This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don't make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them. [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Nov 26, 2009 - 142 comments

The 21 Scariest Doctor Who Moments Ever, according to SFX magazine. Waters of Mars, which aired in the UK this weekend and airs in the US on December 20th, may add to that list. Meanwhile, in other formats, Michael Moorcock is writing a Doctor Who novel.
posted by Artw on Nov 17, 2009 - 84 comments

You have a great idea for a novel and it's almost November, so you think now is the time to get cracking. You've decided that hiring a ghostwriter is too easy, but you don't have 100 days to write your novel and the snowflake method seems too frilly. Snowflakes, those delicate little monsters that papered your car when you were stranded on the road in Minnesota. A single snowflake is beautiful, but millions make an avalanche. You were cold, so cold, yet you survived. You're not sure if you have time to read a book on what not to do (UK edition), and the search results are daunting. Forget all that, because you already know how to write, right? Embrace your awesome, magnificent, spellbinding abilities, go forward but never back, ever spinning, shake the rain off your bedspread, and now that you have brewed a delicious pot of steamy, hot, life-giving coffee, you can learn how to write badly well. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Oct 22, 2009 - 35 comments

"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English. [more inside]
posted by escabeche on Oct 18, 2009 - 25 comments

Douglas Coupland wants you to design your own cover for his new book, Generation A.
posted by The Whelk on Sep 3, 2009 - 41 comments

The Raw Shark Texts (spoilers if you poke around) is a novel about conceptual fish by Steven Hall that is rife with typographic gimmickry and has an ARG-like element to it. [more inside]
posted by juv3nal on Jun 20, 2009 - 12 comments

Marguerite Young - whom Kurt Vonnegut called "unquestionably a genius" - first achieved success with a study of the utopian commune at New Harmony, Indiana called Angel in the Forest. She then spent 18 years writing Miss Macintosh, My Darling - a 1,198 page novel that William Goyen praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a masterwork". She spent the last 30 years of her life writing an unfinished biography of Eugene V. Debs that was posthumously published, in heavily edited form, as Harp Song for a Radical. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on May 22, 2009 - 4 comments

"... many critics and editors, especially male ones, make a fetish of "ambition," by which they mean the contemporary equivalent of novels about men in boats ("Moby-Dick," "Huckleberry Finn") rather than women in houses ("House of Mirth"), and that as a result big novels by male writers get treated as major events while slender but equally accomplished books by women tend to make a smaller splash." [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Feb 24, 2009 - 95 comments

"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page Inherent Vice, is described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 6, 2009 - 76 comments

It's that time of the year again! NaNoWriMo, previously seen on MeFi here, has kicked off again. If you're stuck, try these tips to lift yourself out of the rut, or feel free to run over to the MeTa thread to grumble about it to fellow NaNo-ers. For the more OCD among us, popular applets to organize your thoughts include bubble.us, seen here previously, to create mindmaps and plot diagrams, or yWriter to organize your prose into chapters and scenes. Other online communities are joining in the fun. Livejournal is donating $1 to the Young Writer's Program for every completed novel. So ignore the deterrents, whip out your thinking hat, and let the logorrhoea start!
posted by Phire on Nov 3, 2008 - 44 comments

The Best Romance Novel Covers of the year - click on the winner of each category to see the Top Ten and explanations. Also the site doesn't avoid the snark with a worst cover category [The winner is Big Spankable Asses [maybe NSFW]].
posted by meech on Oct 17, 2008 - 44 comments

The Iron Heel, published a century ago this year, is a novel by Jack London about socialist revolution in the United States. It is set mostly between 1912 and 1932, with a foreword and numerous footnotes written from the point of view of a historian who has just discovered the manuscript some 700 years later. Here is an excerpt (which is printed on the back cover of some editions) from chapter five:

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words--Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

posted by finite on Oct 10, 2008 - 30 comments

The author of the Fletch novels, Gregory Mcdonald, has died. [more inside]
posted by Confess, Fletch on Sep 12, 2008 - 22 comments

Dystopian storytelling is pillar of Western narrative tradition, but this decade has seen a significant shift in the way our apocalypse is told. Orthodox tales of government tyranny are giving way to visions of humans running helpless in the wake of environmental meltdown. From the plausible to the fantastic, most of this fiction remains hauntingly real while the non-fiction can get downright scary. In 2008, the 20th anniversary of climatologist James Hansen's landmark speech before Congress, popular art is beginning to reflect an increasingly bleak public sentiment on the future, playing out some of our worst nightmares. It may be that these writers and directors are wishing for the end of the world, but even so, they are certainly giving voice to the creeping feeling that indeed, we might not make it.
posted by dead_ on Jul 7, 2008 - 21 comments

Shake Girl, a collaborative project by students in the Stanford Graphic Novel Project. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on May 9, 2008 - 12 comments

A Million Penguins, the wiki novel mentioned previously on MeFi, is complete, and a research paper about it has been released. [more inside]
posted by whir on May 5, 2008 - 15 comments

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey is Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel. It takes the form of an oral history of one Buster 'Rant' Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, admirers, detractors and relations have their say on this (in Chuck Palahniuk's words) 'evil, gender-conflicted Forrest Gump character'. His work is controversial, but I imagine a few Palahniuk fans who read The Blue might have missed the fact that he has a new book out. [ Previously ]
posted by chuckdarwin on Jun 9, 2007 - 24 comments

After an abysmal, embarrasing attempt at collaborative fiction by Penguin Books, a new site takes a stab at the Wikinovel, this time, it appears, with a little better organization and planning. Though, still no users.
posted by nospecialfx on May 30, 2007 - 31 comments

Nude Marathon! Psychotherapy traveled down a lot of strange paths in the 60s and early 70s, but perhaps none stranger than the naked group therapy sessions, some up to 48 hours long, supervised by Paul Bindrim. Bindrim's sessions were the subject of a documentary film and an unflattering, thinly fictionalized novel by Gwen Davis Mitchell. Bindrim sued Mitchell for libel. Can descriptions of a fictional character be libelous of a real person? Yes.
posted by escabeche on Mar 23, 2007 - 13 comments

His lips brushed her cheek as he let more of the weight of his arm and hand press against her torso. He spoke softly, “And this evening’s lead story, "No bombings, no robberies, no car accidents, no wars. Just {YOUR NAME HERE} and {YOUR S.O.'s NAME HERE} making love in a hammock on the Outer Banks."

Yep, for $50-120, you and the love of your life can have your very own customized romance novel. May the bosom-heaving and bodice ripping ensue.
posted by miss lynnster on Mar 10, 2007 - 46 comments

"Deus is an experimental, serialized online comic about myth, consciousness, death, and tomfoolery. Following a set of quasi-mythical gods and a poor fool named Cam, the styles and themes of Deus are constantly evolving." From the utterly talented Gareth Hinds, whose fully painted interpretation of Beowulf is about to be issued in hardcover by Candlewick Press.
posted by jbickers on Feb 6, 2007 - 4 comments

"A Million Penguins is an experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit. Let’s see if the crowds are not only wise, but creative. Or will too many cooks spoil the broth?"
posted by goo on Feb 1, 2007 - 39 comments

So this is the year you are going to write that novel eh? You're going to need some tools, and a lot of help. [mi]
posted by eurasian on Jan 26, 2007 - 28 comments

VeinViewer is an infrared-absorption interactive "X-ray" device using advanced real time signal processing and a projector. Google video. YouTube video with short explanation.
posted by loquacious on Dec 20, 2006 - 19 comments

Daniel Pinkwater's newest novel, "The Neddiad"—serialized weekly for your reading pleasure. (Previous Pinkwater Post)
posted by interrobang on Jul 18, 2006 - 18 comments

Bloggers make terrible novelists. Ana Marie Cox's "Dog Days" meets a reader.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Jan 3, 2006 - 42 comments

Olaf Stapledon was a man ahead of his time. His epic 'novel' Star Maker (1937) considered the emergence of genetic engineering, the outcome of the many worlds interpretation and delved deeper than any book before or since into the consequences of evolution on the cosmos. His fans have included the likes of Arthur C Clarke, Jorge Luis Borges and Virginia Woolf. Even his greatest detractor, C.S.Lewis, wrote an entire Cosmic Trilogy in response to his imaginings. Yet despite Stapledon's magnetic prose and extraordinary influence on speculative fiction his name remains largely forgotten by the world. Yet his words still resonate with insight: "Did not our life issue daily as more or less firm threads of active living, and mesh itself into the growing web, the intricate, ever-proliferating pattern of mankind?"
posted by 0bvious on Nov 27, 2005 - 24 comments

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is (a) Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, (b) facing a five-count indictment from the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, (c) the author of The Apprentice, a book that is, in the words of The New Yorker's Lauren Collins, "Libby's 1996 entry in the long and distinguished annals of the right-wing dirty novel," or (d) all of the above. Via Making Light.
posted by mcwetboy on Nov 1, 2005 - 37 comments

Alexei Sayle's writing for the Independent in the Motoring section. Occasionally it's about motoring, too! Also found was his "Imitating Katherine Walker" [html/pdf] and an excerpt from his book of short stories 'Barcelona Plates'. more inside
posted by Zack_Replica on Jul 30, 2005 - 10 comments

The first issue of the comic book adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere was released yesterday. Mr. Gaiman is credited as a "consultant." So far, the story is fairly intact, but it's the visual element that deviates from the novel--characters look nothing like they were described, and don't even resemble the old BBC miniseries. And for someone accustomed to the phenomenal artwork seen in most of Gaiman's previous graphic novels (which included several adaptations of his short stories), Neverwhere seems downright bland. If a feature film follows in the same vein as this adaptation, will Gaiman pull an Alan Moore and refuse all royalties? (Go easy on me; it's my first post.)
posted by Saellys on Jun 23, 2005 - 32 comments

What with the new movie and the whole Tom and Katie thing, it's no surprise that the world's gone War of the Worlds mad recently. Still, for my money, this Darkhorse comic, adapted from H.G. Well's original text is gonna be ace - there are twelves frames up at the moment and they're adding all the time, with the aim of completely some 120 pages of superbly drawn comic-novel in the not-too-distant... Enjoy.
posted by benzo8 on Jun 21, 2005 - 32 comments

"Writing a whodunit may sound like an odd thing to do when you are running an insurgency"... Nevertheless, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, the mysterious, offbeat leader of the Zapatistas, and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a Mexican crime novelist, are coauthoring a mystery novel live--alternating chapters each week--in the pages of the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada. So far, they have finished chapters one, two and three (pdf) of Muertos Incomodos, (The Awkward Dead). Is there a precedent for this experiment? I love this sort of thing but, unfortunately, my Spanish is insufficient. Any Spanish speakers care to review?
posted by boo on Dec 22, 2004 - 13 comments

"Stone Reader makes you want to pick up a great novel and consume it in one long gulp. It’s a love letter to literature and literacy, a bibliophile’s dream film, dedicated to the joys of fiction and the passions of those who need books like they need food, water and air." (The Dallas Morning News)
posted by rushmc on Aug 13, 2004 - 17 comments

Genie Corp: The Splice Of Life. Creature Comforts [via BoingBoing]
posted by srboisvert on Jul 24, 2004 - 1 comment

The 2004 Lyttle Lytton winners were announced. The premise is simple: write a terrible opening line (of 25 words or less) of a hypothetical novel. In case you're wondering the winners in 2003 and 2002 were discussed previously. [via kathrynyu]
posted by mathowie on Apr 19, 2004 - 9 comments

Novels in 25 Words or Less: A contest at "I Love Books." Here's one entry: "I'm stupid, I'm smart, I'm wicked smart, I'm wicked wicked smart, I'm stupid again. And I have a mouse called Algernon." Some are funny, some are lame, some aren't novels. Give it a whirl.
posted by Slagman on Feb 28, 2004 - 42 comments

Cory Doctorow's new novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, has been released. You can buy the book through traditional means, or, as with his last novel, you can download the entire book for free with no obligation to purchase. Doctorow is a fine novelist and living the principles he espouses with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He has also written a short essay explaining the rationale behind the free distribution.
posted by stevengarrity on Feb 4, 2004 - 26 comments

The Spook Who Sat By The Door, a movie pitched and marketed as blaxploitation, was a low budget political science fiction thriller about black revolution in urban black America based upon the novel written by Sam Greenlee. It was withdrawn two weeks after its release in 1973, ostensibly at the behest of the FBI. Some remember it fondly, while others revile it in recollection. Thirty-one years later, it has been released on DVD. Sam Greenlee's an interesting man--another book of his, Baghdad Blues, is evidently an autobiographical novel based upon his first hand experience of the 1958 Baath coup in Iraq. Side notes: Researching this post led me to the intriguing Chicken Bones. And here is Elvis Mitchell's take on The Marginalization of Black Action Films.
posted by y2karl on Jan 20, 2004 - 6 comments

Mathew Branton, an established author is giving away his latest novel "The Tie and The Crest", for free on the internet, here he explains why. It's all very noble and I applaud it. While we are on the subject, has anyone mentioned the Big Read yet?
posted by Fat Buddha on Apr 13, 2003 - 11 comments

Nufonia Must Fall is a possibly unique silent film, shot in paperback with a soundtrack for piano and turntable instruments. For any web-enabled numerologists reading, it also has an interesting URL. Check out the flash intro ...
posted by walrus on Apr 4, 2003 - 10 comments

Cory Doctorow's first novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" has been published. Although a first novel by a science-fiction writer coming out is always cool, this one is not only published in dead-tree format by a major publisher, it's available for free online under the Creative Commons license. Much whuffie to Cory.
posted by GriffX on Jan 10, 2003 - 10 comments

"I was very lucky that she triped over my uncontios body beried under piles of ash..." A saga of epic proportions: some moron living inside his "Morrowind" RPG computer game writes his gameplay out as a novel. Welcome to a capsule indictment of American education and the consequences of the new "American Way." Thank heavens we don't live in Morrowind, where most people can't "right nor reed."
posted by Perigee on Oct 11, 2002 - 20 comments

If cyberspace were organized into a giant neural computer... [NYT, reg req] ...one could in theory "upload" a person's mental software into it: thoughts, feelings, memories, the works. - an interesting sci-fi premise by author john darnton complete with a contemporary 'mad scientist!'
posted by sixtwenty3dc on Aug 7, 2002 - 29 comments

Monday is the last day to declare your intention to write a 50,000-word novel during National Novel Writing Month (Nov. 1-30). "Dubious fiction writers from all nations are invited to participate," says organizer Chris Baty. So far, around 3,000 writers have pledged to bring 150 million new words into the world.
posted by rcade on Oct 28, 2001 - 103 comments

Fay Weldon, Part 2. Michael Chabon, Rick Moody, and other writers give their opinion in this Salon piece.
posted by sassone on Sep 4, 2001 - 1 comment

Buckley (Heart) Elvis? No, it's not a liberal v. conservative thing. Writing an Elvis book just does not fit the William F. Buckley image. Ontime spy novelist. Erudite PBS show host. Shows up in places like House Beautiful, waxing witty about homes and home decor, with references to the Metropolitan Opera and such. I too love the Big E, but this is baffling and hilarious. He apparently discusses his E fixation in the upcoming (and usually outstanding) Southern Music Issue of the Oxford American. Thoughts? Is the new American literary dream to retire and write an Elvis book, as opposed to the Great American Novel?
posted by raysmj on Jul 16, 2001 - 22 comments

Douglas Rushkoff is writing an open source novel that readers are encouraged to leave footnotes on. These footnotes can contain comments, suggestions or discussion about other footnotes. Is this the future of publishing or a cheap gimmick?
posted by mathowie on Jul 9, 2001 - 23 comments

Neil Gaiman's Journal - powered by Blogger no less. Most well known for his Sandman series, and as screenwriter for the english release of Princess Mononoke, Gaiman is now finishing a novel titled American Gods. It's an interesting, candid look into his daily life. Now I feel the urge to re-read some of those old Sandman books I have tucked away in my closet. via [cold][wet][durham]
posted by kokogiak on Mar 9, 2001 - 42 comments

In Lynne Cheney's rereleased novel , the vice president drops dead of a heart attack while having adulterous sex -- and his scheming wife takes his job.
posted by amanda on Nov 29, 2000 - 0 comments

Nick Hornby on Hollywood. The author of High Fidelity talks about its movie adaptation: "It is not possible to extract from the novel its central high-concept idea and chuck the rest away, simply because there is no central high-concept idea. Anyone attempting to do so would find that they had spent a reasonable amount of money on a story about a guy who works in a record store and splits up with his girlfriend."
posted by lbergstr on Nov 21, 2000 - 4 comments