Big Idea Category
The Big Idea: Blake Charlton
Posted on March 3, 2010 32 Comments
Words are funny things, and I mean that in a “funny weird” sort of way, not the “funny ha ha” sort of way (although words can be that way, too. I mean, obviously. Hmm. I’m drifting). But what if words were more than words. What if words were more than their metaphorical content? What if […]
The Big Idea: N.K. Jemisin
Posted on February 26, 2010 31 Comments
Author N.K. Jemisin has a lot to be excited about today: Yesterday saw the release of her debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the book is getting the sorts of reviews, starred and otherwise, that most debut authors can only dream about (“Multifaceted characters struggle with their individual burdens and desires, creating a complex, […]
The Big Idea: David Louis Edelman
Posted on February 24, 2010 22 Comments
Hey: Do you like your life? If your answer is “sure, but it could always be better,” then David Louis Edelman would like a word with you. Edelman is thinking about humans and their capacity for dissatisfaction, and how that concept relates to his acclaimed “Jump 225,” trilogy, of which Geosynchron is the concluding volume. […]
The Big Idea: Robert McCammon
Posted on February 22, 2010 17 Comments
Surprise! While usually I post one or two Big Ideas a week, this week there are three. Because sometimes I overcommit. Hey, it happens. It’s not like it’s a bad thing. Especially in this case, because this week’s first Big Idea comes from New York Times bestseller and Stoker and World Fantasy Award-winner Robert McCammon, […]
The Big Idea: Alexey Pehov
Posted on February 16, 2010 22 Comments
Here we have a first for The Big Idea: Our first translated essay. Alexey Pehov writes in Russian, and in Russian, he’s done very well, winning awards and racking up sales over the last decade with his Chronicles of Siala series and other novels. Now his debut novel Shadow Prowler, the first of the Chronicles […]
The Big Idea: Stephen Deas
Posted on February 12, 2010 16 Comments
The world is a complicated place — even when the world is a fantasy world with dragons. Or, at least, it can be a complicated place even when there are dragons. Why? Because dragons can be complicated… and more to the point, people are always complicated, no matter where and when they are. At least […]
The Big Idea: James Knapp
Posted on February 5, 2010 10 Comments
When is a zombie not quite exactly a zombie? For James Knapp, and his new novel State of Decay, it’s when you you take the idea of the undead and give it a whole new socio-political spin — a spin that incorporates free will, social castes, an unending war, and other such fun things. I […]
The Big Idea: Katharine Beutner
Posted on February 3, 2010 25 Comments
People in myths live forever — or do they? For every Apollo or Persephone, there are the women and men whose lives these famous deities intersect in the telling of the tale — but who otherwise fall from the page, and from thought. Can they be resurrected? Katharine Beutner thinks it’s possible, and sets to […]
The Big Idea: Sara Miles
Posted on January 28, 2010 11 Comments
Where is the story of the world being told? It might be in the place you least expect: far away from news cameras and press releases. Sara Miles finds her work in those margins — she is the founder of the St. Gregory’s Food Pantry in San Francisco — but more than that finds the […]
The Big Idea: Margaret Ronald
Posted on January 26, 2010 12 Comments
When thinking about “urban fantasy,” we’re aware that the word “urban” sets the fantasy in a particular type of setting — but does that setting (and those stories) require a specific place? For the purposes of the genre, and our conversation, is one “urban” as good as another? Not for author Margaret Ronald, and in […]
The Big Idea: Josh Sundquist
Posted on January 21, 2010 15 Comments
What you want to hear vs. what you need to hear: This is an eternal struggle with writers when they approach someone to read the drafts of their work. What you want to hear (“It’s brilliant! Change nothing!”) is sometimes very different than what you need to hear (“Here are the problems”) — so much […]
The Big Idea: Alan DeNiro
Posted on January 14, 2010 23 Comments
Are you prepared for a Scythian invasion? If your answer is some variation of “Bwuh?” then congratulations, you are like most people, who wouldn’t know a Scythian from Parthian, or indeed if either were people, or, say, a type of insect or breed of sheep. And this would also make you suited to live in […]
The Big Idea: Patrick Lee
Posted on January 12, 2010 66 Comments
Imagine you’re a caveman (this will be easier for some of you than others). Now, you’re handed an iPod. How do you think you would think about it? Would you even be able to think about it? Yes, I know, a deep thought for a Tuesday. But it’s actually relevant to this week’s Big Idea, […]
The Big Idea: Sarah A. Hoyt
Posted on January 7, 2010 47 Comments
2010 is here, so let’s drive right in to this year’s series of Big Ideas. And to begin the new year, we have science fiction and fantasy author Sarah A. Hoyt and her new novel Darkship Thieves — for which one of the initiating reasons for the book was the author being annoyed. Annoyed at […]
The Big Idea Index, 2009
Posted on December 29, 2009 29 Comments
And now, for your linking convenience, an index of every author who contributed a Big Idea essay this year, in alphabetical order, From Adams to Williamson. Catch up on what you missed, and keep these authors in mind when you’re cashing in your bookstore gift cards this week. John Joseph Adams C.L. Anderson Julia Angwin Paolo Bacigalupi Steven R. Boyett […]
The Big Idea: Jasper Fforde
Posted on December 29, 2009 20 Comments
There are many reasons I like Jasper Fforde’s writing, but one of the main reasons I do is that Fforde has the rare talent of taking fundamentally farcical plot concepts (People enter books! Detectives solve crimes in a nursery rhyme world!) and paying them off in ways that are not, in fact, merely farcical. So […]
The Big Idea: Chad Orzel
Posted on December 22, 2009 16 Comments
Want a Big Idea that’s about a really big idea? Well, this week’s book is about quantum physics, and it doesn’t get much bigger than that (well, given the scale quantum physics works on, it actually doesn’t get much smaller than that, but you know what I mean — it’s a really big idea about […]
The Big Idea: Laura Anne Gilman
Posted on December 17, 2009 15 Comments
‘Tis the season for trying new things, and the group of writers behind the online publishing collective Book View Cafe are doing just that, releasing their first eBook anthology of original fiction: The Shadow Conspiracy, a collection of related tales taking place in an alternate, steampunk world. What does it take to build up a […]
The Big Idea: James Swallow
Posted on December 15, 2009 26 Comments
As the proprietor of The Big Idea, every once in a while I get to pull rank and pop up a book that’s of personal interest to me, and here’s one that is: Air, by James Swallow, which is an adaptation and novelization of the first three episodes of Stargate: Universe, which is, of course, […]
The Big Idea: J.C. Hutchins
Posted on December 2, 2009 12 Comments
Writers are often asked where their ideas come from, but any writer knows that coming up with ideas is only a small portion of the battle. The major portion of the writing battle is showing up — putting your butt in the chair and doing the work of getting the idea out of your head […]
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