One of the main groups spearheading the recent repeal of the state's same-sex marriage law in Maine is the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). You may recall the group from their hilariously ridiculous "Gathering Storm" ads . NOM dumped buckets of cash to overturn Maine's same-sex marriage law. An article which ran back on September 4, 2009 reports: According to state campaign finance...
As an editor, I've found point of view to be the number one problem I've encountered with authors. Then when I try to explain deep point of view their eye's glaze over. If you write romance, you need to learn how to write in deep point of view,and when to ease out. Learning the how and why of point of view will prove valuable. Here is an article I wrote on deep point of view a few years ago. I use...
As one of our first Majesco releases, check out Advent Rising - a true gem of a game that you just might have overlooked. Advent Rising is a third-person action-adventure game, set in a bright, distant future. The greatest feature of this title is its story, with the script written by the famed sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card. You take the role of Gideon Wyeth, a gifted pilot on the most important...
I thought I was done with Fading Light, but it wasn't done with me. My copy of "Federations" arrive yesterday, and I finally got a chance to start reading it. The first story "Mazer in Prison" by Orson Scott Card sang to me. The story was wonderful, and I went to reread it --analytically-- and decided I really liked the character's voice, the way he told his story without telling...
The most recent Mind Meld on SF Signal deals with what speculative fiction novels first published in the last 10 years should be included in high school literature courses. I had to read the Chrisalids and 1984 in class, but most of my speculative fiction reading was done after school. I read mostly fantasy but felt after a while that I should read some of the SF classics as well, and started with...
Yesterday, the Washington, DC City Council held another round of hearings on marriage equality in the District at which the National Organization for Marriage's Brian Brown testified. During his testimony and subsequent questioning , Brown consistently played the victim, complaining that "those of us who believe that there is something special and unique about husbands and wives are equivalent...
[Interviewer's Note: This is a series of interviews featuring the contributors of The Apex Book of World SF edited by Lavie Tidhar. It'll run every Monday to Friday until I run out of interviews. Two of these interviews will be reprinted in Apex Magazine but the rest are exclusive to SF Signal.] Aliette de Bodard lives in Paris, where she works as a Computer Engineer. In her spare time, she writes...
Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, called me the day before I left for the World Fantasy Convention to offer me a position as assistant editor. After thinking about it for a day, I accepted. I’ll mainly be helping to read stories submitted to the magazine, choosing which to pass [...]
Wow. We had a ton of original features this week and it doesn't look like it will let up anytime soon. Let's take a look at what transpired on Big Download in the past seven days: Exclusive features Reviews : We give our final verdicts to Tropico 3 , Eufloria and Cities XL along with impressions of the Left 4 Dead 2 PC demo Orson Scott Card Interview : The best selling novelist talks about his love...
I am still processing all the wonderful information from the online writer's conference that I went to. One of the classes I took was on world building by Christine Amsden . She highly recommends "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card. One thing she had us do is interrogate our idea. Here's my interrogation of my middle-grade fantasy story: My idea is a Dream World...
Orson Scott Card has had some interesting opinions, to say the least. But we can probably all agree on the need more games like Civilization , which is a sentiment he shared with the Big Download . "I like the turn-based strategy game and there aren't very many of those made, and most of them are made badly,? he said. "Really Sid Meier is the only guy who does it reliably. And I wish more...
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews. Disclosure: The publisher sent a review copy for the purposes of this review. The Secret History of Science Fiction -- sounds like the title of a blockbuster movie or exhaustive nonfiction book but this is, in fact, an anthology that features stories that bridge the literary vs. genre divide, or "li-fi" as Orson Scott Card would...
The Ender series is very well known among fans of science fiction, in particular the Ender Quartet ( Ender’s Game (based on the novelette “Ender’s Game”), Speaker for the Dead , Xenocide , and Children of the Mind ). Years after this was wrapped up, we saw the Shadow Quartet ( Ender’s Shadow , Shadow of the Hegemon , Shadow Puppets , Shadow of the Giant ), along with a...
Sheila wasn't listening, but I couldn't help myself. "I'm worried," I said. "Aren't you worried?" She shrugged. "He'll be killed." "Shh." "He's drunk, with car keys and a gun , this is bad." She scowled. "I'm serious. Someone will get killed, I know it." Sheila sighed. "Just eat your damned popcorn. I can't hear the movie." That's...
James Maxey - The Prophet and the Dragon (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
Capclave finished up today. It was a lot of fun; any weekend where I can have serious conversations about Darwin, Spiderman, and how the Abbott and Costello "Who's on first?" routine get's translated into Klingon is a good weekend. And, I got to cap it off tonight with dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Bonus! I mentioned here a few weeks back that I was a nominee for the WSFA Small Press...
Shadow Complex Walkthrough - Shadow Complex Guide & Features In Shadow Complex, you play as Jason, just some normal guy on a nice hike with some girl through some woods that lead to some underground facility and -- oh no! That girl has been kidnapped! Good thing you’re not really just any normal guy... your dad’s a military man, so you’ve got some fighting chops. Or something. I’m not quite sure, to