Customer Reviews

Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Getting Published (Teach Yourself (McGraw-Hill))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm new to writing novels and found excellent advice on nearly every page. The book was easy to read and had very frank, practical suggestions to improve my own writing and what to do to make what I write more likely to be published and sell. Some of the advice is "common sense" but Stableford did not dwell for long on these areas and kept the pace of the book moving along--I tend to find myself skipping around when reading "how to write" books, but this was the first I've read cover to cover (and in one evening).

Teach Yourself Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction is more focused on the philosophies of writing instead of the actual act of writing. It depends on what a person is looking for.

Mr. Stableford's own artistic science fiction/fantasy writing style seems to saturate the book, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just makes the book as a non-fiction a little bit difficult to follow sometimes.

I enjoyed his occasional touching on the subject of themes (or uses of certain themes) that have been over used in the history of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I also liked his discussions on how even though Fantasy and SF can take places in worlds very different from our own, there has to be some amount of reality or plausibility in them for a reader to understand and feel comfortable reading about it.

This is a good book for the price. However, don't expect too much, especially if you're used to seeing practical examples in your how-to books. The advice contained in the book is solid, well-written and to the point, but I found that there was little content devoted to SF/F-specific subjects. Overall, the tone is very academic -- which may actually appeal to some readers -- but I find that a more hands-on or inspirational style that I've seen in other books is more helpful to me. If you are serious about writing and are well-versed in writing techniques you might benefit from this book in one fashion: It contains hidden gems (few and in between) about the approach to the story!

As a beginning Science Fiction and Fantasy writer, I found this book severely dissappointing. It's not that it isn't a useful book, or that it's badly written; what I disliked, was that half the examples were telling you what you could and could not get away with rather than how to write high quality fiction and best captivate your readers. I went through the book constantly thinking "Gosh! I could write better than this guy, what does he think he's going on about?"

Despite that, there is still a lot that the beginning writer can learn from this book, and does give you a decent idea of what level you need to be at in order to get published. However, if you're looking to write at the best of your ability and come up with genuinely interesting plots, I suggest reading Orson Scott Card's book instead.

I consider Stableford as among the lower profile hallmark names in the sci-fi/fantasy industry, but he's been around long enough to be an authority on the topic. I have read a few novels and a short story of his recently, but I read this book before all those. Stableford's advice is extensive and used a lot of examples to illustrate points about speculative fiction writing. However, his book falls short in presentation because it uses a lot of continuous text, which can be tiring and monotonous for those whose attention control needs an extra kick. There is a lot to learn from this book, but its presentation could be greatly improved by using a graphic manner. There certainly are some perspectives and points about science fiction and fantasy writing that can be garnered from Stableford, though, so I don't think I wasted my P279. If you can afford to get this, do so.

This is a good book if you're not very familiar with writing techniques in general, but if you've taken even one college course in writing, forget it. I was hoping for more specific science fiction writing techiques, and was a little disappointed not to find them. If that's what you want, try another book.