Wordwizard’s Comments (group member since Apr 07, 2016)

Wordwizard’s comments from the Brain to Books Cyber Convention (FAIRGROUNDS) group.

Wow! I'm even signing up for a newsletter on the basis of this!

This was fun to read, but does it fulfill the requirements that the person be interviewing for the job? This princess wasn't looking for any kind of job.

"This short story began as a challenge that a few of us who love writing historical fiction set for ourselves. We were to pick an historical character from one of our books and have that character interview for a job in current day, 2017."

I repeat:
"I don't consider a pseudo-scientific explanation for supernatural powers sufficient to make something into Science Fiction. There's no realistic mechanism by which a parasite could confer telekinetic abilities, since there's no plausible mechanism by which telekinetic powers could work, period. Likewise telepathy."

You write:
"let's just pretend/accept that our current world has genuine mentalists who can bend spoons and read minds (most if not all these people are probably charlatans, but I'll accept the possibility that these abilities could be real). "

I don't accept that. There is NO evidence that any spoon benders are anything but charlatans. Honest magicians know how it's done, and are ALWAYS able to debunk them.

You write:
"There are organisms that can cause drastic changes in brain function, such as prions that cause Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (mad cow disease in humans), and syphilis that causes dementia. These conditions are obviously detrimental, but their existence still allows us to posit another organism that could enhance the mechanisms that permit mentalists to read minds and bend spoons (if again, we accept the spoon benders' abilities are real)."

That mixes up two things.
#1, accepting that spoon bending could be real (which I don't) means an organism could give us telepathy and spoon bending—which does not follow, and
#2 That an organism's ability to mess up the complex organization of the brain Someone could (theoretically) mess up your brain with a pick-axe, but could a pick-axe or a pick-axe wielder give you magical powers?

You write:
"To my knowledge there's still no plausible foundation for the transporters in Star Trek or for Doctor Who's TARDIS with its more or less unlimited power to hop around in time and space. "

True. That makes both Star Trek and Doctor Who fantasy. I don't believe Doctor Who ever claimed to be SF. Star Trek was designed to be a Wagon Train to the Stars.

"Where does that put my books? Well, my characters do have supernatural powers (most are telepathic and two have telekinetic abilities). The latter has a biological explanation: there's a neurologic parasite called the Woern that confers telekinesis on people who survive being infected with it. In my world, telepathy is a learned skill, although the world's scholars (ie, me, the author) believe it may have originated from a more benign Woern-like species that is now endemic in the human population.

So because my "magic" system has a scientific rather than a mystical explanation, I tend to fall into McCaffrey's camp and insist that my work isn't fantasy at all, but science fiction. However, many hard science fiction readers wouldn't accept my story as genuine scifi because of the pre-industrial tech. So, it's partly a marketing thing."

I don't consider a pseudo-scientific explanation for supernatural powers sufficient to make something into Science Fiction. There's no realistic mechanism by which a parasite could confer telekinetic abilities, since there's no plausible mechanism by which telekinetic powers could work, period. Likewise telepathy. Pre-industrial tech is still tech that actually works according to an scientific understanding of the world, so that doesn't bother me.

Dear A.M.:

It might be, but writing fine Speculative Fiction is better than letting you name force your genre! Austin Dragon writes both SF and Fantasy, but refuses to write about dragons, BECAUSE of his (real) name.

Dear A.M.:

I appreciate Fantasy where the magic has a plausible set of rules and limitations. That's what makes it fun, rather than hand-waving. What you write is the best kind of Fantasy. However, just the same, how does that make it SCIENCE Fantasy? The two words are still contradictory, even if the magic is based on pseudo-science, or sounds sciencey, but defies what we know. Either something fits within what we can (try to) scientifically explain, backed by evidence and experiments, or it does not, and is fantasy. What say you?

Dear A.M. Justice (Is that short for I AM JUSTICE?):

Will it be available in a Kindle-format? My Kindle will not play nicely with PDFs.

Seriously, where's the link to the giveaway? Why is the price $2.99, not $0.99?

Dear Assaph:

You definitely need to pay Felix already. He has repriced the book away from the 99¢ special to $2.99, and I can't find the giveaway, either.

Wow!

"Say you’ve written a book that falls into all three genres. How do you decide between mystery/suspense and mystery/thriller?

Blogger Lyn Hamilton says that when she’s asked the difference between “suspense” and “thriller,” her usual answer is “a hundred thousand dollars.”

I don’t know if a thriller really does bring a higher advance than a suspense novel, but, just in case, I’d go with mystery/thriller."

It's not clear from Lyn Hamilton's ambiguous answer that it's 'thriller' that gets more. Is that your experience?

Devorah:
Having defined Mystery and Thriller, where does that leave Suspense?

I tried to Save The Date, but nothing happened when I clicked Submit.

Devorah wrote: "I've written Thriller as well as Mystery books.
At a writers' convention someone asked "What's the difference between a mystery and a thriller" … a Mystery starts with a crime that's been committed and the story is about finding the perpetrator and solving the crime. In a Thriller, the main character is in peril and has to find the perpetrator in order to save his or her own skin."

Thank you for the clarification!

I love Early Music and polyphony and parallel 4ths and 5ths.

The second book isn't by you!

The link to subscribe goes somewhere else completely.

Do you have Early Music in your book?

I can't find your free books listed on your author page at Amazon. ???

I am the proud mother of four cats (alas, deceased), so we have that love in common.