Comments on: MIND MELD: Who are Your Literary Influences in the Ongoing Conversation of Science Fiction?

By: J.

J. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:46:59 +0000

Just wanted to dorp a note to say this was a very interesting Mind Meld, and Mind Meld is a very interesting feature. The "conversation" of sci-fi always has seemed to be one of the distinguishing features of the genre.

By: John D.

John D. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:18:28 +0000

Don’t get me started…

By: Fred Kiesche

Fred Kiesche — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:07:36 +0000

Ah, Godwhale. Now where have I come across that before? Good thing nobody mentioned Blade Runner!

By: Gene Stewart

Gene Stewart — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:23:43 +0000

I made myself a writer one summer afternoon at age 8, when I wrote a story I didn't have to, and had fun, and realized I could do what ever I wanted on the page.

Poe, Verne, Wells, and Doyle broke me out of fishing stories.

Dickens inspired me to take it seriously.

Harlan Ellison woke me up to coloring outside the lines.

Hemingway showed me how less can be more.

Pynchon dared me even to try.

Now I write the stories that come to me as well as I can, for their sake.

Looking back over 30 years plus, I discovered I'd been writing mystical realism all along. What ever that means. It was and is not conscious. Just happens.

I no longer believe in genre versus mainstream, etc. Just good writing. A good story well told. Any kind of fiction can rise above the rest. Market categories are labels and do not affect content, or quality.