Big Dumb Object

If you believe the hype being generated about the changes going on in the publishing industry, then blogging and tweeting are now essential parts of being a writer.

A good friend of mine, who has now been published the traditional way, tells me that his agent has pressured him to tweet and blog. He does it, under duress, to maintain a good relationship with his agent. He finds it easier than challenging her belief in it.

I read a great article recently that seeks to pour a little cold water on the idea. In essence it suggested that all the blogging and tweeting is wasted effort, and that there was no real egalitarian revolution going on. A small number of people make all the money, while the rest pour out dubious quality blogs and writing on an indifferent world.

In an effort at some empirical investigation I am going to look at some prominent sci fi bloggers, check out their blogs and then their writing and their careers. I am curious to see whether there is any correspondence between their outputs, do good fiction writers make good bloggers, and vice versa.

I start this week with Big Dumb Object, the blog of James Bloomer, a particle physicist from the UK.

His blog consists of book and movie reviews, with a few pictures thrown in and the occasional opinion piece on an issue relevant to science fiction. As far as I can tell he tends to review a lot of unknown writers. In his about section he reveals that he accepts suggestions to review material, as long as the authors accept that he will be honest. He has principles, I like this guy already.

The reviews themselves seem to be true to this principle. He appears honest in saying what he thinks, not mean, but he isn't afraid to say that a story comes up short. However the writing of the reviews themselves, is fairly dry, he is no Oscar Wilde when it comes to literary criticism. (As an aside, I like to imagine that if Oscar Wilde was still with us he would be doing something like Zero Punctuation )

While I found the reviews somewhat dull, the opinion piece I read was considerably more interesting. He artfully critiques the idea that science fiction writers no longer have big ideas.

On to his writing.

His bio, consists of a list of stories published in a variety of magazines going back to 2006 (his blog begins in 2004).

I read the last two.

The latest piece, Extended periods of absence, is an artsy bit of flash fiction meets poetry, in which a man is flicked through time seemingly as a result of his girlfriend's mood swings. It might make you smile, but it wouldn't make me buy a magazine.

The previous piece Trails was published in Daily Science Fiction. It is one if the better stories I have read there. The writing reminded me vaguely of Neal Stephenson, the characters are interesting and he deals with important modern issues like the tension between freedom, privacy and security. For my money, the ending was a little convenient, but I enjoyed it nontheless.

So, it appears Mr Bloomer can both write stories and blog well. Although he does seem to have kept his day job smashing particles into each other, who wouldn't?