New Worlds: Calculation Devices
Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies; I’ve watched it many times. And every time I do, there’s a moment in the movie where I boggle yet again that we sent men to the moon WITH SLIDE RULES.
Writing
articles on writing
Author Interview: Shannon Page
Author Interview: Shannon Page Interviewed by Phyllis Irene Radford Shannon Page has been a member of Book View Café since 2013. Her collection of short fiction, Eastlick and Other Stories,https://bookviewcafe.com/book/eastlick-and-other-stories/ marked her debut with us. Since then, she has published several solo novels; an essay collection, I Was a Trophy Wife; https://bookviewcafe.com/book/i-was-a-trophy-wife/ and a collaborative …
New Worlds: Count to Ten
Counting to ten: it’s simple. Obvious. We have ten fingers; counting in units of ten is the only natural way to do things. Right? Not so fast.
And even if it all goes wrong…
Call me a late bloomer, or maybe just musically ignorant, but I came to Leonard Cohen very late in life. And indirectly, at that. The first time I heard a song called “Hallelujah” it was sung by k d lang, and it FLOORED me… and then and only then did I discover Leonard Cohen as …
The Name of the Prose, Part 1: What’s in a Name?
Here’s a question for you, Dear Reader. What publisher would have taken Bram Stoker seriously if he’d submitted a book about a mysterious, terrifying vampire named . . . Count Humperdink? Can you just imagine the how the scene might have read if our nemesis (perhaps looking like Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee) had swept …
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New Worlds: Seeking Salvation
One of the great promises made by many religions is that evil is not unopposed. Sins can be atoned for; damnation and suffering can be escaped. But how?
New Worlds: The Problem of Evil
Why does evil exist? This is one of those basic questions people have been struggling with since time immemorial. (Spoiler: I’m not going to solve it in this essay.) If God is good, and God is powerful, then why do pain and suffering exist? Why does God permit people to do bad things? Why do …
Research & (Plot) Development
Hello, my name is Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, and I’m a recovering research-aholic. I know that research addiction is common among writers of speculative fiction (genres that begin with ”what if…?”). This doesn’t mean there aren’t writers who hate research with a passion, but whether you loathe research or love it, it is necessary to writing …
New Worlds: The End of Days
It’s the end of the world as we know it . . . Armageddon. Ragnarok. The Kali Yuga. That which begins must eventually end — right?
The Name Game
Originally posted on 11/28/2008 from the dragon lair of Phyllis IRENE RADFORD, aka P.R. Frost, aka C.F. Bentley: To paraphrase Eliza Dolittle in “My Fair Lady”: Names, names, names, I’m so sick of names, first from them, now from me… As I accumulate pseudonymns I find my readers complaining about each new series of books carrying …
New Worlds: In the Beginning
Where does everything come from? Humans have been asking that question for a long time, and we’ve come up with many different answers. The Big Bang. “Let there be light.” The world hatching from an egg. All of these possibilities, be they scientific or mythological in nature, fall under the header of cosmogony, i.e. the …
Author Interview: Jill Zeller
JILL ZELLER Interviewed by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel Jill Zeller was determined to become a writer ever since her fifth grade play was a flop (let’s just say that no one was yelling “Author, author!”) Millions of words later, she’s still writing both novels and short stories in a myriad of worlds and genres. Her …
The Things People Say: Sentence-like Sequences of Words
Today, communication fans, I’d like to dismantle four sentence-like sequences of words that have something in common: muddled meanings caused by a poor (or possibly clever) choice of words. Who said them and with what intent is irrelevant to the discussion. I leave it to you, Dear Reader, to attach significance in the broader realm …
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