I’ve been a fan of the Splinter Cell video game franchise for a long time. Since it started, in fact, with the original Splinter Cell title for Xbox in 2002. I remember the first time I played the demo, a young Halo fan with a narrow view of the gaming industry and a justifiable hard-on for Halo: Combat Evolved. There was a live-action television commercial for the game, cryptic, stylish. An actor that looked like the Sam Fisher gamers have come to know and love was loading his silenced pistol, crouched on top of a metallic medical table in some random room — I’m pretty sure it was the police precinct in Istanbul, Turkey, if it is any reflection of the original game’s storyline. Anyway, I played the demo and was immediately hooked.

The cool, seamless action, the stealthy sneaking-around gameplay, actor Michael Ironside’s badass voice-overs, it all had me in love with the character and his strange perspective on the world. Like Fisher explains to his daughter, Sarah, in a flashback during Conviction, “You can see all kinds of things in the dark…” Sam is full of observations about the world, but his story is one of evolution and change; sadly, darkness plays a big role in the whole saga.

While the first game was a masterpiece, and its sequels Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory for the original Xbox were just as good, or even better, than the original, the fourth installment, Double Agent, really tested my faith in the franchise. A colossal disappointment for me, as I’m a huge fan of the series. It had a cool moment or two, sure, and the gameplay evolved to keep up with the capabilities of the Xbox 360 — but the missions were bland, the action too familiar, and the story far less engaging than that of Chaos Theory, which is regarded by many as the first truly perfect video game — certainly among the best games for the original Xbox console, alongside Halo 2 and others.

Following the death of Sam’s daughter, Sarah, Double Agent had players leading Fisher on a spiritual journey, chasing ghosts from within the terrorist organization John Brown’s Army, as well as his own U.S. Government Agency, the fictional NSA subdivision Third Echelon. In Conviction, Sam Fisher is a truly free agent, having no ties to his former career — only his friends, memories, and conviction remain. And as a result, the gameplay has changed a great deal to accommodate Fisher’s new temperament. Stealth is reduced to the bone, becoming merely a tactical component — most of the conversational and reconnaissance aspects of the game involve bashing an opponent’s head through a ceramic sink or window, or by targeting multiple enemies’ heads via the “Execute” gameplay function, hitting the “Y” button, and watching bullets and blood spray through the air with the level of flair and badassery you’d expect from a rogue Sam Fisher.

The story follows Sam through a series of revelations about the fate of his daughter, her killers, the now-dead (by Sam’s own hand, in Double Agent) Lambert, who was once Sam’s boss, and other former comrades — such as Agent Grimsdottir, and a fellow soldier who fought alongside Fisher in Iraq during the first Gulf War.

Long-time fans such as myself will find the story up to par with previous installments, and the scale of the events appealing — you get to talk to the fictional near-future President of the United States (a female, notably — feminists rejoice) directly, and eventually prevent her assassination; and there’s plenty of action surrounding the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and most interestingly, the final mission takes place within 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House, itself. If you never thought something as patriotic, sacred, and beautiful as the White House could look grim, creepy, and downright sinister, then you’ll be surprised by how messy it gets in Conviction, complete with flickering florescents and blood-soaked wallpaper.

While the story’s all that a fan could ask for, and more, it’s the gameplay mechanics, and just how damn much they’ve changed in this latest game, that really makes the title shine. Stealthy moves such as climbing, shimmying, et cetera, are made more fluid, and a hell of a lot faster than in previous games — apparently Sam’s been keeping in shape. It adds an improved sense of pace to the action, and also makes it easier to avoid the fray of gunfire that sometimes gets to be a little to hot for even Sam Fisher to handle. There’s a slew of new weaponry, which adds a lot of dimension to the gameplay, and all of the primary weapons — all pistols, in light of tradition — are fully customizable and feature unlimited ammo. If that isn’t enough to whet your thirst for stealthy shoot-outs, then the shotguns, submachine-guns, and SC6000s (as used by Sam in prior titles, now available when you…er, kill Splinter Cells) that you can pick up and equip at anytime will.

A surprising change that’s been made to the gameplay is the distinct lack of the one thing that has been Sam’s symbol — his “Batman ears,” as one UbiSoft director put it many years ago — his nightvision goggles. In fact, you don’t wear any sort of enhanced vision goggles until you’re over halfway through the solo campaign. In a mission near the end, you infiltrate — in a stealthy homage to classic Splinter Cell gameplay, which is full of nostalgia — the headquarters building of Third Echelon, and wreak all sorts of havoc. Along the way, you run into a cowering scientist who claims that he was once your biggest fan, and offers you a pair of prototypical goggles which he explains are a new type of sonar vision, which allows you not only to see enemies well in the darkness of an EMP-ravaged endgame, but also to actually see through walls, as if equipped with Superman-style X-ray vision.

If all of the aforementioned data isn’t enough to have you drooling, lusting after the latest — and, quite possibly, final (though I certainly pray it isn’t) — Splinter Cell game, then the knowledge that it comes complete with online multiplayer, both “Face-Off” versus mode and at least two “Co-op” modes, in which players across the globe can pair up, or team up, to “Hunt” down and kill specified enemies, or fight off wave after wave in a horde/escalation-style mode that is a sure test of skill.

The visuals, controls, and physics of the game have evolved right along with Sam’s story and the massive changes that the gameplay has undergone in Conviction, and are a seamless, but aesthetically pleasing, transition from the highly acclaimed visuals, sounds, and physics of earlier titles — particularly those of Chaos Theory, which though released on the original Xbox, remains one of the most beautiful games of all time. No fan of the Splinter Cell saga shall be disappointed upon trying out Sam’s continued story in Conviction, and will certainly be delighted — or made furious — by more than a few shocking surprises along the way.

In order to really get a feel for where I’m coming from in terms of artistic and literary influence, I guess it makes sense to let people know — and myself recall — what exactly led me to where I am now, and my choice of career. I’m expanding my horizons wider and wider all the time, but these influential works of art are my very foundation.

Favorite Films

Minority Report — Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise

Inception — Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio

The Shawshank Redemption — Frank Darabont, Tim Robbins/Morgan Freeman

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood

Mission: Impossible — Brian DePalma, Tom Cruise

Raiders of the Lost Ark — Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford

Blade Runner — Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford

Aliens — James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver

The Abyss — James Cameron, Ed Harris

Fight Club — David Fincher, Brad Pitt/Ed Norton

The Island — Michael Bay, Ewan McGregor

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – George Lucas, Hayden Christensen

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones — George Lucas, Ewan McGregor

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace — George Lucas, Liam Neesan

Return of the Jedi — Richard Marquand, Mark Hamill

The Empire Strikes Back — Irvin Kershner, James Earl Jones/Frank Oz

War of the Worlds — Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise

Batman Begins — Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale

The Dark Knight — Christopher Nolan, Heath Ledger

…So, basically, anything noir, cyberpunk, space opera, sci-fi, comic book-based, or pulp adventure.

Favorite Books

Stephen King

Under the Dome

The Stand

Night Shift

The Gunslinger

Just After Sunset

Dreamcatcher

The Green Mile

Different Seasons

Philip K. Dick

The Man in the High Castle

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

A Scanner Darkly

Tobias S. Buckell

Crystal Rain

Ragamuffin

Sly Mongoose

Arthur C. Clarke

2001: A Space Odyssey

Frank Herbert

Dune

Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert

Dune: The Battle of Corrin

Chuck Palahniuk

Fight Club

Matthew Stover

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor

Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game

…And I’m sure that there’s plenty more I forget; those were the ones that I’ll never forget.

Favorite Short Stories

“Beyond Lies the Wub” by Philip K. Dick

“The Hanging Stranger” by Philip K. Dick

“The Golden Man” by Philip K. Dick

“The Skull” by Philip K. Dick

“The Gun” by Philip K. Dick

“The Defenders” by Philip K. Dick

“Fair Game” by Philip K. Dick

“The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick

“The Man in the Black Suit” by Stephen King

“N.” by Stephen King

“The End of the Whole Mess” by Stephen King

“Mute” by Stephen King

“Morality” by Stephen King

“An Ordinary Day, With Peanuts” by Shirley Jackson

“She Unnames Them” by Ursula K. Le Guin

“The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates

“A Jar of Goodwill” by Tobias S. Buckell

“The Shackles of Freedom” by Tobias S. Buckell and Mike Reznick

“The Fish Merchant” by Tobias S. Buckell

“Aerophilia” by Tobias S. Buckell

“Four Eyes” by Tobias S. Buckell

“Smooth Talking” by Tobias S. Buckell

“Trinkets” by Tobias S. Buckell

“Manumission” by Tobias S. Buckell

…Again, those are the ones that stick with me.

Favorite Albums

The Joshua Tree, U2 — “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Bullet the Blue Sky,” “In God’s Country”

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 — “City of Blinding Lights,” “Love and Peace or Else,” “Miracle Drug”

Trial by Fire, Journey — “Can’t Tame the Lion,” “Message of Love,” “If He Should Break Your Heart,” “One More”

Greatest Hits, Styx — “Long Nights (Blue Collar Man),” “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),” “Come Sail Away”

Snakes & Arrows, Rush — “Armor and Sword,” “Far Cry,” “The Larger Bowl,” “The Main Monkey Business”

Reggatta de Blanc, The Police — “Message In a Bottle,” “Reggatta de Blanc,” “Walking On the Moon”

Synchronicity, The Police — “Synchronicity II,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” “King of Pain,” “Every Breath You Take”

In Rainbows, Radiohead — “Nude,” “Reckoner,” “Faust Arp”

O.K. Computer, Radiohead — “Paranoid Android,” “Karma Police,” “Subterranean Homesick Alien”

Black Holes and Revelations, Muse — “Starlight,” “Map of the Problematique,” “Supermassive Black Hole”

The Resistance, Muse — “Uprising,” “Resistance,” “Undisclosed Desires”

Continuum, John Mayer — “Belief,” “Gravity,” “In Repair,” “Slow Dancing In a Burning Room,” “Vultures”

Battle Studies, John Mayer — “Half of My Heart,” “Heartbreak Warfare,” “Perfectly Lonely,” “Assassin,” “Edge of Desire”

Axis: Bold As Love, Jimi Hendrix — “Wait Until Tomorrow,” “Bold As Love,” “Little Wing”

10,000 Days, Tool — “Jambi,” “The Pot,” “Vicarious”

The Battle for Los Angeles, Rage Against the Machine — “Testify,” “Born of a Broken Man,” “Sleep Now In the Fire,” “Calm Like a Bomb,” “Guerilla Radio”

Audioslave, Audioslave — “I Am the Highway,” “Cochise,” “Show Me How to Live,” “Exploder,” “Shadow On the Sun,” “Getaway Car”

Out of Exile, Audioslave — “Doesn’t Remind Me,” “Be Yourself,” “Out of Exile,” “The Curse,” “Number One Zero,” “Yesterday to Tomorrow”

Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Snow (Hey Oh),” “Dani California,” “Tell Me Baby,” “Desecration Smile”

Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Under the Bridge,” “Give It Away,” “Suck My Kiss”

Unknown Pleasures, Joy Divison — “Shadowplay,” “Disorder,” “New Dawn Fades,” “She’s Lost Control”

Ten, Pearl Jam — “Alive,” “Black,” “Jeremy,” “Even Flow”

Black Gives Way to Blue, Alice In Chains — “Last of My Kind,” “A Looking In View,” “Check My Brain”

Dirt, Alice In Chains — “Would?,” “Rooster,” “Them Bones,” “Angry Chair”

What can I say about Sly Mongoose that begins to express my excitement regarding the future of the Xenowealth saga? Well, first of all, let me say that it has my absolute favorite all-time novel beginning. Rather than ruin it by mere summary, I’d instead recommend that you check it out in this 1/3 sample of the book on Buckell’s website. Absolutely stunning, and perfectly suits the non-stop action pace of the rest of the book.

Confident in the inspiration instilled in him by Geoff Landis – a NASA scientist whom Buckell credits for the planet Chilo, the primary setting for this half-space opera, half-steampunk adventure story — Buckell set out to craft the funnest, yet most serious novel of his career yet. While Crystal Rain‘s tone is one of adventure and nostalgia, and Ragamuffin‘s is one of action and ideas, Sly Mongoose is easily the most daring and reflective of Buckell’s longer works. Though there are some surprisingly absurd steampunk and dark fantasy elements in the book – such as the mostly traditional zombies unleashed upon Chilo and its inhabitants, and also the Strandbeests, which are basically handcrafted automatons that scavenge the planet’s airships and cities for spare parts — the overall tone of the book is pretty serious.

The story arc is more or less a “character story,” finally giving the reader a deeper look into the character of mongoose-men founder Pepper, the dreadlock-sporting badass that helped launch Buckell’s career in “The Fish Merchant.” While Pepper was a fairly static character, and seemingly invincible, in previous novels, Sly Mongoose gives readers a very different view of the aging, centuries-old warrior. We see him bleed (more than usual), lose limbs, lament the deaths of innocent humans, and show sincere concern for those around him, despite the facade of pragmatism that the hardened warrior generally exhibits.

Not only does Pepper stretch his muscles (the ones that don’t get severed in the course of the book) in this effort, but Buckell does as well. While Crystal Rain was a vessel of Buckell’s imaginary universe as inspired by his Caribbean upbringing, and Ragamuffin a vessel for all his far-future ideas, Sly Mongoose is the first work in which Buckell really starts throwing in a palpable tinge of his philosophical beliefs in addition to the more abstract themes common of his fiction.

The colonialism aspect that is so key to his short fiction, for example, comes up quite a lot in Pepper’s pondering of the nature of the mysterious alien Satrapy — which is more or less in shambles following the events of Ragamuffin. Also, there are a few somewhat overt political messages laced throughout the work — the idea that true democracy would offer action, whereas current national democratic governments are hindered by poor judicial processes; and also the idea that humanity could best serve its kind by joining together, looking beyond nationalism and cultural differences in favor of global improvement and a greater quality of civilization. Perhaps Buckell’s political views are yet another reason why his fiction resonates with me as much as it does. That, and the fact that he is an expert storyteller who knows how to craft honest, sympathetic characters that live within a hauntingly believable far-future space opera universe.

While the fourth book in the “Xenowealth” saga, Duppy Conqueror, is reportedly on hold at this time, I feel that I can sleep soundly with the assumption that it will in time be written and released once Buckell’s audience and reputation has widened. The fact that he’s written, and contributed to, two Halo tie-in books, at least one of which was made a New York Times Bestseller, leads me to believe that he’ll do just fine in that regard. His short fiction certainly shows no sign of a decline in quality — “A Jar of Goodwill” is likely the most successful, most widely acclaimed piece of short fiction published by speculative fiction e-zine Clarkesworld; and Lightspeed Magazine has recently given him wider recognition by reprinting one of his older works, along with an author spotlight interview. I imagine there are few readers of science fiction at this time who have not yet heard of, or enjoyed, the work of Tobias S. Buckell.

Saw Inception twice, and it’s quickly ascended well into the midst of my top 25 films list. Leonardo DiCaprio has always been an actor who has commanded my respect, and this latest film certainly earns him my highest favor — he’s a film star of the highest caliber, Romeo + Juliet aside. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy all get to truly flex their muscles and stretch their capabilities as well. A lot of mature, atypical casting calls makes for a crew of characters that really shine in the light of one another’s presence.

The film easily solidifies Christopher Nolan as one of my top three all-time favorite directors — next to Spielberg, for Minority Report and War of the Worlds; and next to James Cameron, for Aliens, The Abyss, and Avatar. Not only did Nolan craft one of the most aesthetically beautiful films of all time, he also penned the script. Unlike, say, Avatar, however, this contemporary fantasy (with a small taste of cyberpunk, minus all the nuts and bolts explanation) shines not because of its visuals — although they are pretty stellar, to understate my impression — but rather because of its superb screenplay. Easily the best-written movie I’ve ever seen in terms of an intricate, logical, well-plotted storyline that is well-suited for its audiovisual medium. Truly brilliant.

Watching the film a second time, I analyzed virtually every aspect of the story and how it is constructed, and in addition to coming up with my own cyberpunk concept — one I hope to use to fill several short stories and eventually a full-length novel — while actually watching the inspirational movie, I also had an epiphany about good storytelling. Good art, literature, film all has three components in common: emotionally-triggered reader/viewer sympathy, gained through the use of appropriate in-story relationships to which the audience can relate; well-conceived, original, and logical interrelated ideas from which the story develops, which can be generated through inspiration, Orson Scott Card’s prescribed “question session,” and old-fashioned thinking/outlining; and most importantly, philosophical illumination — good stories have to blow your mind, at least in some slight-of-hand way. They have to change your life, if only for a few days. They have to penetrate your beliefs, shatter your perceptions of reality, and lead you to question your existence. Those stories have staying power; they last for decades, centuries — not the ones that were written purely based upon a lack of thought and cliches.

Art is powerful. It changes us. And it damn well should — that’s why it’s created in the first place, I’d argue. Sure, some of it’s good, some of its bad; some lasts with us for years, changing our lives, some of it is purely for entertainment and is laughably illogical. My point is good films, good books, and good works of art — video games, on occasion — carry a sense of philosophical questioning, a handful of ideas and observations about the world that have gone previously unnoticed. Those works an audience never forgets, and the artists among that audience are granted a better understanding of their own craft and a fair dosage of inspiration. At least, that’s what Inception did for me.

I’ll endeavor to make this a short review, since I’ve already said more than enough about how big a Buckell fan I’ve become recently. I enjoyed Crystal Rain as much as I did some of my all-time favorite reads, such as Stephen King’s The Stand and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Books of such a high level of excitement and so many great ideas don’t just fall out of the sky on a regular basis — though I wish they did.

Ragamuffin takes nearly all of the great ideas Buckell has explored in brief with his short fiction — cybernetic/medical human enhancement, oxygen debt, wormhole transit, human oppression by alien masters — and interweaves them with his grand Crystal Rain universe, which owes a great deal to his fond memories of a Caribbean upbringing.

The book is divided into three parts, “The Benevolent Satrapy,” “The Return of the Gods,” and “Human Affairs.” The first section of the book introduces Nashara, a character who, like Pepper, has been shut off from her connection to humanity and stranded on an alien-dominated world. Also like Pepper, she is no ordinary human — rather a killing machine with vast abilities that allow her to interact with the computerized network known as the lamina, and also to survive even in the vacuum of space. These abilities make for some great cyberpunk ideas that Buckell explores wonderfully throughout the rest of the novel.

The second part of the book returns the reader to the world of Nanagada — or New Anegada, to the Ragamuffins in outer space — where John, Jerome, and Pepper remain separated from their past by a wormhole that has remained closed. While Crystal Rain hinted at a great deal of humanity’s history with the various alien races in the Xenowealth universe, it is in Ragamuffin that Buckell finally starts really having fun with the possibilities of the aliens themselves and the possible motivations behind their influence over the Nanagadans.

Like Crystal Rain, the action never stops, and the reader is hard-pressed to put the book down even to sleep. The plotting is tight, logical, well-structured, and the new characters are both likable and fit well within the context of the saga.

I finished the book, put it back on the shelf, and immediately grabbed Sly Mongoose. I just simply couldn’t wait to get to the third installment. Probably my favorite space opera series. Like Drew Karpyshyn’s Darth Bane novels, I am just enamored by the characters and world Buckell’s created with this series — and that doesn’t mean that the stories aren’t without a fair dosage scientific rigor and great ideas to supplement the masterful storytelling. A truly great book, and as with many trilogies (although let’s hope that Duppy Conqueror, the shelved fourth book in the series, sees the light of day soon), I suspect the second installment may be the best of them all.

Saw Predators in theaters today. Thought it was pretty kickass, especially when compared to that awful sequel Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. A lot of good actors, a decent — although under-developed — plot, and some really tight action sequences. Although nothing too revelatory happens, you do learn a bit more about the Predator species, and there’s a nice reference to the original Schwarzenegger film. Then I was forced to watch Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, which I have to say was truly horrible. Absolutely hated it — a laughably trite plot, stereotypical characters, an overwrought conception of heaven/purgatory/gazebo-hell, and way too damn long. Really dragged.

I returned home to a whopping two rejections in my email inbox — one from Ideomancer, which was a fairly positive, kind personal letter from one of the associate editors there, which means it got past slush reader Michael Colangelo, who rejected the last two stories I sent them; and another from Weird Tales, which told me absolutely nothing other than that they wouldn’t be buying the story.

Nothing like failure to get you motivated, strangely, but I’m feeling pretty exhausted tonight. Why do I feel I have the right to be exhausted? What have I done to deserve such a chill demeanor? Well, damnit, I’ve accomplished a fair portion of my summer 2010 goals, that’s why.

I’m working on stories 11 and 12, and my word count for 2010 is at 34,843.

I’ve collected a total of 27 rejections at this point in my young career. Over a quarter of the way to 100.

I haven’t been doing too terrible in the physical fitness department either, surprisingly; I’ve actually been getting off my ass a fair bit this summer so far. I’m almost at 40% “completion” for my physical activity goals. Of course, once I get to 100 percent I’ll just keep on going to see if I can get to 200 or 300 percent before snow falls on the fields of Illinois, but weight loss is the ultimate goal. I could stand to lose some pounds, to say the least. I’ve been lifting weights, running, walking, and biking, though, so I’m on my way. And I’ve given up drinking soda regularly. I miss all that Coke and Pepsi, but it gives me something to look forward to once I’m much, much skinnier. Healthier. Sexier. For now, I deserve to be miserable and deprived in the sugars/fat/carbs department.

In the meantime, I’ve got every reason to keep on truckin right along toward these ambitious goals. Not sure my goal of 200,000 words of fiction is possible, but at this point I just need to keep producing a lot of short fiction manuscripts. Quality, in my book, is at least as important as quantity. So the story-a-week thing has gone out the window in favor of breathing life into my work. If I’m writing, revising, reading, doing administrative work such as submitting and networking, and honing my craft at pretty much all times, then I’ve got no reason to kick myself.

My current story looks to have a lot of potential. I think that it’s a pretty original convergence of unrelated ideas, and that people will find it entertaining, so I consider it a success no matter how it fares on the market. I confronted two of my personal perceived weaknesses in the writing of the story, so I’ve gained a great deal of confidence from the ordeal. Should have it finished and ready to mail within the next 3 days or so.

Wednesday’s my day off, so I’m gonna get 2 manuscripts polished and submitted, and then hopefully start researching, outlining, and perhaps even drafting my twelfth story, a cross-genre work (space opera, post-apocalyptic, steampunk, western, et cetera) based upon some ideas I had while attempting to write an epic novel in high school. Really looking forward to getting that one out of my head and down on paper, after all these years.

Overall, as I approach my 21st birthday, I find my greatest priority is just to enjoy life. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my best friend Rob, who just returned from Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training, and I’ve been giving rap and reggae a chance — been listening to rock and blues for the past 20 years, so I figured it’s probably time to try expanding my horizons. Just don’t expect me to go buying any bluegrass CDs anytime soon.

Future posts will include, among other topics, a massive article on why I dig guitarist/songwriter John Mayer, a review of Tobias S. Buckell’s Ragamuffin, a review of the Xbox 360 version of Transformers: War for Cybertron, the results of my first Writers of the Future quarter and what the experience did for me (still no word yet on how I did), and a few other surprises, I’m sure. Hopefully news of a fiction sale sometime down the road, as well.

Jay Lake, a writer whom I vastly admire, gave me an invaluable snippet of advice recently.

He said:

Read read read. If you don’t have the time to read a lot, at least read the Year’s Best volumes, especially Dozois and Datlow. Read the magazines if you can, and decent selection of new release novels. Without fuel there is no fire.

No fuel, no fire; now that’s a bit of truth. Should seem obvious, but I’m willing to bet it’s a very overlooked piece of wisdom when it comes to mastering the craft of writing.

Writing is about learning, practicing, and perfecting a skillset that takes literally years and thousands of words to get even slightly good at. That’s frustrating, but there’s no way around it.

But writing can’t simply just happen. You don’t exist in a vacuum, drawing ideas out of the cosmos like some sort of alchemist. A writer uses imagination. Collecting ideas from the familiar world, synthesizing, performing intellectual and artistic fusion to create something that is unfamiliar.

Science fiction literature is a genre of ideas, illuminating some truth of humanity that hopefully hasn’t been completely explored before.

As an adult, someone hoping to become a serious, professionally published writer, it’s no longer socially acceptable — well, don’t let me control you — to play in the sandbox any longer. No longer entirely reasonable to draw ideas from cartoon shows and LEGOs, et cetera.

As adults, we have to forge our own private sandboxes — a place in which our muse can relax and cultivate wondrous ideas that will hopefully coalesce into an interesting, logical story and connect with readers of science fiction, fantasy, whatever genre you’re working in.

Mr. Lake put it well: Without fuel there is no fire. You can’t expect to sit down with your eyes against a blank white screen, watching that pixel-wide cursor flash against an idea-less void. You have to feed the imagination.

This requires, I believe, three things: 1) the ability to observe the knowable world, and assimilate the deeper meanings behind various human qualities and relationships, 2) the preexistence of the imagination, which was hopefully nurtured early in life; it is a sad truth that many lack this human luxury, and 3) the ability to feed the imagination.

As you write, you draw on life experiences and the observations you make about the world around you. But in order to create fiction, instead of autobiography, you have to be able to form your own ideas about the universe — or perhaps your own universe — from the imagination.

Reading is the most important way to strengthen the human imagination, hands down. To see, through the eyes of a writer, how a story progresses — and to analyze just how that story might have come about in the mind of the author — is a truly revelatory experience. Of course, it’s a guessing game, and it’s impossible to track the mental process of another human being, but it is possible to gather some important assumptions in the act of trying. More importantly, the thing you will always manage to do is improve at the craft. By seeing the word-by-word construction of a sentence, the varying syntax, the structure of paragraphs, the flow of chapters and their progression toward a climax and resolution, you learn the art of storytelling.

During times of static growth — that infamous “plateau” — solace can be found in the act of reading. And if you’re not reading, damnit, then you ought to be. There are other methods of exercising the imagination, as well.

Television is usually a big no-no in the realm of time-wasters, but films are an artform that can lend itself to improving the craft of writing and storytelling immensely. As a writing exercise, you could perhaps try writing a partial novelization of a film — perhaps just describing the duration of one short scene. This doesn’t exactly make for a submittable story — it’s stealing; plagiarism. But it would make for an excellent exercise. Reading novelizations for years helped me understand the difference between the cinematic artform and writing, and I think it’s benefited me greatly in terms of my growth process over the years.

Imitation is inevitable, it seems. By drawing on the appealing aspects of one writer’s style, one director’s sense of mood, one artist’s vision of the universe, one musician’s soul, a writer or artist can begin to find one’s own voice. It’s a long road, perhaps, but it resides deep within, somewhere buried amid the unconscious, waiting to collect the treasures life has to offer until one day surfacing in the form of a meaningful story.

If you’re going to take a week off from writing, that’s okay. Probably even a good thing; it can take a while to recover from the stress that sometimes — or oftentimes, for some of us — comes with the act of storytelling. Just make sure that if you do, you’re paying attention to the dialogue and scene structure of the films you’re watching. Make sure you’re reading a book constantly, dipping in for at least a couple hours a day. And if you’re going to play video games, you damned sinner, at least watch the cinematics. There’s fuel for the fire everywhere; you just have to have an eye out for it.

If variety truly is the spice of life, then Tobias S. Buckell’s short story collection Tides from the New Worlds is a flavorful feast indeed. And I can give my assurances that it is. Like Buckell’s longer fiction, the short stories in this collection combine great writing, wonderous worlds, expert storytelling, and characters from every corner of the universe.

Despite having already read it online in .PDF format, I went ahead and reread the first work, “The Fish Merchant,” which marked Buckell’s first professional publication, to the now-defunct Science Fiction Age. In the collection’s wonderful, stylish script, the story was even better the second time around. Before each story — and writers will especially enjoy this — Buckell gives readers a glimpse into what inspired each particular work in the collection. It’s often surprising just how many different ideas and influences coalesced to form a story — or, even just how few, and how simple, others came about.

Buckell explains that, like many of his most cherished works, “The Fish Merchant” came about by combining the influence of the classic science fiction he loved growing up — notably Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, among others — along with his nautical and Caribbean background. The result is a story that examines the mind of working class humanity — China, specifically — and the collateral damage that might occur in the wake of a government receiving a transmission from beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a good first contact story, but it’s the characters, and the eventual tragedy, that make this story so impacting.

Buckell explores the vast realm of speculative fiction to find his own voice in the field in all of these stories, but I believe that it’s his science fiction that really shines. He manages to recall more traditional, classic sci fi while still bringing something new and memorable to the industry. “In the Heart of Kalikuata” examines life as an oppressed woman living aboard a cramped, working-class space station in the not-too-distant future. It makes for a strong story, but I found the descriptions and the ending in this story to be its most powerful points.

“Io, Robot” is obviously an homage to the fiction of automaton maestro Isaac Asimov, but Buckell again surprises the reader with an impressive ability to examine some new facet of the technological age of the future. Instead of concerning itself with the nature of robotics and their relationship with humanity, the story instead shifts the focus toward the nature of humanity by blurring the line between machine and organism, an idea that has been becoming more and more popular as a topic of discussion among the science and science fiction intelligencia. I, for one, am fascinated with the question of what criteria denote an organism in the presence of advanced — cybernetic, I dare say — technology. I grew up watching the G1 Transformers cartoon series on television and VHS, and it’s stuck with me through the years. Optimus Prime, diesel-for-blood or not, is a very ideal human being in my eyes. What is the nature of life? Buckell doesn’t claim to know, but the way in which he poses the question in this delightful story is a joy to experience.

“Anakoinosis” is a brilliant alien-focused story that examines the slave/oppressor dynamic that humankind has employed in times of colonialism by placing a band of prospectors on a planet inhabited by very interesting, diminutive beings with a very unique method of reproduction and learning. The use of an alien as the point-of-view character sheds a dark, yet luminous light on the nature of humanity.

“The Shackles of Freedom,” co-written with Buckell’s Clarion mentor Mike Resnick, was probably my favorite piece in the collection, excluding perhaps “The Fish Merchant.” The story is told from the perspective of a doctor who knows that technology allows him to heal a great many ailments, but who is forced not to utilize them because he serves a colony planet inhabited by the Amish, who believe death to be a God-willed act, not something humanity should attempt to interfere with. It makes for one of the most human, emotionally gripping tales in the collection. The ending was very poetic and stuck with me for days.

“In Orbite Medievali,” Buckell’s winning story for the Writers of the Future contest, is an exciting, somewhat bizarre retelling of Christopher Columbus — the Anglic misnomer for Spanish explorer Cristobal Colon — and his odyssey to the literal edge of the world. Cutting the corners of known physics, for the sake of avoiding his characters’ instantaneous deaths by suffocation, among other complications, Buckell explores the possibilities of ancient sailors’ seafaring adventures across a planet which was, in fact, square like a map. It makes for an interesting story, and I’d say it deserved the win, but I’m of the opinion that his fiction has improved vastly since Buckell wrote this work.

Stories like “Four Eyes,” “Spurn Babylon,” “Trinkets,” and “Death’s Dreadlocks” are literary collisions of Buckell’s dabblings in fantasy, children’s folktales, and dark fantasy with his rich, fond experiences growing up among the islands of the Caribbean. The stories have a lot to teach the reader, regarding the history, myths, and livelihood of Caribbean peoples, and more importantly, they are terrific tales.

In the final third of the book, Buckell stretches his imagination to the limit to produce some truly bizarre tales, giving his own unique examination of dryads/tree nymphs, historical (fantastic) fiction, and more of the Caribbean-flavored space opera that Buckell has certainly mastered — “Necahual,” in fact, takes place within the Xenowealth universe, like ”The Fish Merchant” and his novels Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose. In his introductions, he explains that “Tides” was inspired solely by a painting, “A Green Thumb” by a television commercial, and “Something in the Rock” by listening to rock and roll for a change of pace from his usual preference for rap or reggae.

In sum, I’d call Tides from the New Worlds a grand, diverse showcase of Buckell’s increasingly brilliant, always enjoyable short fiction. Some of the stories, like the zeppelin-jacking-by-a-rampant-cyborg tale “Aerophilia,” didn’t quite tickle my fancy, but were nevertheless substantive and well-written. I found “Shoah Sry” interesting, but so confusing it will eventually require a reread, at least to accomodate my own comprehension.

I’m still a huge Stephen King fan, and he’ll always be one of my favorite authors — I’m really looking forward to his upcoming collection Full Dark, No Stars — but I think that I may have recently discovered my new favorite writer. In a world that’s finally coming to terms with the fact that humanity is not constituted solely by old, white intellectuals in tweed jackets, and that is beginning to acknowledge the ills of reckless colonialism and its toll on the developing world, I find Tobias Buckell’s fresh, exciting perspective on the genre of speculative fiction to be a breath of fresh, revitalizing air.

Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, and the Spaghetti Western

When Homer wrote the Odyssey and the Iliad, he was inadvertently contributing to the vast canonical mythos of the Greeks. When the Vikings passed on the oratory tales of Thor and his mighty Mjolnir, they were creating a Norse mythology. When J.R.R. Tolkien sat down to pen the epic The Lord of the Rings, he was deliberately making an earnest attempt at creating a mythology for England.

When an Italian director named Sergio Leone undertook the filming of a grandiose American Western film saga, he was unknowingly creating the key characters, and stories, of the American Western mythos. While John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Kirk Douglas, among myriad other American actors, had long been reinacting the trials and tribulations of the Old West, and its mythic Frontier, no figure remains the keystone of the Western like Clint Eastwood and his Man With No Name trilogy.

Throughout the sixties, Leone directed four “Spaghetti Westerns” — so called to distinguish them from the very different U.S.-produced Westerns, which were less gritty, and also less…interesting, arguably. They lacked the humanity and inventiveness of Leone’s breakthrough films. The first, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), is a lackluster cinematic achievement, overall, but properly introduced the Man With No Name character — and turned Clint Eastwood into an international superstar. The first sequel, For a Few Dollars More (1965), was a far more successful film in terms of money made, storyline, and cinematic artistry. The gunfights were also slightly more interesting, making the mythical American Bounty Hunter seem far more larger-than-life. The third film in the trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), is nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece, the masterwork of Leone’s career, and quite possibly the greatest film of all time.

Utilizing revolutionary cinematic techniques, wide panoramic shots akin to fine art, startlingly gritty close-ups, Ennio Morricone’s brilliant, guitar- and whistle-tinged score, and actors of the highest caliber, Sergio Leone crafted a film that I believe rivals the Mona Lisa in the realm of art.

Eastwood — The Good, Lee Van Cleef — The Bad, and Eli Wallach — The Ugly — give the best performances of their careers (okay, except for perhaps Gran Torino, but I could argue with myself for days about that), painting a vision of infantile America that rivals the poetic, epical nature of even LOTR or Beowulf. Seriously.

The fourth Leone Spaghetti Western, Once Upon a Time in the West, was a fairly critically acclaimed film, but began the downward trend of the perceived quality of Leone’s work in the genre. It features Henry Fonda in probably the most sinister, villainous role of his career, and replaces Clint Eastwood — and what a mistake this was, I’d argue — with Charles Bronson playing the new, less interesting Man With No Name. I’m not sure what Leone canon, if there is such a school of thought, claims about the character; it is my belief, however, that Bronson’s character is an entirely different individual, as he is seen playing a harmonica throughout the film as his sign of 1) someone’s going to die, and soon, and 2) he’s a badass, and don’t you forget it. Eastwood’s No-Name character used a cigar for this same purpose.

Regardless of the few merits it does lack, it’s still an outstanding film and probably better than at least the first of the Eastwood/Leone trilogy. Following Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone went on to make Duck, You Sucker! – a.k.a. A Fistful of Dynamite — which was a veritable failure in the scope of his presitigious, well-deserved career. It’s no wonder that Eastwood chose to discontinue his involvement with the Spaghetti Western genre at this point and begin his own directoring career.

Following his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me (1971), he starred in John Sturges’ Joe Kidd (1972), a fairly respectable film, and then went on to direct his first Western, in which he also starred. High Plains Drifter (1973) marks a point in the American Western genre that I find to be pivotal.

Aside from the general good writing, acting, and frontier-based themes that are the keys of a good Western, High Plains Drifter introduced the world to the greater possibilities of the genre. As a writer myself, I see endless opportunities to build upon and diversify a genre that has been so rigid and unchanged for about a century of cinematic history. Louis L’Amour’s novels, I admit, I’m not really familiar with, but I have a very solid suspicion that his works don’t exactly break new ground. They likely rehash the same tired tropes again and again. I see a future for the genre that might mix the Western tale with steampunk, fantasy (well, okay, Stephen King got that one pretty much taken care of), or even horror. The possibilities are limitless. I won’t throw my ideas away just yet, though.

In Drifter, Eastwood’s character “The Stranger” is in fact a ghost — a spectral reincarnation of a man who was unjustly tortured and killed by a gang of lawless, ruthless bandits. It is a heartfelt, action-packed, and poetic romance about one spirit’s quest for vengeance and, in light of the mythic nature of the genre, resultant peace.

The film isn’t perfect, as it perpetuates the ancient sexist idea that yes means no, and women enjoy being raped — hell, they might even love you afterwords. A dangerous idea, but I’m sure that Eastwood would be the first to say that 1) they probably were wrong to include that element in the film, 2) it’s historically accurate, so get off my back, and 3) it’s not like Lord Eastwood, God of the Film World actually agrees with that sort of nonsense. It’s fiction, just like everything else.

Its strongest points, like so many Westerns, is its strong sense of storytelling, and its the ability to satisfy certain Freudian longings, like the revolver. The phallic symbol of the gun, most prominently the revolver pistol, is a recurring theme that is the silent centerpiece of all Western literature, art, and cinema. Drifter satisfies the human love — an unconscious one, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t there — of violence. Specifically good, old-fashioned gunfights. Why do you think The Matrix (2000) was such a hit? Sure, it had all the sexy cyberpunk trimmings, anime tropes, and leathery goodness you could shake a stick at — in slow motion, in fact — but it was all that fun violence that made it a hit. And, just maybe, the philosophical underpinnings. But don’t you think those are a part of the Western genre’s appeal as well?

Red Dead Redemption

So why tell you all this? No one cares about Westerns anymore, right? Well, no, that’s not really accurate. In fact, the Western genre is alive and well. Case in point: the 2007 Christian Bale/Ben Foster/Russell Crowe remake of the classic film 3:10 to Yuma, the just-released-in-theaters Jonah Hex (2010), starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and Megan Fox; and last, but not least, the Xbox 360/PS3 video game Red Dead Redemption (2010), the sequel to the original Xbox hit Red Dead Revolver from Rockstar Games’ San Diego division.

The game is a sure sign that video games are getting better all the time, in all aspects. While it lacks the sort of sophistication showcased by state-of-the-art games like Modern Warfare 2 or Splinter Cell: Conviction, it successfully uses the tried-and-true free-roam gameplay of the Grand Theft Auto series, namely GTA IV, from which this title gets it graphics engine and overall aesthetic.

The player takes control of gunslinger John Marsden, a man with a vendetta, a dark past, and a score to settle — and there’s always a score to be settled, isn’t there? In GTA and in Westerns? His wife and son, it is quickly learned, were killed as a result of some event in the player’s immediate past. Also, it is made known that John was once in a gang of criminals, with whom he now has a rather weighty beef. Revenge plot? Almost undoubtedly; I haven’t quite finished the game yet, and I’m not the type to spoil an ending.

In what is likely the absolute largest free-roam, fully rendered environment ever featured in a video game, players are able to plot destinations upon a detailed map of the region known as “New Austin,” and set about on a fairly loose quest that makes for a very interesting and entertaining storyline.

The usual Rockstar humor is there, but the writing in this particular title takes on a much more serious tone than, say, GTA: Vice City. The character is someone the player comes to care about, not some clown or mere digital puppet. This game has a story, and a grandiose, well-written one, at that. The amount of work that went into crafting the script alone is mind-boggling.

The world is one of beautiful scenery, rich characters, and exciting gameplay. The A.I. is both intelligent and difficult, and the controls are seamless. There is the occasional tiny glitch, such as the horse getting stuck in a grouping of rocks, but the gameplay physics couldn’t be more impressive. Riding a horse, aiming a rifle, and downing enemies sounds like a lot to juggle, but the game has been designed in such a way that it’s actually not that hard at all. In fact, it’s quite addicting.

Why is the genre so damn awesome, so endlessly appealing? Is it because I was raised in America? Is it because there’s some savage, subconscious appeal to the idea of lawlessness and so-called “social justice” amid a barren frontier civilization? I’d like to think its appeal runs deeper than mere saddles and bullets, but I can only speculate.

For me, it’s all about having a different flavor of myth, one rich, fresh, and relatable. An American Mythology. As art grows and regresses, Westerns always crop up in one place or another. I only hope that they’ll continue to evolve, as well.

Because art and literature are two of the only frontiers which shall forever remain eternal.

2009

In 2009, I wrote 25,061 words of fiction.

25,061 words = 1 novelette, 1 novel chapter (abandoned work), 1 flash piece, 1 short story; 3 finished manuscripts.

That’s a good total, but it was mostly the result of only one piece I’m fairly satisfied with, and another which I’ve revised to death in an attempt to make it publishable. The flash piece was a school Creative Writing II assignment, which I’m not happy with, and the single-chapter novel beginning was trash — a mere exercise to recharge my fiction-writing batteries.

This stuff was a challenge to do for one reason: I’d been taking a break from writing. At 13, I wrote a 209-page manuscript in less than 2 months. From then on, I didn’t finish anything. Started two or three novels, abandoned them. Along the way, I created some characters, some worlds, some ideas that are still dancing about in my head — one such tale became my first Writers of the Future entry, for Quarter 2 of 2010. The results of that quarter have yet to be announced, but I have a hunch that I’ll be lucky to get an Honorable Mention. It was fun to write, and I love the damned thing, but it’s just not up to par with some of the stuff I’ve read in those anthologies. Why kid myself?

2010

On February 23, 2010, I made my first-ever manuscript submission for publication to Weird Tales, the short story I’d been working to death since, say, October ’09. It was, months later following a query, rejected.

Since then, I’ve been rejected a total of 19 times.

19 rejections in roughly a four-month period. I need to increase my output. If I can write a story a week, or even a story at least every two weeks — hell, occasionally two stories a week would be possible, but I’m sure the quality would suffer as a result.

Rejections make you want more, for editors to see your name more frequently. So you write more to compensate, and thereby increase your chances of success. If you can combat your fears of failure — irrational fears, born of myth and nay-sayers — then there’s no reason why a person can’t write like hell and eventually succeed. How much is a lot of writing, what is quality writing, and how easy success comes is both a matter of luck and subjectivity. There’s no way to really quantify it. Eventually, persistence prevails.

So far in 2010, I’ve written 30,573 words of fiction. That’s for half the year. These figures, admittedly, are slightly inaccurate due to the sole fact that the novelette listed as a 2009 piece was in fact finished in 2010, across November-January, little by little.

30,573 words = 5 short stories, 1 finished novelette, 1 abandoned longer work (probably will be eventually redrafted as a novella or novel, in the future); 6 finished manuscripts

The good news is this: by next week, my “Race Score” should be at 9; nine submissions, nine different manuscripts at nine different paying speculative fiction markets.

The bad news is this: I wasted a lot of time the last few months, as a result of the stress caused by school. College. Ugh…terrible.

My goal, then, shall be to have 40 manuscripts on the market by 2011. That could be somewhere around 200,000 words. That’s as much as two whole novels. Perhaps I shall even write a novel or two before I finish college, then; I’ve got two whole years left. Why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose, but everything to gain. If things go as well as they have been, school will go fine. My first semester, I ended up with something like a 3.6 GPA; the best I’ve had since, I’d say, eighth grade.

200,000 words? Can it be done? Hard to tell. Already I’ve written a fair amount, but the year’s half over. It’s going to require effort, discipline, and routine — writing must become habit. Not just ambition, the here-and-there dabbling of the unpublished amateur. I have to work toward success if I ever expect to achieve it.

If I’m going to limit myself to a goal of a measley 40 manuscripts — all for the sake of not killing myself once school starts up again — then I’m going to make sure I push myself in the direction of novella- and novel-length work at least at some point in the near future. I’m sitting on a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of ideas, but I need to hone my skills, practice the craft, and work towards mastery before I attempt the first serious novel project. It ain’t Jr. High no more, sadly. Henceforth, this is serious.

200,000 words for 2010. If it comes easily, maybe I’ll double it for 2011. Again — who knows?

I’ve decided that I’m going to set aside the How-to-Write books and obsessive online networking, et cetera, in favor of the two things that truly matter: reading and writing. My blog, therefore, is going to lean towards documenting 1) my writing progress, any successes, and how close I am to achieving my goals, and 2) writing book reviews, because I think that sort of thing is very helpful to those who may be in need of a good reading experience.