Big Idea Category
The Big Idea: Ellen Kushner
Posted on May 25, 2011 20 Comments
For longtime fans of the urban fantasy genre, the Bordertown series of anthologies hardly needs an introduction — it was literally one of the foundations of the genre when it emerged on the publishing scene in 1986. Now Welcome to Bordertown, introduces a new generation of readers to that gritty, magical place — and in […]
The Big Idea: Nick Mamatas
Posted on May 20, 2011 10 Comments
Nick Mamatas is a hustler; just ask him. As a writer, he’s always moving, always looking for the next gig or assignment, always finding a way to use what he’s got and push it to his own advantage. So it’s not terribly surprising that when he got a Big Idea slot to promote a new […]
The Big Idea: Maria Dahvana Headley
Posted on May 17, 2011 7 Comments
Author Maria Dahvana Headley, in her new novel Queen of Kings, essays one of the most famous women of all time: Cleopatra. But how does one approach writing about someone who has already been immortalized in words so many times? As you’ll discover, for Headley, it’s not about choosing just one way to come at […]
The Big Idea: Catherynne M. Valente
Posted on May 12, 2011 24 Comments
Hey, I have an idea: Let’s talk about another fantastic book that came out this week! Specifically, let’s talk about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente. I could tell you how I feel on a personal level that this is one of the most genuinely […]
The Big Idea: Christopher Farnsworth
Posted on May 5, 2011 15 Comments
So, The President’s Vampire is about — as the title suggests — a vampire who is in the employ of the U.S. President, and who from time to time does certain tasks that only an undead creature could undertake. It’s a fantastical concept, but as author Christopher Farnsworth very recently found out, even fantastical concepts […]
The Big Idea: Kevin Hearne
Posted on May 3, 2011 34 Comments
Author Kevin Hearne had a novel way of getting to his novel Hounded — a way that involved equal parts of geekery, stubbornness and alcohol. Given who the constituency is here, I know I now have your attention. Or more accurately, Hearne has your attention, and I’ll give him the floor now to explain how […]
The Big Idea: Jennifer Estep
Posted on April 27, 2011 55 Comments
Here’s a crazy idea: Books should be fun. That’s Jennifer Estep’s philosophy, and today she’s here to tell you how it informs her “Elemental Assassin” series of novels, including the latest, Tangled Threads. And she has questions of her own for you at the end. Be ready! JENNIFER ESTEP: So here’s my Big Idea – […]
The Big Idea: Janni Lee Simner
Posted on April 15, 2011 9 Comments
Janni Lee Simner’s latest novel Faerie Winter features a world in change — moving from state of being to another in a way that’s both dramatic and unprecedented. But how to tell of that dramatic change, especially when the writer’s own personal experience with the sort of change being described is vastly different? For Simner, […]
The Big Idea: Peter Orullian
Posted on April 12, 2011 22 Comments
Choices, motivations, and the unintended consequences thereof — heady stuff for any novel, much less a series. In The Unremembered, the debut fantasy novel from Peter Orullian, which is in itself the first novel in a six book series, each of these things is considered, and weighed, and tested before being put into practice. Orullian […]
The Big Idea: Douglas Hulick
Posted on March 31, 2011 25 Comments
Some say that dictionaries are descriptive, some say they are prescriptive — but how many say that they are inspirational? Douglas Hulick is one of the (I assume) relatively few in that last category, and he’s here to explain how a chance encounter with one eventually led to his debut fantasy novel Among Thieves. The […]
The Big Idea: Derryl Murphy
Posted on March 29, 2011 16 Comments
They say travel broadens the mind, but for Derryl Murphy, it did more than that: It helped to write his newest novel, Napier’s Bones, and did so not just on a practical level (that is, of allowing him to research information) but also on an inspirational level as well. It’s an argument that being there […]
The Big Idea: Jesse Bullington
Posted on March 25, 2011 7 Comments
In some ways, writing a novel is as much about giving your characters space to introduce themselves — especially to you, their author — as it is giving them a plot so they will have something to do. In The Enterprise of Death, author Jesse Bullington had a particular character which he had been trying […]
The Big Idea: Lyda Morehouse
Posted on March 22, 2011 22 Comments
Nature is a strange and fascinating thing, and for the theologically and/or teleologically minded, it raises some interesting questions. It certainly did for Lyda Morehouse, who in writing up her latest novel Resurrection Code looked at some curious aspects of the animal world and wondered what God was thinking. Did she comes up with answers? […]
The Big Idea: M.J. Locke
Posted on March 17, 2011 11 Comments
M.J. Locke is riding a wave with Up Against It, including a starred review in Publishers Weekly (“Compulsively readable and packed with challenging ideas… this smart, satisfying hard SF adventure celebrates human resilience”) and the sort of fellow author praise most authors would kill for (see the George RR Martin blurb right there on the […]
The Big Idea: Martha Wells
Posted on March 15, 2011 14 Comments
Where do we belong? To whom do we belong? Do we, in fact, belong at all? Questions that strike at the heart of any person who ever feels alone, and questions that Martha Wells kept in mind when it came time for her to write The Cloud Roads. Keeping these questions in mind have paid […]
The Big Idea: Christopher Rowe
Posted on March 10, 2011 14 Comments
There’s a very special joy when you, as an adult, do something that, when you were a kid, you said that you were going to do when you grew up. With his debut novel Sandstorm, Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominee Christoper Rowe has done just that — and, in a nod to being […]
The Big Idea: M.J. Putney
Posted on March 3, 2011 10 Comments
You’ve heard of the concept of the Big Idea, as it involves books (I mean, honestly, right?). But in describing the construction of her debut YA novel Dark Mirror, author M.J. Putney introduces a new concept to the lexicon: Fairly Sizable Ideas. What are they? Do they involve Napoleon in some way? And what do […]
The Big Idea: Anton Strout
Posted on February 25, 2011 21 Comments
Super heroes have their appeal to authors — after all, what’s not to like about characters who have special powers and strengths? But there’s something to be said for the workaday hero, too: The schmoe who finds himself in a strange spot without superpowers and still has to get the job done. Author Anton Strout […]
The Big Idea: Sophie Littlefield
Posted on February 23, 2011 9 Comments
It is a renaissance time for zombie-related literature, which has its good and bad points. The good points include the fact that it make it easier for an author to sell a book with zombies in it. The bad news is that it makes is harder to make your book featuring the shambling undead stand […]
The Big Idea: Howard Andrew Jones
Posted on February 17, 2011 25 Comments
Writing as a travel opportunity: It’s something that authors take advantage of, as they build strange new places — and travel in time to strange old places — to show you what goes on there. Howard Andrew Jones has come back from such travels with a new book — The Desert of Souls — and […]
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