What is your science fiction writing like?
Giftorcurse
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Age: 30
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I'm one of those SF writers: I use the genre as a jump off point for all sorts of deep ideas. A key influence on me in this area was Philip K. Dick. He was always toying with the reader's head with questions like "What is human?" and "What is reality?" Another characteristic of my writing is the character development, to the point that the plot is almost a secondary thing. My writing is about people and their reaction to this strange universe and the mysteries within it. Technology plays frequently plays a role in the story, and the implications are explored. Is it a friend or our worst nightmare come to fruition? Look around you. We're addicted to the Internet (especially me and you), telecommunications, video games... An inspiration for my "psychopunk" novel Redesigning Eva was my concern about the psychological effects of genetic engineering on humans. Would we benefit from it, or will it become another superficial means of comfort?
I think the term "psychopunk" demands an explanation. Psychopunk is basically punk sci-fi with an emphasis on heavy character development and/or the involvement of psychology in the storyline. The characters are usually caught in a dark mind game or at the hands of a vicious government or seedy megacorp that screws with our heads as a means of social control or profiteering. Precursors to my unique genre include A Clockwork Orange, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Inception, and the John Frankenheimer film Seconds, which, while not quite sci-fi, still contains elements of the genre.
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I could never get into sci-fi. Not only do I know little of how futuristic technology works, but I've always been more interested in the past as a setting than the future. The most sci-fi I could get is a time-travel story.
For my writing, Science-Fiction is more of an environmental factor than a distinct genre. I've written Noir on Mars, Romance on a sleeper ship, and a murder mystery in a human colony on Alpha-Centauri-IV.
Dr. Asimov, Sir Clarke, and Bradbury are my inspirations; they focussed more on the basics of good story writing, even while painting a literary picture of human life between the stars or on other worlds.
ShenLong
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I think the term "psychopunk" demands an explanation. Psychopunk is basically punk sci-fi with an emphasis on heavy character development and/or the involvement of psychology in the storyline. The characters are usually caught in a dark mind game or at the hands of a vicious government or seedy megacorp that screws with our heads as a means of social control or profiteering. Precursors to my unique genre include A Clockwork Orange, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Inception, and the John Frankenheimer film Seconds, which, while not quite sci-fi, still contains elements of the genre.
My writing is starting to stray into that direction. The Blindfold(which is and isn't sci-fi) is especially inspired by PKD. I like to write psychological sci-fi and some philosophical Mid-hard sci-fi. I also like allegory and I might start writing a little satire too. Strictly speaking Sci-fi, I like to write Biopunk, cyberpunk, a blend of hard sci-fi and space opera, psychopunk, psychological sci-fi, and allegorical sci-fi. My favorite movies being Blade Runner, Star Wars Ep5, 2001, The Fountain, and Moon, I draw a lot of inspiration from them. I also draw a lot of inspiration from Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Baxter, Alistair Reynolds, PKD, and Stanislaw Lem.
Oodain
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Joined: 30 Jan 2011
Age: 34
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Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
Hmmm...this is a tough one.
If you want to speak about what author I take after, my writing style is between that of Ian Fleming and Terrance Dicks. Sparse descriptions and lots of dialogue. Quite a bit of internal monologuing.
But where do I take inspiration from? Well, it varies. But I believe in entertainment, first and foremost. Story structure and entertainment.
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On sabbatical...
Both my writing style and my subject matter is heavily influenced by Richard K. Morgan, who was heavily influenced by William Gibson. So, I'm a cyberpunk writer, basically.
I really like cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk; both reading and writing it. So much so, that I currently have a post-cyberpunk novel-in-progress that's coming along quite nicely, actually. I keep the focus on the characters, though, rather than the overarching plot or the world the story is set in. All world development is secondary to the character development and the plot arc the characters are following, meant only to complement the characters and their actions, and partially to explain them. Like a review of a script I wrote for an animated science fiction movie-thing, I seem to do this naturally: "instead of opting for a massive epic, a small group of heroes at play in a larger scene."
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