Writers of the Future XXVI Review
Diabolical Plots has posted a review of Writers of the Future XXVI, the first full review of the anthology that I’ve seen so far.
There’s some spoilers over there so don’t go read it unless you’ve already read the anthology. I’m pleased with my review, I think the criticisms levied against my story are certainly fair though I’m in a bit more disagreement over some of the ratings given to the other stories. But that’s the cool thing about writing and reading… we all interpret stories differently.
Anyways its nice to see a review… I’ve been a bit disappointed about the lack of reviews having expected a few more by this point in time.
Brent Knowles
Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.
2 Comments
Eileen
Always nice to get a review, isn’t it! Did you think the reviewer had a point? Did almost everyone who won zero in on robots (and variations of) because that’s what the editors liked? More to the point — did you??
Brent Knowles
Eileen,
Many of the stories in Writers of the Future XXVI dealt with artificial intelligence and/or transferring consciousness into a machine. I don’t know if anybody else wrote their story intentionally using those themes because they thought K.D. went for that but I didn’t.
What I did do though was set out to write a science fiction story because I thought it would have a better chance of being accepted than fantasy. And I tried to make it as science-fictionaly as I could — space stations and AI. And I wanted a clear villain, I wasn’t setting out to write a mystery… I was more interested in the conflict Izzy had when confronted with what was going on, not her journey discovering it.
What I think made this story win (and my opinion differs from the reviewer here) is the sidestory — the main character’s troubled relationship with her husband. This worked in tandem with her conflict over the ‘villainy’ taking place on the station.
I think this story had more flavor/texture/depth than some of my other stories. There were a lot of different concepts woven (however inadequately) into the story.
If that makes sense…
– Brent