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Angel Martinez

Angel’s Bits: Stop Yelling!

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Hi all! Welcome to the first installment of Angel’s Bits on QSF where you’ll be subjected to, er, where I hope to talk about writers’ issues, the market, and Stuff We’re Seeing Out There. Today I want to talk about yelling. No, not physical yelling, though shouting in a reader’s face probably won’t leave the best impression. I mean online yelling. This is something all authors have to confront, but those of us writing SFF and SFR, paranormal and horror seem to fall prey to it in alarming numbers. Back in the dark ages of typewriters and snail mail manuscript … Read more

Good Aliens

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Today’s discussion topic sent in by QSF’er Michael Barnette​: Aliens as “the bad guys from space” like those in many movies of late. Should the aliens always be the bad guys or can they be written – no matter how different they are from humans – as “good guys”? It’s interesting to see how aliens go in cycles of good and bad in SF and SF movies especially, from the invasion paranoia stories like Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the ultra-cute alien in distress like ET. But when a culture and intellect is so different from out own as … Read more

You Can’t Judge…Hey, Wait a Minute…

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The old saw about judging a book by its cover isn’t meant in a literal sense, and yet it’s true. We often do judge books by their covers. A cheesy, sloppy, or visually uninformative cover has the potential for turning readers away. A visually uninteresting one can make a book invisible amid a crowd of more eye-catching offerings. Lesbian and gay pulp fiction share a checkered past with genre fiction in that the covers were at one time universally cheesy and sometimes laughable. We’ve come a long way, both in SFF/Paranormal covers and in LGBT covers both romance and not, … Read more

Generational Tech

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Some of us are old enough to remember a time before computers. Some of us are even old enough to recall a time before dishwashers were the norm. What I’m getting at here is how technology becomes a part of the fabric of life and how we react to it when it’s not. My mother resisted getting a dryer for the house for a long time. Why would we need such a thing? We had a laundry line. Now it’s normal for everyone to have them, either in the domicile or the apartment’s laundry room or at the laundromat. They’re … Read more

The Big Sleep

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It’s said that humans are the only organism on the planet who are aware of their own deaths. That’s a bit tough to verify, since we can’t ask cetaceans and cephalopods, elephants and other primates if they’re aware that someday they’re going to die. We do know that humans are aware, though, and for writers, it’s always lurking in the backs of our creation processes. When we write LGBT fiction and especially romance based fiction, a lot of us shy away from the subject because many of us grew up during the literary period where the LGBT character always died … Read more

Tropes We Love

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The word trope often sends unpleasant shivers down the backs of speculative fiction fans. We think of overused themes, tired plots, and situations that have been beaten to death with an Andromedan shock club and then beaten some more. But really, a trope is simply a recurring theme or device when we talk about stories, so all themes when we break them down into their component parts are tropes. Science Fiction and Fantasy are full of them and fans will be able to yell out dozens of examples if you name one. We even have our favorites if we stop … Read more

Me, Me Monday!

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Welcome to ME ME MONDAY at our FB discussion group – your chance to pop in and tell us about your latest success. Have a new book or short story coming out? Let us know. Just sell something? Let us know so we can cheer you on. HOW IT WORKS: I’ll pin this topic to the top of our FB discussion page for the day. –Please post your announcement as a separate post, so I can also share it over to our FB page (as opposed to this discussion group). –If you want, send me your book announcement info at … Read more

Gravitational Attraction Returns

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The triumphant return of Gravitational Attraction – well, for the author, at any rate ;) – happens this Monday, July 21 at Dreamspinner Press. To celebrate, I’ll be haunting the intertubes for the next few days: Tomorrow, I’ll be taking over Dreamspinner’s FB page from 1-4 EST. Gravitational Attraction launches on Monday, so I’ll have a discount code for everyone and a giveaway at some point during the three hours. Stop on by – bring your questions, comments and requests. Within reason. Dreamspinner FB Page On Monday, I’ll be invading the Dreamspinner Blog – same idea, just blog posts instead … Read more

Semper Fae Release Day and That Odd Question

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I’ve often said, only a bit tongue in cheek, that I write both kinds of gay romance – Science Fiction and Fantasy. But for me, this is the majority of the fiction I’ve always read and what I’ve always written, almost to the exclusion of anything else. Contemporary fiction has its place, for other people, and I’ll read it on rare occasions. But it’s not natural for me. So when people ask if it’s difficult switching back and forth between SF and Fantasy, my short, glib answer is “no.” It’s not difficult – but I’m convinced that writing each one … Read more

Hey! Where’s the Funny Stuff?

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Most people (especially non-SF fans) think of science fiction as deadly serious. Because of the often deadly serious topics SF tackles–oppression, climate destruction, discovery vs. ethics–they believe the stories don’t easily lean toward the humorous. However, comedy is the oldest form of social commentary and science fiction has a long, legitimate history with it. From Keith Laumer’s Retief books to the Stainless Steel Rat, from Red Dwarf to the Hitchhiker stories, science fiction humor may not always get the attention it deserves, but it’s always been with us. As a long time science fiction reader, (don’t ask how long, that’s … Read more