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Weekend Reads - 180316

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Welcome once again, this week there are two articles on writing science fiction. Both Angus McIntyre (author of The Warrior Within) and Richard Morgan (author of Altered Carbon) share where they got inspiration for their stories.

There's also an update on a real life space station nation in the making and some discussion about e-Readers and Amazon reviews. Some interesting sfuff if you're interested in reading.

So when it's time to relax this weekend, grab your favourite beverage and have a read of the following articles.




Worldbuilding sets the stage, but a story needs an emotional core too. The key here is Grainger himself, and Stableford pulls it off with another clever trick.

As Netflix screens his brutal body-swap novel, the writer talks about the anger – and the argument at a party – that fuelled its creation...

Asgardia, a rather strange effort to initiate a nation in space, has declared it wants to ultimately build a space station in Earth orbit and on the Moon. In a press conference yesterday in Hong Kong, Asgardia also revealed its plans to launch its primary satellite, Asgardia-1, in autumn this year.

An article appeared this week, one that sagely but somewhat inflamingly asks the question, “Is The E-Reader Dead?” But rather than yet another infuriating “print is dead!” or “ebooks are dead!” or (a personal favorite) “self-publishing is finally dead!” toned article, this one provides evidence on the reading habits of US consumers, the purchasing history of total volume worldwide sales for digital pioneers like Amazon, and a close look at the competition among the top e-reader retailers

Authors have been accused of buying reviews of their books for years. At the very least, there have been accusations hurled of authors building up lists of people to pad their review counts, a practice that is not at all in violation of Amazon’s terms so long as the reviews are genuine and mention is made of the free book the reviewer received. But one couple has come forward to disclose review fraud in an entirely new form



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