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stephenwhq

@[email protected]

Warm intelligent accessible #SFF Our Child of the Stars/Our Child of Two Worlds. #writer
+VictorianMurder
+HighSchoolWeird

#Free #fiction on website and smart #newsletter.
Services to help creatives be interesting

Bi, parent, humane, "writes beautifully" I'm told. UK/the world

craft and business of writing/ science health policy/ professional communicator/ help writers with their writing

Profile photo: genial white bearded guy grey hair and beard, in shirt with braces UK suspenders (USA)

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dickrubin716 , to bookstodon group
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Is it too soon to Covid times from 2020 in a fictional story? I’m thinking about including that as one of the plots in an upcoming book. @bookstodon @mastodonbooks

stephenwhq ,
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@dickrubin716 @bookstodon

people are addressing it at various levels, its tangental in a couple of mine. I have a couple of plagues in other works which may be tweaked with current knowledge. Most of what I write is out of period.

emeraldzak , to bookstodon group

a review of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke:

To describe the plot is to spoil the book. This is an Outer Wilds situation where every person of impeccable taste will beg you to experience it and never look it up online beforehand. 5.0 stars out of 5.0.

This is a book that wants you to read it. It delights in being read. So do that. A perfect little book that feels neither wasteful nor lean.
It is Just Right.
The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

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stephenwhq ,
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@emeraldzak @bookstodon

Piranesi

I describe this as 'a labyrinthine book about a labyrinth. You will need to trust that the author delivers - she does!'

ChrisMayLA6 , to bookstodon group
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This week I've been mainly reading, no. 153.

Each of Emma Newman's Planetfall quartet explores a different aspect of the same overarching story of religious driven intergalactic migration. In Atlas Alone (2019), the fourth story centres on an elite gamer & their attempt to uncover & then take revenge for a crime against humanity. To say much more would ruin the plot for you, but as with the others, this is great, fascinating sci-fi, which has a great payoff at the end.


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stephenwhq ,
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@TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon

Who knows? Not only has religion asserted its power in this century, we have also seen pseudo-religious ideologies with their messiahs, promised land, sacred texts - based on rigidly secular philosophies.

Uair , to bookstodon group
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@bookstodon

Idea:

Bookstores should group fantasy with horror instead of scifi. Both fantasy and horror are purely creations of the author's mind; scifi is tethered to factual information.

If you need to group scifi, I'd put it with mysteries and thrillers.

stephenwhq ,
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@jpaskaruk @elysegrasso @deirdrebeth @alexlubertozzi @aprilfollies @_L1vY_ @Uair @bookstodon

The idea of careful scientific extrapolation v wildly fantastic writing in a scientific vein actually goes back to Verne and Wells respectively. Yet Verne wrote stuff wrong at the time, and people are often wrong about the future. Hard SF isn't morally superior.

stephenwhq ,
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@aprilfollies @JonSparks @alexlubertozzi @Uair @bookstodon @_L1vY_ @elysegrasso @deirdrebeth @jpaskaruk

OK. It's Mastodon so I will be polite. That's a really poor take. It misunderstands fiction, it is unhelpful to readers and booksellers, and I hope the majority of SF writers would agree with me.

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