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@JonSparks@writing.exchange cover
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JonSparks

@[email protected]

Had a long career as a photographer & writer about the outdoors, but now much more focused on fiction, especially SF. Author website is https://www.jonsparksauthor.com.
Lots of photos and quite a lot of words at https://jonsparks.zenfolio.com.
Still very much into the #outdoors, especially #cycling #gravelbikes (I’ve written about that too).

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JonSparks , to random
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

3/8: Agree with George Orwell: never use foreign, scientific or jargon words and phrases in your work?
I find it hard to believe he would have said anything that daft. I’m guessing he actually said something like, ‘don’t use obscure words without explanation’.
19th century books often use quotes in Latin or Greek, and they’re useless to most modern readers without translation.
But imagine science fiction without a scientific vocabulary…

Uair , to bookstodon
@Uair@autistics.life avatar

@bookstodon

Idea:

Bookstores should group fantasy with horror instead of scifi. Both fantasy and horror are purely creations of the author's mind; scifi is tethered to factual information.

If you need to group scifi, I'd put it with mysteries and thrillers.

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@aprilfollies @alexlubertozzi @Uair @bookstodon @_L1vY_ @elysegrasso @deirdrebeth @jpaskaruk @stephenwhq You can always find examples of SF being predictively accurate. You can equally easily find examples where it’s dead wrong. Prediction isn’t what it’s really for, at least for me. It’s the exploration of possibilities.

NickEast , to litstudies
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

I think I might prefer some of these nonspecific editions, I like my fiction a bit unspecified 😂

@fantasybookstodon
@reading @bookstodon @litstudies @books



JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@litstudies @fantasybookstodon @bookstodon @books @NickEast @reading A Tale of Urban Areas.

Jtmoriartywriter , to bookstodon
@Jtmoriartywriter@mastodon.au avatar

Dear friends,

@bookstodon etc. Here is my Tentative reading list for 2024. I am for 12 novels a year, but life, writing, my family, it can all get in the way. For '23 I read 12 things, but they weren't all novels, so thats a half pass. The list:

Any sequels I'm up to (3 trilogies in this case), lotr i read recently but I loved it so much I'm thinking of doing it again. Dispossessed was on 23s list.

Have you read any of these, what's your take? Any suggestions or definite 'don't read that!'

Cat tax, Elspeth hiding behind a Christmas tree. A naughty torti up to no good.

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@bookstodon @Jtmoriartywriter The Lathe of Heaven is great (obviously, it’s Le Guin—but not much like any of her others). And you have The Dispossessed to end the year on a high. Try Malafrena (which I adore) sometime to get a sense of her range.
Children of Dune is the only Dune sequel that comes even halfway to measuring up to the original.

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@Jtmoriartywriter @bookstodon She is my absolute No. 1 literary idol. At some point I must do a blog/newsletter post about her influence on me. There's a little bit here: https://www.jonsparksauthor.com/post/reading-and-me

bennett , to bookstodon
@bennett@veganism.social avatar

downside of masto's particular set of affordances is I can't figure out who posted this, and who boosted it into my timeline. But thank you both!!

"Lester del Rey... intuited that what millions wanted from a publishing industry urgently optimizing to keep up with capitalism was to escape the modern age into a world where capitalism and industry had never happened. There is magic in that. At least I thought so, as a kid. But there’s also, in del Rey’s vision, a formulaic—let’s face it, industrial, rationalized—conception of culture and a pernicious nostalgia that courts sexism and white supremacy. Today, fantasy is, along with romance, our wildest, most flourishing genre. It might not be this way were it not for Lester del Rey, even if his legacy now is as the wizard so many writers and readers choose to battle against."

https://slate.com/culture/2023/10/lester-del-rey-invention-fantasy-book-publishing.html

@bookstodon

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@bennett @bookstodon It's an excellent piece, though I find the title misleading: he didn't 'invent' the genre. He did, as the text makes clear, set it on a particular path. I got bored reading fantasy in the late C20 because too many books read like inferior knock-offs of Tolkien. It's taken a while to shake off this legacy.
In a writers' group on FB the other day I saw someone puffing a book whose villain was (I kid you not) referred to as 'the dark lord'. I didn't put it on my TBR list.

rabbit_fighter , to bookstodon
@rabbit_fighter@mastodon.world avatar

@bookstodon I'm looking for book recommendations for an 11yo who reads at a much more advanced level. He likes sci-fi. He has read the Hitchhiker's Guide series and loved them. I think he would enjoy some more 'hard' sci-fi as well. He needs something challenging but without subject matter that is too mature. Thanks for any help!

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@pencilears @bookstodon @rabbit_fighter I’ll always second any recommendation for Le Guin. The very early novels, like Rocannon’s World and Planet of Exile, are very short and accessible, but still very good. And of course the Earthsea books were written for young readers in the first place.
Agree about Becky Chambers too.

lunalein , to bookstodon
@lunalein@federatedfandom.net avatar

@bookstodon folks, do you listen to audiobooks? If so:

  • Do you have favorite narrators? Or the opposite? Ever started or quit listening to something because of the voice?
  • if you’re talking about a book, do you say you’ve read it?

JonSparks ,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@enno @bookstodon @lunalein Kobna HS is brilliant.

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