SCI-FI & FANTASY BOOK REVIEWER… …and struggling writer.

Archive for March 2009

Story Structure Architect

I don’t know about you, but I never have any problem coming up with ideas for movies. Just sitting around with my friends shooting the breeze will always throw up terrific “What if?…” scenarios that immediately leap out as the premise for a great movie - or one that I would go and see [...]

Interview - Fantasy Author, Raymond E. Feist

Veteran fantasy author Raymond E Feist visted the UK recently to promote both the paperback publication of ‘Wrath Of A Mad God’, last of the Dark War series, and his new novel ‘Rides A Dread Legion’. I was lucky enough to be despatched by SCI-FI-LONDON to his publishers to spend an hour of quality [...]

My Top 5 Screenwriting Books

The thing about screenwriting books is the variety. They range from the overly complex to the deceptively simple, and of course there are the classics, but one thing’s for certain, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Every screenwriting book I’ve read - and there’s been a few - has something to offer [...]

The City And The City

A new book from China Miéville is always something to look forward to and with The City And The City, once again, he doesn’t disappoint. Essentially a noir-ish detective novel, what sets it apart is the authors fertile imagination, giving us a unique setting against which to play out the story, lifting it above [...]

Writing The Fantasy Film

Given the glut of fantasy movies currently flying out of the Hollywood studios, Sable Jak has made a smart move by writing what is probably the only dedicated book on how to write a screenplay in this genre. Even more cleverly, the book, Writing the Fantasy Film: Heroes and Journeys in Alternate Realities, isn’t [...]

The Perfect Pitch

If you’ve ever wanted to make a movie, or you’re planning to make a movie, one thing’s for certain, you need to be able to pitch your idea to people. In fact more than any other skill, the ability to pitch well will determine whether your script gets read or you get to meet [...]