Big Idea Category
The Big Idea: Gabrielle Zevin
Posted on September 1, 2011 11 Comments
The Big Idea is predicated on the idea that most books have one big idea (or maybe a couple), around which everything else in the book coalesces. But to read author Gabrielle Zevin on the subject, you get the feeling that just one big idea might not be enough — that you might have to […]
The Big Idea: Marie Brennan
Posted on August 30, 2011 7 Comments
We’ve all heard the expression “good things come to those who wait.” Is it true? Perhaps not always or in all cases, but with her new novel With Fate Conspire, author Marie Brennan found that there might be some advantages to have some time between when one thinks of an interesting story idea, and when […]
The Big Idea: Jim Ottaviani
Posted on August 25, 2011 10 Comments
For Jim Ottaviani, it wasn’t enough just to write a graphic novel about Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (with Leland Myrick illustrating). In the process writing itself he found inspiration from his subject, and discovered that Feynman’s own maxims and ideas had direct application to his own work. If you’re a writer, might they have […]
The Big Idea: Brenda Cooper
Posted on August 23, 2011 7 Comments
With a title like Mayan December, you would rightfully guess that something about Brenda Cooper’s new novel involves the fabled Mayan calendar and touches on the hoopla which surrounds its termination at the end of 2012. But Cooper’s book isn’t about that — rather, it uses it as a device to explore something else entirely, […]
The Big Idea: Lev Grossman
Posted on August 19, 2011 32 Comments
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I was partying with Lev Grossman last night. He’s here in Reno for this year’s Worldcon, and last night he threw a book party for The Magician King, the sequel to his best-selling fantasy novel The Magicians. As an author, he had a fair amount to celebrate: not only was […]
The Big Idea: T.C. McCarthy
Posted on August 18, 2011 39 Comments
Author T.C. McCarthy, whose debut novel Germline recently found itself with a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly, is the first to admit that his book isn’t a happy romp through the daisies: With its war setting and grim plot points, there’s a lot of dark ground to cover. But as McCarthy explains in this […]
The Big Idea: Ernest Cline
Posted on August 16, 2011 43 Comments
At this point in your life, you have either lived through the 80s, or lived through enough 80s nostalgia to make you feel like you lived through the 80s. But now comes Ready Player One, a novel that takes nostalgia for the Cosby Era to perhaps its ultimate expression. For author Ernest Cline, the book […]
The Big Idea: John Hornor Jacobs
Posted on August 11, 2011 29 Comments
The past stays with us in surprising ways. Ask John Hornor Jacobs about this: When it came time for him to write Southern Gods, which takes place in the post-WWII South, Jacobs reached into his own experience of the past to inform the writing. What has he brought from the days gone by to detail […]
The Big Idea: Courtney Schafer
Posted on August 9, 2011 9 Comments
Writers are always looking for the element they can bring in to their writing that not only separates the work from that of other writers, but elevates it as well — and gives readers an experience they won’t get from anyone else. For Courtney Schafer, the element that elevates her novel The Whitefire Crossing does […]
The Big Idea: Steven R. Boyett
Posted on July 28, 2011 39 Comments
Here at Whatever, I’ve already gone into detail about the enthusiasm I have for Mortality Bridge, the new novel from Steven Boyett, which can be summed up thusly: Fantastic reader journey, one of the best reads of 2011, go buy now or live in regret. So it’s my pleasure to have Steve here to tell […]
The Big Idea: Chesya Burke
Posted on July 26, 2011 13 Comments
Titles: They can be simple. They can be difficult. They can be complex. They can be direct or mysterious. Sometimes they can be the hardest thing in an entire book to get right. But the right title can make a difference in how people see the book. When Chesya Burke decided on a title for […]
The Big Idea: Ann VanderMeer
Posted on July 19, 2011 7 Comments
The challenge of creating an anthology is not just putting together excellent contributors on an interesting topic — it’s also how to make your collection stand out, so it’s irresistible to the people buying books. Ann VanderMeer has some experience with that: as a noted anthology editor (often collaborating with her husband Jeff), she’s always […]
The Big Idea: Diana Rowland
Posted on July 8, 2011 30 Comments
What if everything you knew about zombies was… well, if not exactly wrong, at least somewhat up to negotiation? Author Diana Rowland asked herself this question while thinking about the subject of her latest book, My Life as a White Trash Zombie, and by using her BRAAAAINS (yes, yes, I know, I’m sorry I just […]
The Big Idea: Steven Gould
Posted on July 5, 2011 24 Comments
What do the adventures of a young man in a classic of 19th century colonial literature have to do with the adventures of another, entirely different person in the fictional American Southwest of the mid-21st century? If you ask Steven Gould, he’ll say: quite a bit, actually. Steve’s here to explain why, and how it […]
The Big Idea: Jacqueline Carey
Posted on June 30, 2011 14 Comments
Jacqueline Carey has a healthy respect for history — you have to know what you’re working with in order to change it so wildly, as she does in so many of her book. But as she learned in writing Naamah’s Blessing, her latest novel set in the world of her wildly popular Kushiel books, changing […]
The Big Idea: Lawrence M. Schoen
Posted on June 28, 2011 12 Comments
It’s no surprise that we enjoy the books we read — it’s the reason we read most of the books we do. But do we find joy in them? It’s a small but telling distinction, and one that Lawrence M. Schoen has thought about in the context of Buffalito Contingency, the second book in his […]
The Big Idea: Erin Hoffman
Posted on June 23, 2011 17 Comments
Do you feel our universe has its quota of rabble-rousers? If you do, you and Erin Hoffman will have to agree to disagree, because Hoffman is of the opinion that we’re not quite up to speed on that score — and she has some experience in the rabble-rousing field of things, in her former guise […]
The Big Idea: Greg van Eekhout
Posted on June 21, 2011 24 Comments
Timing isn’t everything — but timing doesn’t hurt, either, as author Greg van Eekhout learned with the release of his latest book, The Boy at the End of the World. In this Big Idea, van Eekhout talks about how Boy benefited from being in the right place at the right time… and also how a […]
The Big Idea: James S.A. Corey
Posted on June 16, 2011 38 Comments
As you read today’s Big Idea, don’t be concerned when James S.A. Corey starts discussing himself in first person plural. He’s neither royalty nor confused; “he” is actually two people: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who have joined forces to create Leviathan Wakes, an old-school space opera that’s got the reviewers happy (“strong characterization and […]
The Big Idea: Allen Steele
Posted on June 9, 2011 46 Comments
I’ve made no secret of the fact that Allen Steele is one of my favorite science fiction writers and has been for some time (he was the first author I ever sent fan mail to! True fact!), and his excellent new novel Hex shows one of the reasons why: The dude thinks big. Like, really […]
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