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Category Archives: Modern Fantasy

Happy Birthday, Mr. Gibson!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Today is William Gibson’s Birthday!
For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past twenty years, or have been freshly cloned, William Gibson is the primary progenitor of the cyberpunk movement. He’s generally credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and popularizing a somewhat more realistic, if somewhat bleak, view of the [...]

Also filed in Famous Authors, Fiction and Its Kin, Science Fiction, Science and Technology | Tagged | Comments (0)

As far as I got

Friday, December 1, 2006

Well, I failed at my NaNoWriMo goal, but I did get a fair bit written, so here it is:

(Failed) NaNoWriMo 2006 Work-In-Progress
by
J. K. Hoffman
Chapter 1
“Wherein some brief introductions are made.”
I don’t care how worldly or experienced you think you are, there is nothing quite so unnerving as seeing a dead man walking past you.  The [...]

Also filed in Experimental, Fragment, NaNoWriMo, Original Fiction, Personal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Characterization Made EZ

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Building characters is as easy as writing their biography.
Okay, so maybe that’s not quite as easy as it sounds at first. The first step to knowing about what your character is going to do is knowing who they are and where they’ve been. What was their start in life? How has that shaped their desires, [...]

Also filed in Adventure Fantasy, Exercises, Fantasy, Fiction and Its Kin, Games, Ideas and Suggestions, Things to Read, Writing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Interstitial Library

Friday, January 6, 2006

I do not know what this is.
No, really, I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to be. A game? The start of a site? Do they expect us to submit books and reviews to it? If so, they don’t seem to provide an interface to submit “found” books. Perhaps [...]

Also filed in Experimental, Fantastic and Surreal, Fiction and Its Kin, Fun, Games | Tagged | Comments (0)

Religion and Science-Fiction

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Well, and fantasy, too.
I recently read a very good article about religious and spiritual belief and how that fits into science-fiction and fantasy fiction. The article was really an interview, in slightly modified form, with award-winning author and well-known Mormon, Orson Scott Card. (You can read the article here: SciFiEditor.com.) The article [...]

Also filed in Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes, Fantasy, Ideas and Suggestions, Invented Worlds, Science Fiction, Writing | Tagged , | Comments (0)

King Kong Found!

Friday, December 2, 2005

Well, at least his fossil.
According to this article from McMaster University, an ape that was roughly three meters tall and weighed up to 1,200 pounds was running around Asia at a time when humans also existed. Gigantopithecus blackii, as the giant primate is known in archeological circles, has actually been known for over 35 [...]

Also filed in Adventure Fantasy, Crass Commerce, Fun, Science and Technology | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Fantasy Airplanes

Friday, November 25, 2005

Yes, apparently even airplane geeks dream.
And, when they do, they dream of fantastic, frightening, freaky planes. Some even dream them into existance. Mostly, though, they just exist as fantasies. Still, someone has collected a bunch of them together into one easy-to-use webpage: Fantasy Planes.
Perfect for a Friday Fun Link!
Hey, it’s Friday, dream [...]

Also filed in Art, Fantastic and Surreal, Fantasy, Fun, Science Fiction, Science and Technology | | Comments (0)

Time Traveller

Friday, November 11, 2005

Real or hoax?
While reading a story on Slashdot.org about an improper request for a non-existant version of the Linux kernel, someone made a joke about John Titor, time traveller. As per usual on Slashdot, a fellow commentor then posted a link to the John Titor entry on Wikipedia. After reading the entry, I [...]

Also filed in Fantastic and Surreal, Fun, Science Fiction, Science and Technology | Tagged , , | Comments (0)