Some years ago, I created an online course in SF and fantasy writing, aimed primarily at high school and middle school students, called Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. It was published on CD by a company called MathSoft, and eventually put online by them, also. (It actually grew out of a distance-learning TV broadcast I hosted, which was beamed into middle school classrooms for two seasons.)
It’s been unavailable except on the used-CD market for a while, but that’s about to change. I’m refitting the course for online viewing, and hope to have it up again and open to the public in the next week or two. It’ll be free of charge, and as friendly to the user as I can make it. The URL will be writeSF.com. If you’re an aspiring writer, or know one, come check it out in a week or two.
tsmacro
Or even if you’re not really an aspiring writer really (like me). It’s still good stuff if you’re one of those people that just likes to learn or find out things like the process behind how something works (in this case sci-fi/fantasy writing) fascinating and entertaining. Jeff managed to get me a copy of the old CD-ROM a little while ago and while I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I would like checking it out, the time I have has definitely fun and worth while! I would definitely reccomend anyone that’s interested in writing or even learning check this out once Jeff has it up and running! Thanks again Jeff for sending that CD my way and i’m sure others will appreciate your efforts in getting this online!
Tim
a couple years ago when the course was online but soon going away, I went through page by page copying it onto my computer so that I would have time to read through it at my liesure. The only drawback was that none of the links worked of course. So it will be nice to see it online again.
tsmacro
Ok so this doesn’t have to do directly with the above topic really, I mean it is about SF writing, but it’s a specific question about your Star Rigger series Jeff. I was wondering what order you’d reccomend reading them in? I just obtained a copy of Seas of Ernathe for the first time. I’ve read the others in the series before and I was thinking of starting from the beginning and going through the whole series for the fun of it. Of course before I just read them in the order they were written (minus “Seas” of course) but now that I have the whole set should I read them that way or start with Panglor which is the “prequel”? Just thought i’d ask the author what he thought the best way to read them would be. Thanks Jeff!
Tim
Jeff, when you started talking about the novelization you were writing, I started thinking about which book of yours would make the best movie. And I really wasn’t sure which one because some of the subject matter in your books would be challenging to represent on screen. But in the end I think my choices would be either Eternity’s End or The Chaos Chronicles (hey it would make for 6 movies about space like star wars except with better writing).
But anyway, the main reason for this post is I wondered which of your books if you were given a choice would you like to see made into a movie?
tsmacro
The Chaos Chronicles would definitely make for cool movies IMO. And how about Starrigger for a Sci-Fi channel or even USA network mini-series or heck just a regular ol’ series!?
And on a completely different topic it seems Starrigger.net is down tonight. (luckily the blog is hosted elsewhere so I could get here anyway) Are you updating the site Jeff or is there just “technical difficulties”?
Tim
and another question…..
With Battlestar Galactica coming out in January, is there more of a sense of urgency now to get Sunborn finished? Since your name will be out there for a new set of readers it would seem only to be good business sense to follow that up with another release. Bear in mind that I’ve read through all of your explanations of why it takes so long to get a book published, I’m simply asking if there is more of a sense of urgency now.
Tim
it seems like I’m just going to keep on piling up questions until you answer a few :).
What are your thoughts on Google’s efforts to scan entire copyrighted books and make portions of them available through search? Personally I think Google’s approach is great because it can increase sales on otherwise obscure books but some publishers are resisting the move. There is also the possibility that less upstanding companies will follow suit and start just giving away whole works on the internet. As far as I could tell Google only has Eternity’s End.