Author

Hi Reddit,

I've answered a few questions about the Dark Web on AskReddit threads that have blown up and caused people to say "You should do an AMA". So here I am

(Not making it up. Here's one
Here's another )

As well as hanging around in the dark web for the better part of 8 years, I've also been an investigative journalist, writing for a load of different newspapers and magazines, and I'm one of the main freelance writers of scripts for the totally awesome [b]Casefile True Crime podcast[/b]

I'm the author of six True Crime books (seven if. you count the short one; eight if you count the Polish version of The Darkest Web) - [Check them out here](https://autho

Hi, I'm Jim Butcher. I'm the guy who takes credit for the Dresden Files, the Codex Alera, the Cinder Spires and one Spider-Man novel for Marvel. 2020 is the 20th anniversary of the Dresden File series, and there are two new Dresden Files books this year: Peace Talks released on July 14, 2020, and Battle Ground is coming on September 29.

I've done a bunch of jobs, some of which sucked, some of which were fairly awesome, from selling vacuum cleaners to graveyard-shift tech-support for an ISP. The best part about my current job is that I can do it in my pajamas and I never, ever have to wear a freaking tie.

I like martial arts, boffer-weapon fighting, first person shooters on a PC. I watch a lot of nerd-compatible TV. I also read a lot. Go figure.

I’ll be here from 12:30-1:30pm ET answering questions. Feel free to discuss al

I am a retired pediatrician and my family’s oral historian. For more than 200 years, we have been reminded “Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president.” This guiding statement is intended to be inspiring, but, for me, it echoed with the abuses of slavery, so in 1990, I began a journey of discovery—of my ancestors, our nation, and myself. I traveled to Lagos, Portugal, where the transatlantic slave trade began, to a slave castle in Ghana, West Africa, where kidnapped Africans were held before being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, to Baltimore, Maryland, where a replica of a slave ship sits in a museum, to James Madison’s plantation in Virginia, where my ancestors were first enslaved on American soil, and to central Texas, where they were emancipated on the first Juneteenth. I learned that wherever slaves once walked, history tried to erase their footsteps but that slaves were remarkable people who used their inner strength and many talents to contr

I would like more discussion about how writing and presenting modules/campaigns can be improved. There's SO MUCH that could be done better to help DMs, if the authors started taking cues from modern user-tested manuals and textbooks. In fact, I'd claim the way Wizards write modules in 2020, seems to me essentially unchanged from the 1980s!

Consider the following suggestions:

• Color coding. This can be used for quest lines, for themes, for specific recurring NPCs. Edit: should always be used with other markers, for colorblind accessibility!
• Using specific symbols, or box styles, for different types of advice. Like you say, how to fit backgrounds in. There could be boxed text, marked with the "background advice" symbol, that said e.g. "If one of the characters has the Criminal background, Charlie here is their local contact." Same for subclasses, races, etc.
• Explicit story callbacks/remember this-boxes. When the group reaches a location that was previously referenced, have a clear

Hi! I've missed you, reddit. Sometimes.

In today's episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed, I announced that I'm taking a break from the podcast I've written and hosted for the last three years, and I tried to explain the role the podcast has had in my life and the reasons I've decided to pause it.

Part of the reason for the break is so that I can focus on revising The Anthropocene Reviewed book, which will be published in May and is available for preorder now. The TAR book will include expanded and revised versions of essays from the podcast, as well as several new reviews--about topics from the movie Penguins of Madagascar to the psychotropic drug mirtazapine.

I'll be hosting a livestream later today at vlogbrothersto read a little from the book and answer

My example is probably the most infamous in Sci-fi circles, Karen Traviss a author who specializes in military fiction and is probably most well known for her tie-in novels set in the Halo, Star Wars and Gears of War universes. Within her writings it's easy to gleam some things about her views.

1. Her obsession with military and warrior cultures particularly tribal warrior cultures. Her tie in novels for Star Wars and Halo prominently feature the setting's resident warrior or military species/culture in the form of the Mandalorians and Elites/Sangheili, her works regarding mandalorians in particular put them on a pedestal as the the perfect ideal while ignoring their faults, her writings on Mandalorians verge on turning them into an entire race of unbeatable mary sues. Notably she also had a bad reaction to The Clone Wars television series depicting a splinter faction of Mandalorians as pacifists governing their home planet of Mandalore.
2. Her hatred for certain in-universe groups

Does anyone have this problem?

It happens a lot in fantasy action settings. Some sort of battle is happening In a city, or other location. I'll have a picture in my head of the setting but then the author will describe something that does not make sense with the picture in my head.

I find it hard to continue following. I have to go back a paragraph, and try to rethink the area so that whatever the author had said made sense - but this can be very difficult, and often I have no idea how the setting is supposed to look like

Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia is having a hard time keeping it together in Genovia at the moment (you can read all about it for free on my blog). But that’s got nothing on the drama that's unfolding right now on Little Bridge Island (a fictional place, based on Key West, FL). This time around, in NO OFFENSE (on-sale this week) we have an amateur sleuth librarian coming head-to-head (and lip-to-lip) with the local sheriff after an abandoned baby is found in the ladies room. Small-town scandals and tropical romance? Just what we need to chase away those summertime blues. ASK ME ANYTHING.

Proof: https://i.redd.it/a55rtsrza8g51.jpg

I have, together with a couple of friends, decided to explore the sci-fi genre, and in doing so we were making a list of sci-fi books to read.

But it seems most of the authors are male, and I think it would be cool to find some female sci-if authors? Can you hit me with some suggestions?

Edit: Jesus! Thank you for some really interesting suggestions! Now I sure do have some reading to do. Thanks a lot

I have forty years of aviation experience as an engineer, builder, and pilot, and earned a degree in Aeronautical Engineering with a specialization in aircraft design and flight testing from the University of Minnesota in 1982. I retired from NASA in 2013 as the longest-serving Flight Director in U.S. history, having been involved in thirty-nine missions, nine of those as the lead Flight Director. I recieved a NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, a NASA Exceptional Service Medal (three times), and a Presidential Medal.

I’m also the author of the new book Shuttle, Houston—a first-person account of the high-stakes work of Mission Control and the story of the Space Shuttle program! You can read a free excerpt here: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/paul-dye/shuttle-houston/9780316454575/

Proof: https://i.redd.it/ttoin343aab51.jpg

In case we haven’t met before, I’m a Canadian fantasy author who writes books that have no bearing on Canada whatsoever, despite being one of those guys who used to sew a Canadian flag on his backpack while travelling just to show off how humble our people are (yeah, that never made sense to me, either).

I write the GREATCOATS series, which is what I like to call “swashbuckling fantasy” – kind of like regular fantasy only imagine the writer constantly thinking, “I need more Errol Flynn-style ‘huzzahs!’ in there . . . and more Princess Bride references.” Of course, the swashbuckling tradition is full of drama and heartache as well, so I like to torture my main character Falcio val Mond both literally and figuratively. After many, many letters from fans – some that looked suspiciously like kidnapping notes, I’ve reluctantly agreed to be slightly nicer to my characters from now on. The first book in the new series, PLAY OF SHADOWS, comes out in 2021 and features 27% less tormenting of it

I’ve spent my career fighting for democracy and truth in Russia and Eastern Europe. I worked with civil society activists in Russia and Belarus and spent a year advising Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on strategic communications. These experiences inspired me to write about what the United States and West writ large can learn from countries most people think of as “peripheral” at best.

Since the start of the Trump era, and as coronavirus has become an "infodemic," the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and attacks from malign actors. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it?

My book, How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict is out now and seeks to answer that question. The lessons it contains are even more relevant in an election year, amid the coronavirus infodemic and accusations of "false flag" operations in the George Floyd protests.

So, first off, the books. THE WOUNDED KINGDOM books tell the life story of the assassin, Girton Club-Foot set over a period of about twenty years through three pivotal moments in his life. They’re structured as murder-mysteries but with plenty of action and a focus on character and how people change and grow and can learn to forgive. The books revolve around Girton and his master, Merela Karn, the greatest assassin in the land and were shortlisted for multiple awards in the UK and US.

My newest novel is the critically acclaimed THE BONE SHIPS, well, the clue’s in the name to what it’s about. Big warships built from the bones of MASSIVE sea dragons. Godzilla vs Hornblower is probably a fair description. A much less familiar world than the Wounded Kingdom, set in a vicious matriarchal society where people never really think about how bad it has become. We join Joron, who starts off as a bit of a sad sack and someone who’s really not that likeable, and the crew of the Ship of the Dead, T

When you save as a .pdf, this ensures that all of your perfect formatting will be viewed the same regardless of the recipient. Saving your name in the Title section will make your name appear in the tab name when opened using internet browsing software.

Sometimes authors can write badly. Sometimes they write questionable content. Sometimes they excuse the inexcusable. All this puts them on someone's list to never read/buy again. Who are your problematic unfaves?

Mine is Kristen Ashley for the books Raid and Dream Maker. The male leads were controlling and all up the female lead's business. I read that she typically writes in this fashion, and there are takers for her books, but I'm not it.

A few years ago I was very Ill and in hospital but my school wouldn't give me any exemptions regarding schoolwork. I was hanging on a very loose thread and if I was to fail any classes that term the school said I would be held back a year.

My sister knew that this would absolutely devestate me so because I could hardly lift my head and I was attached to countless drips at the time she took it upon herself to write and submit the assignment for me.

About a month later my teacher excitedly showed me that she had submitted "my" piece to a magazine because of how well it was written and they had chosen to publish it - my name and picture was under the article.

They mentioned it at my graduation, they gave me a medal for the subject and they even put an additional copy of the article in the schools magazine and my sister just played along the whole time and still does whenever someone brings it up.

She is an absolute legend and I can never thank her enough for saving my ass.

Update: I'll continue to check this for a few days to come, so if you have any late-blooming questions, don't be afraid to post them! Thank you all so much for your participation; this has utterly blown all my previous AMAs out of the water.

Hello, all -- I’m delighted to be back for another round here at r/Fantasy! I have written novels about Victorian lady scientists studying dragons, faeries manipulating English history, and most recently, fragments of broken worlds glomming together into a strange patchwork reality. If you want to know more about my fiction, my game writing, or my Patreon, you can find that at my website, Swan Tower.

In a past life I was a Ph.D. student in anthropology and folklore, with a bachelor’s degree in archaeology. The fingerprints of this are all over my work, as I love stories where the conflict and the characters are deeply influenced by the worlds they live in. I’m also a veteran of tabletop RPGs and LARPS, an amateur

Okay, I realize that there's a good reason why /r/menwritingwomen exists. It's a commonly joked-about topic because many male authors were and are lacking in this regard. I'd argue that it's mostly a thing of a few decades ago and has improved quite a bit over the last 10 years or so.

To be fair and to present the other side of the coin, there's a not insignificant number of female authors that are terrible at writing male characters as well, especially but not exclusively inside of the urban fantasy / paranormal romance subgenres, but I think that number is noticeably less than their male counterparts.

I digress.

I firmly believe that writing fleshed-out, believable, genuine and realistic characters are the hallmarks of a skillful author, regardless of gender. Even more so when those characters differ drastically from the author's background. As in, writing characters of another gender, in another country, of another culture, in another world, with outlandish abilities, in various

Though almost absent in the early years of fantasy writing, the number of Black authors—and the recognition of their work—is growing year by year.

It’s impossible to talk about fantasy written by Black authors as a cohesive genre because, like writers of other skin tones, Black authors come from all over the world and write about a wildly diverse array of subjects in their own unique ways and voices.

Despite that, I’m including this list because most other lists of fantasy books tend to be heavy on white folk, and trumpeting the achievements of Black authors should help balance that out a little bit.

Note: I’m using “Black” instead of “African-American” because a number of these authors are not American.

#23. The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark – 2019

Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards.

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—handling a possessed tram car.

Soon, however, Agent

I realized earlier that most of the books I read are written by white authors, so I want to support more black authors. Hit me with your favourites please and thank you!

Edit: Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions! I love this subreddit!

Okay I just put that 'mic drop' thing in the headline to get you to click. Max Gladstone said that, he's a cool guy and you should buy his books.

Hi! I'm Seth, I write books and games. I just turned 31 which means I'm now an old. I've published three novels (including THE TYRANT BARU CORMORANT, out now!) and a lot a of short stories. I've also written lore for Destiny, Godfall, and House of the Dying Sun. If you're a game dev please hire me, I work fast and I'm constantly broke!

We pitched the Baru Cormorant novels as Game of Thrones meets Guns, Germs, and Steel, with an eye to attacking both. Baru is a brilliant young woman from a colonized island who decides to take down an insidious, conquering empire from the inside—by working her way into the innermost cabal of their rulers using the power of high finance.

In my spare time I work on Blue Planet, a fan-made sequel

A lot of times we think of our character as our avatar and we want to prevent it any harm or strife and this makes for boring characters. Try playing as an author, who knows conflict and weakness result in character depth and feeling. Put your character in danger because that makes for better story telling.

Don't play your character, play the author writing your chatacter.

This is something I've always wondered. Theme is important, but was a theme like love always going to be a major theme in Harry Potter from the start, or did it weave itself into a very powerful theme as the kids grew up and the series got much darker?

As I'm planning my story, I'm getting ideas that I want to explore, but should I have 1-3 major themes I should start setting in from the start?

Hi. My friends call me "Doc" - and have since 1975 when I graduated medical school.

link to my book / website

book cover

bio

I have had extensive experience in emergency medicine, family medicine, remote area care, including over 40 medical missions trips to Haiti. Prior to medical school I had over 2 1/2 years of military service in Vietnam, commissioned as a Captain, Infantry, but working in unconventional warfare.

I am eager to help fellow Preppers prepare their family and friends for the eventualities we all are eager to avoid but know we must be able to survive. This boils down to enabling our ability upon self-reliance, possibly during extended periods of time, something I have published books about since 1979.

This community seems like the perfect place for me to establish a direct contact with you to continue my work of providing advice to like-minde

Hi r/Fantasy Redditors! I'm Sarah Gailey, SFF author and all-around miscreant, here to do an AMA to support The Pixel Project’s work to End Violence Against Women!

I'm the Hugo Award-winning author of Magic for Liars, Upright Women Wanted, American Hippo, and When We Were Magic. I have a regular substack that is usually coherent. My upcoming novel, The Echo Wife, is about a brilliant scientist whose husband steals her cloning technology so he can have an affair with a less-threatening version of her. It's been called "r/Relationships but make it clones" and frankly I think that's the highest praise an author can ask for.

When I'm not writing, I can usually be found reading, cooking, or trying to learn how to have hobbies that aren't directly related to my job. My current best efforts include gardening and painting. Stay tuned to find out how I manage to corrupt those two perfectly wholesome pasttimes until they, too, are forms of productivity!

I will answer questions about anythi

My name is Jonathan Berman and my book Antivaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement is due out on September 8th. It is about the anti-vaccine movement and its historical antecedents, as well as what makes anti-vaxxers tick.

I hosted the unveiling of the world's largest periodic table of the elements. I've worked as a rickshaw driver, wing cook, and assistant professor. At various points I've been a stand up comic, carpet remover, and radio host, but mostly a scientist.

Verification on twitter. Ask me anything!

Out guest will be joining us at 12 ET (16 UT). Username: bermanAMA2020

Let’s talk about monsters. Let’s talk about why we fear them. Is it because they remind us of our rightful place in the food chain? Do monster stories awaken a primal fear that the predators of our past are still out there? Let’s talk about the fictional monsters in my new book “Devolution." Like “World War Z," the threat may seem fantastic, but the facts behind it are very real. What if these creatures did exist? What would it take to survive an encounter with them? Let’s talk about an American mystery far older than America itself. Let’s talk about Sasquatch.

Proof: https://twitter.com/maxbrooksauthor/status/1275823632724484099

We did it! Our plucky little r/Fantasy community is now one million members strong! Never mind what the sidebar says, we timed this perfectly to coincide with this major milestone. Perfectly.

The panelists are scattered across a variety of time zones, so several of them may be joining later or dropping in and out throughout the day.

About the Panel

In celebration of r/Fantasy reaching exactly one million subscribers, we've invited some of the community's authors to share a bit about themselves, their books, and what r/Fantasy means to them.

Think of this as an opportunity to ask these authors about their experience with and insight into r/Fantasy, as well as some general Q&A about them and their work.

About the Panelists

Krista D. Ball (/u/KristaDBall)

Krista D. Ball is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. She was born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada where she learned how to use a chainsaw, chop wood, and make raspberry jam. After obtaining a B

“Grandispulsianor “ is a name I just made up, and is garbage, but I see this trend in some sci-fi and fantasy books, where the author doesn’t want to use known, established names, which is fine, I totally support that, but then they can’t think of a good 5 letter name, they just resort to senseless word mashing, or even worse, that and adding apostrophes, “Murg’shandaar”...or even worse, that and letters that just don’t fit well next to each other “Frk’ldaeenb”. Knock it off already! 😣

I have seriously started just skipping names that are gibberish. I applaud your intention to put us in a fresh new world where everything is foreign, I get what the purpose is, but we as readers still appreciate names that we can remember and be certain we are pronouncing right.

Shoutout to Pierce Brown and his character names and terms in the Red Rising books. Easy to remember, pronounce and unique (Gorydamn, goodman, pulseFist, Ephraim ti Horn, Lysander au Lune, Valii-Rath etc.)

Edit: Some people

I know how frustrating it can be to be perpetually excluded from authors' worlds. Diversity does matter and no one likes to feel invisible. But unfortunately, the key thing here is that authors never owe readers anything.

Instead of getting angry and raging on twitter, harassing or sending rape and even death threats: we should support and uplift the authors who do produce the kind of work that we want to see. It's healthier for all of us and a more productive conversation to have in the writing world.

These days we are fortunate to have a lot more diversity than ever in the industry. Even better we can now self publish if we feel a particular kind of story is not being told. If you think that GRR Martin writes too much rape or JK Rowling doesn't have enough important POC, it is valid to feel that way. However, instead of cancelling let's put that energy towards supporting the works that fulfill our needs.

**tldr we shouldn't complain that a book only has white and straight charac

I want to branch out, I keep trying new series and authors, but nothing measures up.

Edit: thanks everyone. I have tried many authors you mentioned and agree there are some great things out there. I’m excited about the new ideas too, so thanks. I’ll get my librarian wife Tammy to start bringing home some new books.

Hi everyone! I’m Dr. William Quinn, an economic and financial historian with a particular focus on financial bubbles and crises. My new book with Prof. John D. Turner, Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles, is out on Thursday with Cambridge University Press - you can pre-order it from Amazon here.

Financial bubbles are large increases in the price of an asset (usually houses, stocks, or both) followed by a large fall in their price, typically with no obvious cause. Often, this is accompanied by a boom in supply i.e. building of new houses or issuing of new stocks. Some bubbles are fairly benign for the economy, but others precede very severe depressions, leading to mass unemployment, poverty, and other social and economi

We've listed no-buy authors, so now I want to know what shortcomings you recognize about the author you love most, but power through for the good stuff.

I love Kristen Ashley. She's totally my comfort read and the fact that she has three male characters and three female characters that she recycles just makes her that much more so, for me.

That being said, zetus lapetus, I do not need all of the description. I don't need every detail of the super dated outfit Lizzie Maguire would wear or the equally dated decor. Reading her describe a floorplan reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank, except she was fifteen and literally had nothing else to do all day. It shows up in plot, too, as the character describes grabbing her keys, checking her hair, making sure she has what she needs in her purse, saying goodbye to her cat, reciting her grocery list... it just really slows down her stories.

She's also currently on a kick to write characters more relatable to Millenials and it sounds li