My latest video newsletter is live on YouTube.
Just a few updates including the release of Dreams from the Edge of Reality, and news about Tales of Steel and Sorcery, Southwatch Stories, and a Halloween charity anthology called Cashmere Ghosts and Graveyards at Night.
Plus, a few more odds and ends. Click here to watch the video.
Sturgeon presents a compelling story in three parts about a group of what one might call mutants-four children and an infant with interpersonal or developmental problems but each possessing a gift. Leading the group is a simple-minded young man named Lone who compensates for his limited vocabulary through impressive telepathic abilities. He connects with a runaway girl, Janie, who not only has telekinetic powers but is the only one able to communicate with Baby, an infant with Down syndrome who has immense knowledge of the world. Rounding out the group are two girls who can teleport at whim, but must do so naked.
Together, these misfits embody something beyond homo sapiens. They adopt the term homo gestalt as they use their abilities to advance their lot in life until Lone is killed and replaced by Gerald, another young man of similar telepathic abilities. Unlike Lone, Gerald’s power is coupled with an immense intellect and a lack of compassion for his targets.
Sturgeon does a masterful job of portraying the relationship between the five main characters as well as their interactions with normal humans, including one Army lieutenant named Hip Barrows who stumbles upon an antigravity device invented by Baby and planted in a field by Lone to help the farmer who adopted him at a young age. After finding the device, Barrows is soon driven mad in his search for the truth behind it even when the device and all of his notes mysteriously vanish thanks to Gerald and Janie.
It’s been over a year since I shared a curated collection of articles on writing and publishing. When I started this blog, About This Writing Stuff was a monthly feature, then quarterly, then whenever I could get to it as life became increasingly hectic. I can’t promise that these will be posted on a regular schedule again, but I’ll do my best.
From the folks at Career Writers, we get tips on writing backstory without info dumping, using an unreliable narrator, and crafting a memoir from traumatic memories.
Kristen Lamb explains why your characters deserve to make choices and deal with the consequences. She also analyzes how AI can be used—and misused—in our field.
From Mythcreant Chris Winkle, we get six easy lessons on how to keep your characters in danger and an overview of six different styles of prose.
All that and much more. Enjoy!
The Art of Deceit: Crafting a Novel With an Unreliable Narrator by Dana Isaacson
Excavating Buried Memories for Memoir by Mimi Nichter
3 Ways to Write Effective Backstory by Jessica Strawser
New Writers, Are You Making These 4 Mistakes? by Anne R. Allen
How Not to Write Your Novel by James Scott Bell
Bookshop.org Partners with Draft2Digital by Debbie Burke
Why Choice—Not Talent—Drives Great Stories by Kristen Lamb
If AI Loves Your Writing, Be Very VERY Worried by Kristen Lamb
Which of These Six Prose Styles Are You Writing? by Chris Winkle
Six Ways to Keep Characters in the Danger Zone by Chris Winkle
What Publishing Contracts Won’t Tell You (Especially Small Press Contracts) by Matt Knight
How to Make Use of Incidental Characters by Kathryn Craft
So Random by Donald Maass
The Road is a highway through time with exits to different centuries. Red Dorakeen has been traveling the Road for years, searching for a place that might no longer exist. He is accompanied by a sentient computer disguised as a paperback book that acts as his conscience, his keeper, and sometimes protector. At some point in his past (future?), Red had a falling out with a former business partner named Chadwick who hires a series of assassins to kill him.
Meanwhile, a young man named Randy discovers another computer disguised as a paperback book that once belonged to Red. From it, Randy learns that Red is his father. The book leads him to the Road and from there, to Leila, an old friend of Red’s. Together, they set off to find him.
The format of the novel is unique and the story experimental. The chapters alternate between Red’s adventures (titled “One”) and the secondary characters (titled “Two”). The concept of the Road is brilliant and the plot is engaging if somewhat fragmented. Unfortunately, the secondary characters are flat (especially Chadwick, Randy, and Leila) and the whole show goes off the rails near the end as if Zelazny rushed to finish it or perhaps he tried to cram too much into a short novel. Nevertheless, it was a fun read!
