Follow
Books by D.J. Butler
Author Archives: David
Bookshelf: Verisimilitude
Deren Hansen’s Verisimilitude: How Illusions, Confidence Games, and Skillful Lying can Improve Your Fiction is a pithy and readable guide to improving your writing. It’s ostensibly about writing fiction, but in fact I think a lot of the advice is applicable … Continue reading
Posted in Bookshelf
Tagged Anne Gallagher, Brandon Sanderson, Deren Hansen, How to Write, Howard Tayler, Scott Westerfeld
Leave a comment
Bookshelf: Partials
The backstory of Dan Wells’ biopunk epic is that America genetically engineers a bunch of semi-human “Partials” as supersoldiers — tough, unfeeling, regenerating killing machines. Who turn around and overthrow civilization. At the same time, a plague, called the RM … Continue reading
Bookshelf: Spirit Walker
The Serpent Catch series is Jurassic Planet: in a far future, homo sapiens has terra-formed a world and filled it with neanderthals and dinosaurs (as well as sea serpents and dragons). Thousands of years later, our hero is Tull, half-human … Continue reading
Bookshelf: Bieber’s Finger / Funk Toast and the Pan-Galactic Prom Show
Twana Burch is a lucky girl. Yeah, her brother is involved with a black-market cloning racketeer, and her mom is a junkie declining rapidly towards death. But Twana, who is the HUGEST FAN EVER of the mononymic pop star Bieber, happens … Continue reading
Sasquan, Here We Come!
Space Balrogs are pleased to announced that we’re going to Sasquan (this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, in Spokane)… as part of the show! Look for us as part of the First Night Show, presenting Choose Your Own Apocalypse. We’ll … Continue reading
Posted in Conventions
Tagged Choose Your Own Apocalypse, Sasquan, Space Balrogs, WorldCon
Leave a comment
Bookshelf: The Crown and the Dragon
This is the story of a princess whose people have been subjugated by a foreign power and the outlaw who is her unlikely companion. Elenn is fated to be a paladin, and bears a magical artifact of tremendous destiny, but … Continue reading
Bookshelf: James Owen
James Owen is a storyteller of a particular kind. In the same way that Bob Dylan is a troubadour / balladist wielding an ancient tradition of lines, tropes, structures, and concerns, Owen walks as a sort of guide to, shuffler, reinventor, … Continue reading
Bookshelf: Million Dollar Outlines
I occasionally remind myself of craft principles by going back to the well and reading a book about writing. This week, I read David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines. If you’re trying to write your first novel (or your nth novel) … Continue reading
Bookshelf: Bloodletting
The Affinities Cycle is an epic fantasy saga in a Farlandesque or Sandersonian vein… 5/5 stars, and bring on the sequels! As in Sanderson’s and Farland’s most famous books, magic here is schematic, tied to an ordering of the world, its … Continue reading
Posted in Bookshelf
Tagged Brandon Sanderson, David Farland, Epic Fantasy, Mark Ryan, Peter J. Wacks, Wordfire Press
Leave a comment
Houston, We Have Liftoff
That joke is probably going to get overused this weekend. William Shatner and I and a few thousand of our closest friends will be in Houston this weekend for Space City Comic Con. Come find me with WordFire Press at … Continue reading
Posted in Conventions
Tagged Houston, Space City Comic Con, William Shatner, Wordfire Press
Leave a comment
