Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Brilliant!, 18 Aug 2003
By A Customer
This is the first "How to" book I've ever read that actually reads like a novel. No dry, rigid, mind-numbing lectures on how you "must" do this or "must" do that. Just practical, honest advice aimed at the aspiring writer.Love the humour scattered throughout the entire book. The way Card deals with explaining the ambiguous, but very real line between science fiction and fantasy, the no-nonsense and *clear!* advice to any writer in the field. Card addresses the reader (and presumably aspiring writer) in a serious manner, not in the almost condescending way that a lot of writer's guides tend to do. As the title states, this is a book on "How to write science fiction and fantasy", but a lot of the tips like finishing the story you started, and delivering on promises you make to the reader are relevant to writing techniques in other genres as well. I agree this should by no means be the only writer's guide in your collection, but it is a very, very good start.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exercises for the creative imagination, 24 Oct 2004
This is an excellent read and a stimulating package of advice for anyone interested in writing science fiction or fantasy. Orson Scott Card makes an immediate point: no one can teach you how to write in these genres. What he sets out to do is deliver a superb exposition of the process of creativity and how it infests the imagination. He delivers a vision of creativity as a process, one you can stimulate and use, rather than something you sit back and wait for. Inspiration might be creative, but creativity is not limited to inspiration. Here we have an analysis of how ideas emerge and how they take root.Card questions what is science fiction, what is fantasy? He offers advice and generates a score of absorbing ideas. But his advice takes a vital, practical direction. If you wish to write, then read, read, read! To succeed as a writer, there is no magic formula. You need to learn the skills of your trade, you need to learn to free your imagination, and then you need discipline and the determination to work hard and improve and hone your skills. An excellent, stimulating read, well worth the money, and a book you will treasure.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Useful and entertaining, 27 Feb 2002
By A Customer
Not all of this book was that useful to me, but all of it was interesting - enough so that I finished it in a single evening.The parts that were less useful were the discussion of what SF&F is, and the discussions of concepts such as star drives, time travel, hyperspace, etc... presumably the intended audience for the book will have read plenty in this genre, so these sections might be superfluous. On the other hand, it's interesting (for example) to see the various ways of dealing with interstellar journey times set down and analysed, including their impact on the mind-set of the arriving travellers. For me, the real meat of the book was the second half: the chapters on story construction and writing well. The MICE quotient (milieu, idea, character, event) gave me a new way to think about my book, and the section on controlling exposition was excellent. I'm giving this book 5 stars because it was a very enjoyable read, and because I took several ideas from it that I think will be valuable. Don't get it as your only "Craft of Writing" book, though. That's not what it sets out to achieve.
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