The Electronic Reader and the Ebook - another revolution straight from Science Fiction Works

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

Just realized that I've overlooked in my previous post about Science Fiction Gadgets one of the most important gadgets that really changed the way books and literature work today - the electronic reader and the E-Book (EBook?).
 

 

There are many readers today, starting from Amazon's Kindle to Barnes and Nobles' Nook to Sony's reader to almost every decent tablet that can run a reader app.
 

 
Those changes first and foremost affect the author and I can speak from personal experience as someone who published several Kindle works and have another full sized book coming. The publishing work for the author has been made a lot easier. The traditional work of writing, correcting, editing etc. has not changed but getting the work published is now absurdly easy - all you have to do is work with Amazon's site for five minutes and your work is published, ready for a crowd of millions of electronic readers out there.
 
But, for the reader, the electronic reader has made reading an altogether different experience. You can now have hundreds of books right at your fingertips, in the memory of your electronic reader. Everything you need you carry with you, your whole library, with a device that can use e-ink and needs to be charged only once a month, if we're not talking about a tablet.
 

But, like all technological advancements, the electronic reader also has his dark side.
There are now millions of ebooks and more are being published in an ever increasing rate.

What do you read? How do you know a book is really a good book? How do you find the good books?

The future is here - Science Fiction Gadgets come to the retail store next to you!

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

We live in a special day and age but we rarely stop to really look around and be amazed. Just now, several high tech gadgets that would have been considered science fiction even ten or twenty years ago are freely available in stores.

Google Glasses: Android capable glasses with WIFI connectivity and every kind of app available on your smartphone, this little invention enables you to integrate every kind of information right into your field of view, starting from navigation to friend and business location and the possibilities are just astounding. Just think of paintball, with virtual enemies and weapons against real live opponents, all wearing the glasses!

Wearable Android Watch: There are several types of these gadgets around now. WIFI connectivity, Bluetooth enabled to connect to a host of peripheral devices, easy and light, these gadgets really enable you to maximize your computing power wherever you go.

3D Printers: Now these really push back the boundaries of science fiction gadgets. These astonishing devices enable you to create almost any kind of device or object by using the right 3D model of the object and the right plastic construction materials. You can really create anything, guns being the extreme example here though creating a good barrel out of plastic is still problematic. This technology is still at its infancy but where is the limit here? Could we buy a 3D model of a Toyotoa and print it in our home printer out of specially hardened plastic in five years?

These are just the tip of the iceberg, just to show us how tech catches up with science fiction faster than any of us really thought was possible ...

Taking just another little break from Science Fiction and Fantasy to drool on the upcoming Pacific Rim by Guillermo del Toro

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

There really are very few movies I look forward to as much as I an BREATHLESSLY anticipating the upcoming Pacific Rim by the legendary Guillermo del Toro!

There are very few film makers that understand science fiction and fantasy as well as Guillermo del Toro does. He made movies such as Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, The Hobbit, Mimmic, Splice - Each of these movies is a veritable fest of imagination, extravaganza and deep love for everything that is fantastic.

Guillermo del Toro is easily the equal of James Cameron and Ridley Scott, in my eyes at least. Though his films are usually made with smaller budgets and are less profit oriented, they are every bit as good.

Pacific Rim promises at least to equal if not surpass these movies. The storyline, as far as I understand (I have to confess, whenever the trailer comes up I close my eyes and try to shutdown my ears - I want the film to surprise me as much as possible!), is about huge monsters coming up from the deep, battled by huge robots piloted by a desperate cadre of humans fighting for out planet. Monsters, Robots, Apocalyptic events, and Guillermo del Toro! Please, let July's release date come already!

Taking a break from science fiction and fantasy and going to a short interlude involving Iron Man 3

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

So, I went the other day to see Iron Man 3 at the movies.

A great film, really, much better than Iron Man 2 and approaching or even surpassing Iron Man 1, though <Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! The scene at the end where the suits explode one after the other was quite hurtful to see ... /End Spoiler>

Anyway, just wanted to tell that we, me and my wide, stayed to the end to see the scene after the credits (totally worth it, by the way!) and I was quite surprised to see that the only people in the cinema with us were only girls. Yeah, only girls stayed with us to the end to see the last bonus scene.

I'm not a chauvinist, really I'm not. I just wondered aloud where were all these girls when I was dating! (i'm married for four and a half years now).

So my wide answered that she stayed with me to see that last scene but I replied that this was after four and a half years of schooling her on my part ... i.e. I had to find a girl I love and teach her that ... In my time there were no girls like that. Oh well, that is progress ...

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy - What's the difference?

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

As my short list of works shows, I've written Fantasy such as The Fire At The Gates and also pure Science Fiction works such as Automatic Rebellion.

So, what's really the difference between writing Fantasy and writing Science Fiction?

In both cases, the trick of writing a good science fiction or fantasy work (of course, in my humble opinion ...) is introducing one or several items of science fiction or fantasy and keeping the rest of the world (such as it remains ...) as mundane and regular and normal as possible.

It comes out of the desire to test and display how those elements introduced interact with the normal and the mundane.

The science fiction or fantasy elements can be varied. Artificial Intelligence entities. Robots. Space ships. Dragons. Evil wizards. Spirits trapped in gemstones.  

So, what is really the difference? 

More on this a bit later ...

Wilder than any science fiction plot or fantasy day dream - the day I was jump started! - Part 3

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

Continuing this horrid tale from here http://dragonoverwashington.blogspot.com/2013/05/wilder-than-any-science-fiction-plot-or.html

The starkness of the room was in livid contrast to the screams and pain that still hung in the air, making it vibrate with untold agonies of the past.

And then he did it, the architect of torture. He opened his bag of pain, rubbed his hands energetically and asked, is this your first time?

Yes, yes, I squeaked. Have mercy on my soul!

Very well, he replied with deep sadness in his voice, I will use my thinnest blades upon your person. And then he pulled out - well, something, since my courage gave out a long time ago and I just lay on the rack, looking straight up, without blinking.

Tick, tick, tick. And its finished.

Is it finished, I asked?

Yes, it is. Do you feel the needles ?

Hardly, I replied.

He touched one needle and then I felt the others. They are all connected with those mysterious paths called meridians.

Well, to make a long story short, he released me half an hour later, though he looked a little disappointed that I didn't report an immediate relief in my sickness.

But it happened. Two hours later I started feeling better. One day latter I was back at fifty percent power. Three days later I was completely recovered.

It works, acupuncture, it works. It worked on me when no cold medicine worked. It jump started me and drove the sickness away.

Even as a science fiction and fantasy author, or perhaps because I am a science fiction and fantasy author, I had little faith in that but I was cure of that.

It works.

Wilder than any science fiction plot or fantasy day dream - the day I was jump started! - Part 2

by Bruno Flexer, Author of: Dragon Over Washington for Kindle,  Dragon Over Washington Paperback The Fire At The Gates Automatic Rebellion UK Amazon: Bruno Flexer's Works

Continuing this horrid tale http://dragonoverwashington.blogspot.com/2013/04/wilder-than-any-science-fiction-plot-or.html

Though felled by that evil foe, the common cold, a possible solution dawned upon me, a solution that could prove more hazardous and fraught with danger than the common cold itself.

And so I went, dragging my disease ravaged body the tens of feet I had to travel to that awful place where the faint hope lingered that a cure might be found.

I was admitted into that place, made more horrid by the fact that outwardly it looked to be a nice, suburban home with two small children, a woman and the architect of the cure, the one whose very existence helped fuel the few dredges of hope I dared to cultivate.

And then I was escorted into the place of torture, a separate room with thick walls whose only function was to stifle the screams of the damned who had suffered inside, the strange scent of unspeakable tortures still hanging in the air.

Naturally, the thick iron door was barred behind me, cutting off all possible routes of escape and all thoughts of succor. I was placed on a kind of rack, though mercifully cleaned of blood, and I could hear the sound of evil instruments being readied for use.

Fellow readers and human beings, please believe me when I say that though a science fiction and fantasy author I may be, I did not invent anything in this tale. It is a real record of things that happened.

I will continue this later, if I find the courage within me.
It goes on here http://dragonoverwashington.blogspot.com/2013/05/wilder-than-any-science-fiction-plot-or_5.html