Neurilace - Science Fiction by Philip K. Lentz

RSS Feed Homepage

Deeply appealing to the sick-minded
2007-09-09 13:44:00
In my admittedly minority opinion, the greatest work of genius ever to grace a television screen was Lexx. This summer Strange Horizons published an excellent retrospective on the show, including an interview with co-creator Paul Donovan. In it, he sums up exactly my philosophy of writing: "I never intended to make something mainstream—with a moderate appeal for a wide audience—I wanted to make something that had a deep appeal for the sick-minded people like me." Translation: Any hope of fame I may have depends on the existence of enough sick-minded people.Hey, it may not be such a bad bet.
More About: Sick , Appeal

"The Torturess" (Aeon Award shortlisted story)
2007-08-28 18:53:00
The 2007 Aeon Award shortlist was recently cut down to six finalists, and unfortunately my entry "The Torturess" wasn't among them. But, hey, it was the very first place I'd submitted it, so now it will make the usual rounds of print & online fiction outlets.Just for fun, here are the first 600 words or so (of 5,400).The Torturessby Philip K. LentzA Memoir of the War across the OceanThe Holy Scriptures tell us that in the cycle of time now past, our people conquered theirs with our superior weapons and intellects. The same texts tell us that in the current cycle we will conquer them again. Yet although I consider myself to be a man of faith, I have come to question whether we can ever claim victory over the savages of this new continent. Rather I fear our invasion may be a trial devised for us by God, the failure of which will drive us to our doom.The reason for my fallen faith is a young woman known as the Torturess. She had a proper name, of course, but few knew it and I s...
More About: Story

New Blog: Sci-Fi Metal
2007-08-28 13:02:00
I've just started a new blog called Sci-Fi Metal , which should be self-explanatory. I suppose you might think it's about futuristic uses of molybdenum or some such, but no, it's music. Check it out.
More About: Blog

10 things all genre authors should avoid (but won't)
2007-08-25 11:37:00
"You're the only one who can do this job." Sorry, but there's always someone else just as good or better, especially if the first choice would have to be called back from retirement. Please.Bad guys (and good) who don't kill when they should. If they don't, they'd better have a good reason, which is not the same as the author having a good reason, i.e. the character serves the plot better by living.A POV character who thinks and speaks the author's unfiltered opinions. Characters should almost never agree with their authors. It's a recipe for black & white moral simplicity or, in the worst case, preaching.Almost as bad as the above is when a character's thoughts and emotional responses are so bland or universal that he/she just mirrors the reader's reactions. This is a cheap recipe for a likable character, but not a memorable or original one.Endorsement of the old, tired idea that "soldiering is noble." Surrendering one's body and mind to a government (which is not the s...
More About: Authors , Things , Genre , Avoid

"What if..." I don't give a crap?
2007-08-01 15:29:00
I'm probably in a very small minority among readers of a genre commonly called "Speculative Fiction"* on this subject, but frankly I hate stories the main point of which is to ask, "What if..." What if alien immigration made humans a minority on earth? What if machines made 95% of the labor force obsolete? What if people with enough money could afford an immortality drug? What if it became fashionable to surgically graft a talking pet to one's right shoulder? This is what I call "idea-based" SF, and as anti-intellectual as it sounds to admit it, it bores me. Almost every SF publication insists that they want "character-driven" stories, but I think that's misleading. For most of them, the idea is really the star. It's the thing that must be explored fully by the (often painfully introspective) protagonist, the thing the reader is most meant to be impressed by, and most importantly the thing that the editor must believe the author has thought long and deeply about. What a...
More About: Crap , Give

"Bring Me the Head of Sheba Shebari"
2007-07-31 15:19:00
Add:Two protagonists who are just plain awful human beings +Unprovoked mass murder that is not only unpunished but rewarded +A climactic battle that's set up, but deliberately withheld +The sense that there's more going on than is told= A story that's probably not going to sell. Certainly not to mainstream SF markets and probably not even most niches.Read it here, if you've joined my mailing list. (Guaranteed no spam. In fact, maybe I'll never even use it.)---Bring Me the Head of Sheba Shebari, by Philip K. LentzMalcolm Hawthorne was not surprised to learn he’d survived whatever catastrophe had caused the failure of every hibe capsule aboard Duchess but his, killing their scores of slumbering passengers and crew. After all, Malcolm was favored by what passed for gods in this universe, and if a means existed by which he could be killed, he had yet to encounter it.The same could not be said of another Duchess survivor, who was in fact very surprised to learn she was not alo...

Maybe I should change it?
2007-07-31 15:11:00
Apparently there's at least one other writer out there sharing my name, which is why I use the middle initial.This isn't me.Nor this.No idea if those two are the same PL or not, but anyway, they ain't me.
More About: Change

On posting stories online
2007-07-30 17:52:00
Making stories available on a website is a complicated issue. Some editors might consider the words "posted online" an end to all discussion, and that's their right. I personally think "prior publication" should be judged on a case-by-case basis with reference to how many unique views the piece has had, whether or not it can easily be found and read, and ultimately whether it will hurt the prospective publisher's sales.In the end, I agree completely with the following statement from an article by an attorney, on his rather extensive website, from 1996, when the issue was brand new: To fail to exploit our writing over the Net, which appears to be some sort of gift, like manna from heaven, because we are concerned about loss of future but currently unrealized rights, seems a bit foolish. ...[N]ot to use the Net simply because the writer is concerned about an issue that may never arise seems to defeat the entire purpose of what writers are supposed to be doing-writing....
More About: Stories , Online

INTERIM Sample Chapter
2007-07-29 14:15:00
A sample chapter from INTERIM is online in PDF format. Twelve pages, the first half page or so of which appears below.Actually it's a Prologue, but hey, the first page is the first page, and that's what you'd open a book to if you wanted to check it out. I would think.If you enjoy it, sign up for my mailing list to read another chapter. Be sure also to check out the book's website.Many thanks for looking.228.3 YEARS BEFORE THE INTERIM (I.-0228.3)The colony ship Star of Beshaan had been adrift for two centuries. Long odds favored its remaining that way forever. Yet instead of slipping quietly out of human space and history, the hulking ship now loomed black-on-black in the main viewscreen on the bridge of Lucifer’s Halo. The three occupants of that cramped, dimly-lit space were silent as they maneuvered the much smaller Halo past the doomed Beshaan’s fractured, flailing magsail and into position for docking.After a tense few minutes of acceleration Halo’s pilot and nav...
More About: Chapter , Sample

What's 'neurilace' anyway?
2007-06-29 14:18:00
'Neurilace' is just the term I've coined in my fiction for what other SF authors have called "neural implants," "bionic enhancements," and many other things. Simply, an augment that makes its human users part machine.

Welcome
2007-06-29 14:07:00
I resisted setting up a website or blog for a long while. Frankly, the majority of unpublished authors are unpublished for a good reason, and the internet winds up being just a sort of public diary for them, a substitute for the 'real' sort of publishing that eludes them. But an author in a forum* managed to convince me to just get on with it and start building an audience online without waiting for a book deal first. So here we are. Please check out my bio so I don't have to repeat it for you. Go on.After my novel manuscript, INTERIM, won a magazine contest, I started looking for a literary agent, because, as agents are fond of telling you, "You need one!!!" Not only to get a better contract, but even to get your work through the door of most major publishers. My queries and full manuscripts got some interest, including a rewrite request from a well-known agent (still yet to hear back on it...), but by and large the impression I got is that trying to land an agent as a fir...