Saturday, March 12, 2011

works

I feel rather shallow writing something about my work when Japan has suffered the most awful of devastation. My thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people and I hope for any little miricles among that destruction.

We write about such events without, perhaps, grasping the the enormity and tragedy of them. Yet another Military sf novel destroys New York, or Tokyo... A fanasy hero destroys/saves entire continents etc. It's very hard to get our heads around the real implications of these things.

I've tried to avoid the blockbuster disaster... other than saving the universe a few times in Karres books. That's OK isn't it?

So I thought I'd tell you about what I have written

Basically - to give you a quick rundown of Dave's writing career -I wrote THE FORLORN sf self-standing book; the various RATS, BATS & VATS books - which are humorous mil sf/ social satire about uplifted rats and bats..., and the PYRAMID SCHEME books which are adventure/fun and humor set set by a SF maguffin in the worlds of mythology. The Heirs of Alaexandria books are Fantasy meets alternate history - Where the great library of Alexandria was not destroyed and magic still exists. The Karres books are sequels to James H Schmitz's classic WITCHES OF KARRES this is space opera, in the grand old tradition. And then there are DRAGON'S RING and DOG AND DRAGON -which are high fantasy if Ffarhad and the Grey Mouser are High Fantasy with a Loki-rouge dragon.
And then of course from Naked Reader... WITHOUT A TRACE - a MG story which is what you'd get if Willard Price had written sf.

And that right now... is that.

6 comments:

Mike said...

Oddly enough, my wife and her sister are watching the news and yacking on the cell phone. They just observed that it's like watching an SF movie... so I guess we've got a reputation :-)

Unknown said...

Well, Mike, glad to see you posting! :-) Maybe the movies are getting it right?

Kate Paulk said...

I don't think we're really equipped to handle disasters like Japan has suffered - at a human level, I mean. It's pretty obvious that the Japanese infrastructure has managed to handle things remarkably well, all things considered, and the survivors are doing pretty well too.

I think after a certain level of horror, people tend to turn down their awareness of it, and focus more on just getting on with what's around them. It's not that anyone is uncaring, or callous, it's just that there's only so much a person can take without going start raving nuts, and most people have switches that pull back before stark raving nuts is an issue.

Dave, you're a whole lot better than you're saying - but then I think most of us here have this issue with saying how wonderful we are. As in, we can't seem to do it. And don't you save a world in the RBV books? Maybe somewhat messily and with a lot of humor, but you're still saving. The same with Pyramid Scheme (there are more of these, right?) It's probably easier to save the world or whatever from something that's completely alien to human experience than to deal with the assorted real life disasters the world manages to offer.

MataPam said...

Dave, I think the movies are too clean. The power of just the water was impressive. Add in the grinder effect of all the dirt and debris and it reaches horrifying. I think those of us who write or film will have those images permanently in our memories, as we invent artificial disasters.

I ought to be writing, but keep wandering back to news sites. What is the reactor doing? How are rescue efforts coming? I'm troubled by the lack of draining in many areas, have they subsided? How far? And I look, fearing to see big jumps in fatalities, as rescuers get into the inundated areas, start searching buildings.And I keep hoping there was enough notice to evacuate, sturdy enough buildings to have not pancaked, and fast enough response to limit further deaths.

And I envy you that shelf of books to contemplate while trying to write.

Stephen Simmons said...

I saw earlier today that one town has more than 9,000 beople "unaccounted for". My hometown was 1,200 people. I simply can't process that fact.

The book that's sitting in an agent's slush-pile right now involves a massive seismic/tidal event, but it's observed froma clinical distance while it's happening. I may need to go back and see about injecting more immediacy to its impact on the caharcters, I suspect. On the other hand, the secondary seismic event that takes millions in one shot, I think I may have done justice to.

Unknown said...

Well, Kate, I save the world from alien invasion. And yes, humans are no good at coping with that level of disaster... Anymore than I am of telling you all how wonderful I am or even remembering all of my books...