How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy provides a brief yet informative education on what tools can be utilized to construct compelling speculative fiction. This book is dedicated specifically to the information writers of speculative fiction need to know: world creation, alien societies, rules of magic, and imagining possible futures (readers who wish to learn about characterization, point of view, plotting, style, or dialogue are referred by the author to his other published works on writing...

Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (HTWSF&F) is published by Writer's Digest Books, which means it's sparse, focused purely on the topic and has an average price tag. These are not necessarily good things.The book is about a 138 pages minus the index, implying that in 138 pages the beginning writer is expected to walk away with enough information on how to write speculative fiction. Hogwash. In addition to this, of the 5 chapters, only 3 are HTWSF&F, and of these 3, only 2...

I had this friend, Phoebe, who believed in faeries. In order to receive advice from her fairy godmother, she completed a daily tarot reading and wrote her analysis into a journal. This was a habit she’d kept up for YEARS. Buncha damn nonsense, I thought.Then I had a tarot reading of my own.On one hand, I was right. It possessed no prophetic power. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. There was no fairy godmother.But on a different hand, I was wrong. It was actually quite useful. In

Short but most definitely sweet. This provides a brief insight into the world of speculative fiction from one of its reigning masters. It begins with an introduction into the science fiction and fantasy genres before continuing with pointers to help in your own successful penmanship of them. I had feared this to contain a repeat of information found in any other conventional 'how to write' manual and was pleasantly surprised to find a good variation from the expected.Whilst I did find that this

Hazy Shade of a Review: I remember reading this after leaving school with a journalism degree, putting a couple years of newspaper writing behind me and realizing I wanted to try something - anything - else. I remember thinking Card's advice sounded like good stuff. Hells if I can remember anything specific though. Still and all, the feeling I came away with, and what I still retain, is that this was a quality book, which I'd read again if I had the time and could find the dang thing again. I kn...

Overdue for a re-read.I remember liking it, feeling that Card had made tangible many of the elements of good fantasy that I admired in favorite genre books, but couldn't clearly "see" because the authors were too adroit to let readers glimpse the scaffolds.

Firstly, I would like to point out the reason as to why I picked up this book: I would like to one day become a published FANTASY AUTHOR. Therefore, my review will be from the perspective of a wannabe Fantasy Author.Well Orson Scott Card is certainly a good writer. No one can really say otherwise. He was the first person ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula for the same book and is one of the best selling writers in the world today. In more recent times he has become a bit of a hated figure for

This is kind of a tale of two books. The volume is only 137 pages long, and nearly half of it is useless. Chapters 1 and 5 (there are only five chapters) deal heavily with the state of the sci/fi-fantasy publishing industry, but a LOT has changed in the past dozen years. Hence you get gems like this one on page 113: "For your first novel, you don't need an agent unless you've got a contract offer from a publisher."Yeeeaaahhhhh....So unless you're interested in literary history, all you need is t...

A good book, but not a great book. Mostly filled with okay advice, some good stories, some very outdated chapters, and a few golden nuggets (MICE in particular is excellent, as is most of Chapter 3: Story Construction). It’s a little clunky to read sometimes, especially when compared to the ultra-silky non-fiction of Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, but never impossible to read. I would think this book would best be used a reference book on the occasion that you find yourself in...

A fantastic (pun intended) resource for storytellers of all kinds, especially those writing speculative fiction. As you would expect, some of the market advice is dated, but the principles of storytelling are as true as ever.

I will admit: I went into this book a bit smug, judging from the title that it was going to be far below my "level" of writing and that I would come out feeling completely validated in my world-building because the advice Card gave would be for beginners and I, though unpublished, was of course not a beginner. However, I was pleasantly (and sometimes rather uncomfortably) surprised on many counts. To begin, I must say that Orson Scott Card is a good writer. I have never read a single one of his...

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy is a great primer that would be valuable for anyone just starting to write in these genres.One valuable feature of the book is the numerous examples of well-written and not-so-well-written science fiction. These do tend to be more science fiction than fantasy, so fantasy authors may be disappointed. Another is the extensive list of science fiction and fantasy authors Card recommends.This book seems to be geared to anyone new to writing science fiction or

Orson Scott Card has written some amazing fiction in his time. Many of these have gone on to become movies, and in fact still do. Given the chance to pick this book up, I had picked it up years ago. The original review for that purchase has been lost to the sands of time, yet I was given the chance to revisit this short piece of writing advice thanks to Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction: How to Create Out-Of-This-World Novels and Short Stories. Thus, I decided to review this book again.Much to b...

It's been a while since I read this, but some of Card's inspiration have stayed with me as I've honed my craft over the last decade. Great stuff!

I have owned Orson Scott Card's How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction since 2007 and have repeatedly tried to read through it. It's a tough go. Indeed, How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction is not as good as some of the other books on writing Science Fiction/Fantasy that I've read as of late. 'Tis disappointing, coming from one of the leading figures in speculative fiction. It's not that How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction is written badly—the book is written well. And it's not like there i...

I went into this book already loving quite a few of Card's Sci-Fi and fantasy works and was happy to find that his writer's voice carried over from his fiction to his instructional book. I'm just a fan of his writer's voice.But man this book was so informative for me. Yes, a lot of the publishing information is way out of date. We have the internet now for starters. (This book was published in 1990. It's older than I am.) But Card knows when he writes this that the market is bound to change beca...

Generally, I heartily recommend George Gopen's The Sense of Structure as the most important book on writing. But where I find books such as Eats, Shoots & Leaves entertaining and not unhelpful, owning more than one book of that type is generally unnecessary (though I own quite a few). Books such as How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, on the other hand, offer additional genre help and advice regarding writing groups, length of book, etc. Great insights, and I see my husband (who is a budding

An older reference now, but a good one. In a relatively short book, Card gracefully fits together quite a bit of concrete guidance on technique (much of which applies to writing fiction of any kind), on why as well as how to do things in certain ways, and some useful context in terms of history of both genres. His style is clear and conversational. This is one of the better books on writing I've run across yet.

Orson Scott Card's fiction is incredible, and Ender's Game is one of the classic scifi novels. Card manages to do a very good job of teaching the craft, with a very specific emphasis on speculative fiction. I wasn't expecting it to be this good, and I'm sure it will be a daily go-to reference. Want to write scifi or fantasy? Buy this book, study it.

I shared some tips from this book here: http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2009/...

the basic advice is: a) have an annoying wunderkind, b) ??????c) profit!

I read this book sometime back in High School '94-96 I guess. I found it to be helpful and engaging.

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy is Orson Scott Card’s guide to the craft and business of writing for these respective genres. It’s impossible to review this book objectively, as it was first published in 2001 and the business of writing has changed a great deal. Therefore, my reading and review of this book primarily reflects my thoughts on how useful and entertaining it is to a contemporary audience.Unfortunately, this renders as much a third of the book obsolete from the first, except a...

I picked up this book because Brandon Sanderson suggested it on his blog, and since he writes amazing books and Orson Scott Card writes amazing books, I thought maybe I could glean something useful. And I did. Just not as much as I hoped. For one, the first printing of this book was in 1990...so it's outdated. Skip any information about speculative magazines and publishing. Much more current information is online.I did love the walk-through of some of his brainstorming sessions and how speculati...

First, the ebook version I read was RIDDLED with typos and other errors. I'm not reducing my rating for that, however, as it is obviously not the author's fault (this book was originally published before the advent of eBooks), but that of the typesetter who quite obviously scanned the pages from the paperback into a pdf and converted to ebook without bothering to fix anything.But I digress.It's a fantastic introduction to world building and a number of other factors unique to sci-fi and fantasy....

Though this book is a little outdated the information about how to build a world, give life to your characters, and organize your thoughts is valuable. I found my creative juices flowing as I read this book and look forward to continuing to work on my own work.

So far, I've read and gone back over critical points in this book once, and there's still a lot more info I need to review. If you aspire to write sci-fi or fantasy at pro-level, this book is a MUST READ. So read it! You have to! No excuses! And I 'm not fuckin' around!!! BrianStay healthy

This book is incredible! Or son Scott Card is a literary genius and I love his practical tips on writing sci-fi and fantasy! A definite recommend from me to anyone writing in these genres!

Interesting and enjoyable. Some of the publishing advice is out of date, but the rest is helpful.

The last section on publishing is a bit out of date, but the rest is excellent information and super interesting!