Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

It's OK but not worth the money

Customer Rating:

I received this book and was very excited to learn things that my writing has been missing. After reading this book I realized that this is not where I will find the answers. The basics of the information is OK, but I agree with what a previous reviewer said having never had any formal writing training outside of highschool english class myself that what we have here is basically just the common sence basics. It's OK for a refresher course for those who haven't done any writing since school, but if you're expecting to unlock some secret formula and suddenly be a published author by the end of reading the book, you're going to be disappointed. I've learned that there's no book out there that can tell you how to use your imagination, although some can give you tips and ideas of how to tap into it and your experiences to come up with story ideas. One thing I noticed here is that the author (who I must admit after reading some of his other works recently is nothing to write home about) couldn't seem to get over his prejudice of Star Trek. He claims that Star Trek has total contempt for science. The things he says about Star Trek totally contradict everything else he says in the book. So basically if you want a book that'll look cool on your shelf alongside a few sci-fi classics you may consider picking this one up. But if you want useful information on how to get the best out of your writing I recommend passing this one up and looking elsewhere.

Extremely Good

Customer Rating:

Well written, with lots of great insights and real confidence builder. Card also give a lot of resources for further study. At one point (from memory) he says that you must simultaneously believe that the story you are working on today is the greatest story ever written ... so that you have the confidence to move forward. And that the current story you are working on is drivel (my word), so you can take the criticisms and rejection and move on. The advice he gives on how to query magazines and publishers is worth it's weight in gold, and the section on being careful not to get "pegged" in a specific genre is pretty good too. The only reason this book doesn't currently rate 5 stars is because some of the information is outdated. I simply have to wonder if, other than certain magazines being out of print, if anything else in the Sci Fi & Fantasy realms have changed since the book was written? Maybe it's time to spend a day or two updating the content, and releasing a new edition.

Good coverage of the Subject

Customer Rating:

When you come down to the nuts and bolts all how to write books present the same or similer information as each other. The only difference is the presentation style of the writer and possibly the empasis of some particular aspects over others. I found this book to be the right book at the right time for me. Some areas like the treatment of reader expectations was new (at least to me). Other points where presented well. A lot of the examples are based on personal expirence, and why shouldn't they be? He is a published author. At the end of the day if he uses his own writing as an example he can known how he developed the ideas, if he uses someone else's he can only speculate. About the only thing to be said against this book is that a lot of the advice on the publishing industry is dated and by now inaccurate, but hay this book was written quite some time ago and the real world is a moving target.

Don't buy this book

Customer Rating:

Honestly, buying and reading the book isn't worth the money or effort. By all means, buy this book if you: - want to hear accounts of the author's problems related to writing - want to see his obviously opinion-based views of the publishing aspects of SF&F writing - want to be reminded of the obvious topics that you should know already [as an aspiring writer] Overall, the book gives more out-of-date examples and opinion-based reasoning than it's worth. Throughout the book, there are perhaps no more than a handful of useful bits of information presented, that you didn't already know. If you know almost nothing about writing, then perhaps this book will be good for you to read. For most people, however, the money and time spent on this book are just not worth it overall. Simply reading through this book makes you want to throw it across the room. The author's perception of the publishing aspects of writing are blatant bull****, and are obviously based solely on his opinionated views. The entire book screams of undertones of his opinions and ideas. Once you get through the oppressive first chapter, you're then bombarded with constant reiterations of obvious common-knowledge topics. How does he explain many of the [commonly known] topics portrayed in the book? Examples of his own writing and editorial experiences, of course! The author's opinionated views seem to permeate every page of the book, which is already common knowledge, or quite close to it. I simply do not understand why this book has received so many good reviews. Overall, I feel that this book was not well written. It doesn't give you much insight into SF&F writing at all, aside from a few useful tidbits of information. My advice to anyone considering buying this book would be: don't.

Short, sweet, to the point

Customer Rating:

This is an awesome little book that delves into the basics of writing speculative fiction from world building to publishing to dealing with family members who don't understand your need to write. I read one Amazon reviewer who didn't care for this book because everything in it is intuitive. Yes, most of what's in here makes perfect sense in a "Well, duh!" kind of way, but sometimes intuitive things need to be spelled out clearly. You may kind of know something at the back of your brain, but unless you can bring it to the front of your mind, it's not going to work for you. This book brings these things to the front of your mind, simply, clearly, and effectively. For example, Mr. Card writes that you should know why things are the way they are in your world. (Well duh, right?) Of course you should know why things work the way they do in your world, whether it's how spaceships manage to travel faster than light, or what the price of magic is. But the important thing is to know how all this stuff works before you really start, as opposed to making it up as you go. If you know what the rules are, then you can make your world believable. (Also, you don't have to keep going back and forth trying to find what you wrote before so that you don't contradict yourself.) What your characters do within those rules can happen spur of the moment, but the world they live in must be pretty well defined in your own mind before they start living there. The last section (The Life and Business of Writing) was the least intuitive of all, but so necessary. Getting published doens't mean quitting your day job (OK, that part was intuitive). Some of what he says is almost disheartening, but my feeling is, being prepared is better than being surprised. Knowing about the pitfalls can help you avoid them. I could go on and on about how helpful this book is, but I have a future bestseller calling to me, demanding that I plug a few holes and flesh out some of those pesky middle parts. So get this book if you like to write sci-fi or fantasy and your intuition is being a bit non-specific. It's good, plain and simple.