D. All of the Above -- The Multi-Medium Talents of Stephen Antczak

Novelist. Comic book writer. Publisher. Filmmaker. Screenwriter. All these words describe Stephen Antczak. (And I have to fess up here: After meeting him, it still took me three years to learn to spell his last name correctly.)

But that doesn't detract from his talent. No matter what medium he uses to tell a story, he tells it skillfully. And that's why you should get to know him.

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

I finished a YA science fiction novel in March called A GATHERING OF AENGELS that's book one of a fairly extensive series concept. I started work on the second book. I may publish the YA stuff under a pseudonym, though, to differentiate it from my obviously for-grown-ups stuff that's already been published.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I tend to revisit the concept of "the price of power," as in the price a hero pays for having great powers, or the price for getting what one has always wanted. I also tend to look a lot at whether or not humanity has what it takes to become a star-faring civilization, and if we even deserve that. I mean, if I were an advanced alien race with the power to grant humanity a way to expand beyond the earth and join a so-called "Galactic community," I'm not too sure I would just yet.

What would be your dream project?

The AENGELS book series is one. I'd love to write a big budget science fiction or fantasy movie...well, actually, I have written several, but I'd love to see one of them actually made. Also, nonfiction has really captured my imagination lately, with books like GARBOLOGY and THE EERIE SILENCE or A BEAUTIFUL MIND. I have ideas for books that could explore the intersection of science & economics or science & history.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

The beauty of being a writer in the computer era is that we can do that all the time, and I have. My novel THE ORACLE PARADOX, a techno-thriller for grown-ups, is in line to come out as an ebook after my short story collection, EDGEWISE, which is currently a Kickstarter.com project. The ORACLE novel took me a total of fifteen years, on and off, to finally get to where I was happy with it, and I am quite happy with the final version.

What inspires you to write?

A desire to express myself: my ideas about good and evil, right and wrong, etc. It's also a good way to "get involved" in one's varied interests, allowing a person explore ideas that intrigue them, like whether or not there's intelligent life on other world's and what it might be like, why people make the decisions they make, what our deepest belief systems say about us, etc. You feel like you're contributing to the discussion in some way, even if it's a small way through a short story or a comic book or a poem.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Hard to say. I know that Harlan Ellison's work certainly influenced my writing when I was younger, but only in certain stories is it apparent. Same with the Heinlein juveniles. I read hundreds of science fiction books growing up, all the usual suspects, so obviously as a field I'd say science fiction had the largest influence on me in many ways. Comic books definitely influenced me in a big way, too, as did the Tolkein books and the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Movies and TV shows like Star Trek and Star Wars, Logan's Run, Aliens, Rollerball, 2001: A Space Odyssey and such influenced me. A lot of stuff that didn't have anything to do with sci-fi and fantasy, at least on the surface, influenced me, as well, like The Warriors, Woody Allen movies, and Steve Martin's comedy.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Mostly art, I guess. I don't know. Started out as mostly art and moving towards science continuum, perhaps.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug? 

My second short story collection, EDGEWISE, is currently on Kickstarter.com as a project to fund the cover. Once I have a cover I like I'll self-publish it as an ebook and then move on to THE ORACLE PARADOX as an ebook. I may self-publish the AENGELS book as an ebook after that. We'll see. I've also posted three screenplays to Amazon Studios in the hopes something happens with them there.

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For more information, visit Stephen's blog, IMDB page, or Amazon author page.

Reserve your copy of Stephan Antczak's EDGEWISE at Kickstarter

EDGEWISE is is second short story collection, following DAYDREAMS UNDERTAKEN - EXPANDED & REVISED, which is currently available as an ebook on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. The stories in EDGEWISE are darker, and some of them are quite disturbing, but all are thought-provoking.

Some of the stories are new, but most have been previously published. Here are review excerpts for some of the stories that appear in EDGEWISE:

“…with an interesting twist similar to Harlan Ellison's classic ‘The Whimper of Whipped Dogs’.” – Review of ‘Worm in a Bottle’ in Nightscapes.

“Great writing and rich characterization add to Stephen Antczak's inviting story, ‘Good Vibrations’.” – Tangent magazine.

“Antczak elicits compassion for his alienated characters without giving up their inherent self-absorption. It's worth more than one read.” - review of  ‘The Suicide Club Membership Drive’ in Tangent magazine.

“This is a brilliant examination of the pseudo-afterlife of suicides and the influence these wraiths exert on the suicidal living.” – review of ‘The Suicide Club Membership Drive’ in HorrorScope website.

“Part Clive Barker, part X-Men.” – review of ‘Good Vibrations’ in Locus magazine.

"Best. Title. Ever." - fan posting online about 'The Suicide Club Membership Drive'

Continue reading: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1221138915/edgewise-a-collection-of-dark-and-disturbing-stori?ref=email

[Link] The Heart & Soul of 20th Century Science Fiction - Part One

by Stephen Antczak

If someone came to me who had never read science fiction before and expressed an interest in reading ten books as an introduction to SF, what would I recommend? After giving it much thought, I decided that I’d want them to read the books which, I feel, make up the “heart and soul” of science fiction. To expand on this idea, I came up with the following conceit: What if a library decided that it only had room for 100 books to represent science fiction of the 20th Century?

Which 100 books would be chosen? Which 100 books best represent what science fiction was during the 20th Century?

Bear in mind that I am not attempting to list the “best,” nor the “bestselling,” nor the “most important” books in the genre. Rather, this is an attempt to uncover the essence of science fiction in the 20th Century as a genre of literature. Science fiction is a wide field, yet for all its variety it can be argued that SF in the 20th Century maintained a certain cohesiveness. This cohesiveness diminished as the century wore on, primarily due to the increasing number of writers publishing the stuff. It can still be said that SF exists, even in the 21st Century, as a literature with a certain set of “core aspects.”

Continue reading: http://stephenlantczak.blogspot.com/2012/02/heart-soul-of-20th-century-science.html