Laurie Lamson

There are a lot of writing books out there but not so many that focus on speculative genres, so I'm always excited when I come across one that does. This particular book had a few nuggets of treasure that I found very valuable, but the majority of it was not helpful to me. Despite the seasoned professionals that contributed, this book is definitely focused largely on beginning writers. Too much "how to get ideas" and not enough "how to make my existing ideas better" for me. Also, about half of this book focuses on screenwriting rather than fiction, which I found only marginally helpful. For the few great take-aways I got from this book, it was worth reading. If you are a speculative writer who is just starting or suffers from writer's block, the exercises in this book will probably be of great value to you. If not, you might want to skip this one.… (meer)

Brief essays introduce over 80 exercises by writers of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. 15 of the essays/exercises go above humdrum advice, to truly inspire. "Catching Up with the Future" by Douglas McGowan and "Story Endings: Where Monsters Lurk" by Lois Gresh are two of those.

The rest, meh.

My biggest nitpick is how many of the contributors were from TV/movies. I would've preferred that all contributors have a background in literature, teaching or writing. (It's already tough enough to find spec fic that reads like a book rather than a movie.) But if you write, say, novels and screenplays, you'll find many of these exercises useful.

3.5 stars… (meer)