Posted on March 29, 2022 1 Comment
William Faulkner once said “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It’s a sentiment that Jess Montgomery can certainly appreciate, since her new novel, The Echoes, deals with something very close to that idea. Here she is to explain further. JESS MONTGOMERY: Can we ever outrun our pasts? I think the answer is… […]
Posted on May 19, 2022 2 Comments
Punching billionaires: Can it be done? Should it be done? In this Big Idea for Glitterati, author Oliver K. Langmead offers a mechanism for it that is (probably) unlikely to get one landed in jail for it. OLIVER K. LANGMEAD: Capitalism isn’t working too well right now, and one of the most grotesque symptoms of […]
Posted on March 19, 2023 61 Comments
During the pandemic, lots of people took on projects to keep themselves busy; mine was building out a music room with an eye toward eventually writing and recording music. Along the way Krissy expressed an interest in bass guitar, so I got her one and told her that she and I would form a band […]
Posted on March 7, 2023 3 Comments
You think you know family, but maybe your family isn’t quite like the family in Elle Marr’s novel The Family Bones. And maybe that’s a good thing, but as Marr explains, this family here makes for interesting reading. ELLE MARR: Who among us has never returned from a family event, and wondered at their good […]
Posted on March 3, 2023 1 Comment
In The Shadow Galaxy: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry, author J. Dianne Dotson explores spanning multiple genres and styles within a small package. J. DIANNE DOTSON: Back in the 1980s, I moved to a place called Gray. Its name essentially summed up my initial ambivalence for it, until I fell in love with […]
Posted on February 1, 2023
It’s been said that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Author Dan Rice is exploring the topic of unwanted notoriety in his newest novel, and the second installment in his Allison Lee Chronicles, The Blood of Faeries. DAN RICE: Allison Lee, the eponymous protagonist of The Allison Lee Chronicles, has her first brush with […]
Posted on November 29, 2022 2 Comments
It’s no surprise that today’s generation of authors might also be gamers… but the influence of gaming on their writing may be more substantial that you might suspect. Kayleigh Nicol, who co-wrote Crystal Awakening with Andrew Rowe, speaks to this integration of writing and gaming, and how the latter informed the former with this novel. […]
Posted on November 1, 2022 6 Comments
What’s in a word? For Joelle Presby, perhaps the whole world… for starters. In this Big Idea, Presby explains how a single word opens up a whole universe for her novel The Dabare Snake Launcher. JOELLE PRESBY: My big idea is a dabare. When you grow up in an area where everyone else speaks at […]
Posted on December 2, 2020 12 Comments
But still lovely to see: A big ‘ol advertisement for The Last Emperox in NYC, through the good graces of Amazon, which included the book in its annual Best Books of 2020 list, along with, of course, many other very worthy tomes. You can see the science fiction and fantasy selections here, if you have […]
Posted on August 2, 2022 3 Comments
Even in fiction, pets are a big responsibility. Author Greg van Eekhout makes that extra clear in his new novel, Fenris & Mott, where we’re introduced to a new version of a particularly legendary dog. Follow along in this Big Idea as the author tells you a little about a dog ownership in a world […]
Posted on July 27, 2022 6 Comments
The way our world is going now, there might not be much of future to look forward to. For author Ruthanna Emrys, she tried to imagine what that future could possibly look like in her new novel, A Half-Built Garden. Follow along as she talks about how we all can get there. RUTHANNA EMRYS: “We […]
Posted on July 14, 2022 1 Comment
Are the bad guys inherently bad, or did they choose to be bad? Author A. C. Wise takes us into the mind of one of literature’s most famous villains in her new novel, Hooked, in order to shed some light on this question. A. C. WISE: Part of me wants to be a little bit […]
Posted on June 28, 2022 4 Comments
Few storytellers alive can spin a tale like Elizabeth Bear, and in this Big Idea for The Origin of Storms, the concluding novel of a trilogy, Bear digs just a little into the elements that make this particular story the one to tell right now. ELIZABETH BEAR: What if you inherited a broken world from […]
Posted on December 8, 2022 21 Comments
Well, the title really says it all! If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me tweet about these cookies a couple days ago. A few people ended up asking me for the recipe (which I will always give because they’re never mine anyways), so I figured I’d do a post over them, give […]
Posted on June 3, 2022
We are all part of some sort of fandom, and some fandoms are better known than others. In By Your Side, author Erica Friedman explores a vital, but possibly lesser-known, group of fans. ERICA FRIEDMAN: Every day someone discovers a new fandom. How awesome is that? Right away that new fan takes in all the […]
Posted on November 4, 2022 1 Comment
Scalzi.com has been up and running since 1998, and I have been writing here for that long as well, and I think it’s pretty well verified that I am here and that I am the owner and I am entirely in control of it. This makes it a good place for me to officially verify […]
Posted on April 26, 2022 2 Comments
Do we learn from the past? And how does the past inform today, and the art that is created in it? These are questions Alma Katsu is confronting in this Big Idea for The Fervor, and is inviting you to confront them as well. ALMA KATSU: The Fervor is a novel about the Japanese internment. […]
Posted on April 21, 2022 3 Comments
Some people seem to attract attention the moment they enter into the room. Then there are others who… don’t. In I Am The Ghost In Your House, author Mar Romasco-Moore explores what it means to be the latter, in ways that might surprise you. MAR ROMASCO-MOORE: Every day on the bus to school I’d eavesdrop. […]
Posted on July 9, 2021 8 Comments
So you’ve created a world for a book series, and the series… ends. What becomes of the world and the characters in it? Can you go back? How do you go back? And why? Lots of questions, which author Jennifer Estep is tackling in this Big Idea for her new novel Capture the Crown. JENNIFER […]
Posted on August 3, 2022 4 Comments
When events are on a precipice, where can we look for the support we need to help pull them back? Izzy Wasserstein has an idea, and in this Big Idea for All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From, she’s ready to share with you what she thinks it might be. IZZY WASSERSTEIN: It all […]
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