Flight of the Vajra: In For A Landing
The proof copy for the remastered "Flight Of The Vajra" has landed. With a big thud.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-30 21:00:00 No comments
Proof copy for the remastered Flight Of The Vajra went thud on the doorstep last night. No wonder it left a dent. Look at that thing. It probably stops point-blank .22s!
I'll be giving the inside the full rundown this coming weekend, but a cursory once-over tells me it's good.
I'm still amazed this thing turned into the monster it did. No, maybe not amazed; it's actually easier than it looks to write a long book these days. It's hard to write one that sustains its length, though, and I'm still dubious with myself as to whether I pulled that off here. But I'm still proud of what I ended up with.
To steal an old chestnut: "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter book."
Malign Equivalencies
Why "they're all terrible" is the philosophy of suckers.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-29 21:00:00 No comments
The big lie of modern politics is that somehow all political parties are equally terrible, so why bother. There's no subtle way to go about dealing with this, so we might as well just call it what it is: a Big Lie that serves corrupt power and paralyzes people. What gets me is how this idea seems to have emerged from allegedly noble origins.
Everything But The Thing In Front Of Me
Sometimes you solve all the other problems, not this one.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-29 12:00:00 No comments
I've been trying to keep the wheel turning on Unmortal even with the world burning down around my ears. Maybe especially because of that; nothing makes you feel normal like a routine, even when nothing is normal.
But I got my quota done the other night, and the night before that, even if the way I got there was somewhat roundabout. For the scene I had in mind, I was stuck for a fitting conclusion that achieved its goals. One brainstorming session later, I had answers to five other issues except that one. I eventually found something that worked for the current scene, though. Just not right away.
Science Fiction Repair Shop: Now Is All You Got
A reason why I haven't written any time travel stories: I don't think time exists. At least, not in the sense of something we can travel through.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-25 12:00:00 No comments
A funny exchange from the other day. I mentioned to someone that I wasn't sure if I would ever write a time-travel story. I cited two reasons: 1) the played-out quality of the concept (you have to come up with something really interesting to do more than just restate "I'm My Own Grampaw!") -- and 2), more problematic for me personally, my philosophy about time. See, I don't think time actually exists -- at least not in the sense of it being some medium that can be traversed.
Flight of the Vajra: The Temptation Of The Scissors
I had to fight the urge to make changes to 'Flight Of The Vajra' in its new edition.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-22 21:00:00 No comments
What with Welcome To The Fold's remaster out of the way, I've now turned to getting Flight Of The Vajra remastered. With that came a temptation I've talked about many times before: the urge to rewrite the book, or at the least cut pieces of it that for some reason have gotten stuck in the back of my mind, like splinters under the skin. Just to shut myself up, I went back and re-read the passages in question, and found that they were nowhere nearly as terrible as I remembered. I left them in.
Welcome to the Fold: 'Welcome To The Fold', Remastered, Is Now Available
The all-new Infinimata Press edition of my psychological thriller / fantasy / headtrip is now for sale!
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-21 12:00:00 No comments
I'm pleased to announce the "remastered" version of Welcome To The Fold, with new cover art and tweaked innards, under the Infinimata Press brand, is now available in both recycled-tree and recycled-electron versions.
For those who don't know about it yet, here is The Blurb:
When a young woman joins an underground street-theater movement with plans to change the world, her boyfriend follows her in to "rescue" her ... only to find it may cost both of them their personalities, and maybe also their lives.
Annika always wanted to be someone else. One day, she found a way to do exactly that: join "Sunderlands", a live-action role-playing game based on the best-selling fantasy series. All unauthorized, all underground ... and all for the sake of creating a world where heroes were possible again.
Renton loved Annika just as she was. When she vanished into the game, he followed her in to get her back. What he didn’t expect to find was a plot to rewrite the stories of their lives from the inside out. And the stories of everyone else’s lives as well.
Of all my books, this is one of the two or three I'm most proud of right now. If you like it -- or even if you don't! -- say something on Goodreads about it and help spread word!
The Least Worst Form Of Governance
Two cheers for democracy, and all that.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-20 21:00:00 No comments
Among the bits of nonsense you'll see flying around these days is a variant on one that is not new, but never quite manages to die: the idea that democracy is no better than the alternatives, so you might as well go for a system where you're at least guaranteed some "stability". You know, like a monarchy. Or a dictatorship.
Welcome to the Fold: Behind The Scenes With 'Welcome To The Fold', Pt. 3: The Influences
How everything from research on cults to classic shōjō manga fed into 'Welcome To The Fold.'
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-20 12:00:00 No comments
(See all entries in this series here.)
Most of the books in my catalog have multiple influences, but they all tend to flow into one thing: the book itself. Welcome To The Fold has multiple inspirations, but each one flows into one of the two halves of the story: the modern-day, here-and-now part; and the story-within-the-story that is pure fantasy. Each of those are informed by drastically different things.
No Good Teacher Says "Don't"
No good teacher worth their salt says "Don't do X." They say, "If you do X, this is what's involved."
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-19 12:00:00 No comments
The other night we were talking about bad writing teachers, especially those who provide most of their advice in the form of "Don't". I said: No good teacher worth their salt says "Don't do X." They say, "If you do X, this is what's involved."
Leaning Into Topical Drift
How my new book 'Unmortal' started as "a fantasy story that discovers it's actually cyberpunk", and is now that plus something different.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2020-10-15 21:00:00 No comments
Every time I sit down to work on something new, it drifts off course. This isn't a bad thing! It's part of the natural evolution of any project; it goes hand-in-hand with it changing from a Nice Idea to an Actual Completed Piece Of Work.
See earlier posts from October 2020
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