The incorporation of horses into a world can do interesting things to the shape of a culture, right down to the way roads are built and the places where people either have or choose to live. But the effect can … Continue reading
Category Archives: Culture
by Sherwood Smith Three or four years ago, a writer was a day away from departing on a massive book tour before her equally massive launch of a memoir about growing up poor in South-central LA and her gangsta life. … Continue reading
As every dedicated worldbuilder knows, any element you add to the mix changes it in various and sometimes dramatic ways. But even subtle changes can affect the whole direction the world takes. I’ve talked about both what happens when you … Continue reading
Food is an integral part of world-building, whether it plays a direct role in the plot or not. Its availability and quality affect every human endeavor, and scarcity – or fear of scarcity – is a powerful motivation for conflict. … Continue reading
I’ve been talking about “natural selection” a lot. Natural selection is defined to be the differential success of reproduction between related organisms based on the context of that organism’s reproduction. I use the word “context” precisely here. We like to … Continue reading
by Sherwood Smith I want to talk about Book View Café’s newest member. It’s the summer of 1977. The buzz along our apartment building in Hollywood is that Star Wars is better than it sounds. I’m thinking, gheck. Except for … Continue reading
by Sherwood Smith My grandmother died a couple months ago, just short of her 97th birthday, as a result of a fall, or she’d still be going strong. I thought I’d share a few memories that she shared with me; … Continue reading
by Sherwood Smith No, not tallship goodness. By shipping, I mean writing relationships as fan fiction. I also notice in exploring it that by far the greatest percentage of new terms has arisen out of the powerfully organized fanfiction network. … Continue reading
I am fond of procedural crime dramas, lawyer dramas, medical dramas, and I am pleased to note that women are well represented in the roles of FBI agents, detectives, CSIs, lawyers, reporters, doctors, mad scientists, etc. I am less pleased … Continue reading
by Sherwood Smith In her short novel, or novella, Bellwether, Connie Willis speculates in a sort of Josephine Tey manner on how fashions change, and who changes them. The question could be reframed as, can we recognize what it is … Continue reading