted on April 3, 2012 22 Comments
When it comes to the creative impulse, never underestimate the power of watching someone else get something wrong. Author Leah Bobet, whose debut novel Above hits stores today, found her inspiration when she got aggravated at what she was seeing in her television set. And just as a bit of sand in an oyster shell […]
The Big Idea: Helen Lowe
Posted on March 29, 2012 11 Comments
When Helen Lowe sat down to write The Gathering of the Lost, she thought she knew what the big idea of the books was going to be. But as it turned out, the book had other plans for her, and for the concept that ended up motivating many of the events of the book. What […]
The Big Idea: Elizabeth Bear
Posted on March 28, 2012 10 Comments
Dear world: Elizabeth Bear is awesome. Range of Ghosts is her new book. This is her big idea. Also: She is awesome. That is all. ELIZABETH BEAR: There’s nothing new under the sun in epic fantasy, or so I’ve heard it said. So when I was trying to come up with a Big Idea for […]
The Big Idea: Anne Lyle
Posted on March 27, 2012 25 Comments
Alternate histories are popular, and they’re fun to write. But for the author of such works, there is the occupational hazard of reimagining the world in a way it’s been reimagined before — discovering that you’re not the trailblazer you thought you might be. When Anne Lyle sought to have Europeans discover the New World […]
The Big Idea: Stina Leicht
Posted on March 22, 2012 23 Comments
A fantasy novel is not a place one generally expects to find a good car chase — but then, why not? Fantasy takes on more forms than simply swords and sorcery. To that end, in her latest fantasy novel And Blue Skies From Pain, author Stina Leicht found that for her fantasy, she needed to […]
The Big Idea: Nick Harkaway
Posted on March 20, 2012 10 Comments
You never know what you’ll find when you go to the cafe down the street — that is, if you take Nick Harkaway’s word for it. His latest novel Angelmaker owes a debt to what he found in a cafe… and more importantly, what that found thing did when it met a delightful but dicey […]
The Big Idea: Peadar Ó Guilín
Posted on March 15, 2012 33 Comments
A number of years ago I interviewed two survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which in 1973 crashed in the Andes and then remained lost for 72 days, forcing the survivors of the crash to eat the bodies of the dead to survive. They made a movie out of the story called Alive, […]
The Big Idea: Lissa Price
Posted on March 13, 2012 29 Comments
Costco isn’t just a place to pick up a 36-pack of toilet paper or to snack on free, tiny spears of sausage, it’s also a place where you might just also pick up an idea for a novel. At least, that’s what happened to Lissa Price, who found the idea for her debut novel Starters […]
The Big Idea: Seanan McGuire
Posted on March 8, 2012 35 Comments
Two years ago, Seanan McGuire found herself crowned with the Campbell Award as the best new writer in science fiction and fantasy; a year after that, writing as Mira Grant, she found herself nominated for the Hugo for Feed. That’s a steep and impressive climb for a new writer. The secret? In my opinion, it’s […]
The Big Idea: E.C. Myers
Posted on March 7, 2012 16 Comments
Fair Coin, the debut novel is from E.C. Myers, is about wishes, and the complications that come from getting your wishes granted. This is interestingly coincidental for me because just the other day I was talking to my daughter about “The Monkey’s Paw,” the short story in which one’s wishes are granted… badly. I was […]
The Big Idea: James Renner
Posted on March 6, 2012 15 Comments
It’s not easy to write a time travel novel — all those timelines to keep track of, to start — so when you set out to write one, to whom should you turn for inspiration? James Renner knows; his new novel The Man From Primrose Lane travels all around the time stream. To make it […]
The Big Idea: Chris Gerrib
Posted on March 2, 2012 31 Comments
It’s not exactly a new idea that one day, humans might go to Mars. But questions worth asking are who goes to Mars, how and why. Those questions are fun because they can have multiple answers, and if you’re a writer of fiction, multiple answers mean more opportunities for fun and adventure. Ask Chris Gerrib, […]
The Big Idea: Walter Jon Williams
Posted on February 29, 2012 32 Comments
Walter Jon Williams is thinking about the entertainment media of the future in his latest novel The Fourth Wall, and despite all the technological advances that have been made in entertainment — and are yet to be made — there will still be some things that are constant, for better or worse. What things will […]
The Big Idea: Chad Orzel
Posted on February 28, 2012 11 Comments
A couple of years ago physics professor Chad Orzel (and his dog Emmy) endeavored to explain physics to humans with How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. That book went on to become a worldwide success, with translations into ten languages to date. How do you follow up? By diving deeper into an especially strange […]
The Big Idea: Robert Jackson Bennett
Posted on February 24, 2012 18 Comments
What does YouTube have to do with the vaudeville theaters that used to pepper the United States — and what do either have to do with Art (yes, with a capital “A”)? These are excellent questions, and in the course of writing The Troupe, Shirley Jackson Prize-winner (and current Edgar and Philip K Dick award […]
The Big Idea: Bruce Schneier
Posted on February 16, 2012 23 Comments
Do you trust me? And if so, why do you trust me? And what do you trust me for? “Trust” is an interesting term, with some simple definitions, and others that aren’t so simple. Or so Bruce Schneier, the noted security expert, discovered as he was putting together his latest book Liars and Outliers. The […]
Whatever Everyone Else is Saying