There’s been a bunch of conversations happening online recently focusing on book reviews, and the necessity of having good reviews for writers to reach any kind of critical mass in readership that allows a book (or book series) to take off. It’s certainly true that having a bunch of good reviews for a book willContinueContinue reading “Love and Hate in Reviews”
Category Archives: Reading & Writing
Books I wish I had written
(Or…What Inspires Me as a Writer) We all have our favorite books—those we read again and again, that speak to us directly and touch something inside of us. Writers have a slightly weird relationship to novels, especially great novels. Before I wrote my first novel, I could get sucked into a great story and letContinueContinue reading “Books I wish I had written”
Through the eyes of the first person…
Recently, I began reading the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny to my son. I’ve had The Great Book of Amber, which collects all ten novels in the series (though not the short stories) for many years, and this series has stuck with me since my initial read of it. Zelazny published the firstContinueContinue reading “Through the eyes of the first person…”
Reading and Writing: Reader Expectations
As I mentioned many times, I love to read out loud to my wife and son. I’ve gotten to share so many books with them over the years, and it’s so much fun to do. Over the last month, I introduced my son to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. InContinueContinue reading “Reading and Writing: Reader Expectations”
Introduction to Sword & Sorcery
I’ve been reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series to my son and my wife over the last couple of weeks. My wife is familiar with them, but they are complete new to my son, and he’s enjoying them immensely. However, I’ve found that there are opportunities for me to read to myContinueContinue reading “Introduction to Sword & Sorcery”
Lord of the Rin…uh, Flies!
Over the past couple of weeks, I read William Golding’s classic book, Lord of the Flies, to my son. This was a bit of a departure from the fantasy and science fiction books that I’ve been reading to him, but it was a book that I read in school a long time ago, and IContinueContinue reading “Lord of the Rin…uh, Flies!”
Reading and Writing: Out of Order
I recently finished reading the original trilogy in the Dragonriders of Pern series (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon) to my son. He quite enjoyed the books, especially The White Dragon, and the mix of fantasy and science fiction elements was an interesting departure from the pure fantasy stories I’ve read to him in theContinueContinue reading “Reading and Writing: Out of Order”
Reading and Writing: Books have soundtracks, too!
Movie soundtracks are pretty popular. In fact, many soundtracks are worth listening to even when you’re not watching the movie. And there are quite a few films that wouldn’t be nearly as good without the score underlying the drama. But books don’t have soundtracks. Everyone watches a movie at the same speed, but different peopleContinueContinue reading “Reading and Writing: Books have soundtracks, too!”
Reading & Writing: The Crystal Shard
The roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons has been around a rather long time, going through multiple editions (commonly considered five, if you don’t count Original, or the various versions of Classic, etc.), two different companies, and countless writers. And over those years, the D&D and property has been used for a lot more than justContinueContinue reading “Reading & Writing: The Crystal Shard”
Reading & Writing: Epic Beginnings
Epic fantasy has been an extremely popular subset of the fantasy genre for many years now, and shows no signs of stopping. Trilogies have been replaced by huge series spanning (for example) 7 books, 9 books, 10 books, and 14 books. Tolkien did it in under 500,000 words in The Lord of the Rings, butContinueContinue reading “Reading & Writing: Epic Beginnings”
Andrew J. Luther 
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