Best Of The Beast AKA Noteworthy Science Fiction Blogs and Other Blogs. Probed.

HELP

To be considered for BEST OF THE BEAST:

#1 The author must personally reply to comments left. (I test drive to make sure the blogger stays in contact with his/her readers.)

#2 Is an independent. Not a big guy with a big budget and/or tons of reporters. The creators of the blogs here linked are individuals with jobs, families, and writers trying to balance in a world of constant demands.

For Writers

Huge Howey

Kristen Lamb

Good To Know Crap

Wait But Why

Humorous and Well Done

THE LONG OF IT

Science Fiction

Stranger Views  If you are a sci-fier looking for your next movie to watch or book to read, this blog does an outstanding job of bringing to light the undiscovered. Their missions statement:

The Stranger Views website is run by two guys (John Ridley and Graham Sim) who were united by their love of great science fiction shows beginning with the letter ‘F’: Firefly, Farscape and the little known Swedish classic Farnswargglee.

John eases you into his well-written reviews with grace and knowledge leading you into a frenzied state of mind screaming: “I gotta read this one!” and forcing you to go immediately to Amazon and either buy the book or add it to your wish list.

Hard To Put Into A Category

Travis Simmons I featured Travis on one of my blogs earlier. He is an author and writes fantasy. His blog is humorous, sometimes angry (he calls these blogs his rants), often informative, and very personal. Not a cut and paste blog, but a blog with a heart and soul. (Language warning.) His topics range from fantasy, to sci-fi, to horror, to humor, advice on writing and rants.

Little Plastic Castles The name says it all. Creator is Myk Pilgrim. He just makes me laugh. This is also a blog with a real personality. He is a clever writer and never does he fail to put a smile on my face. He reviews books and movies and talks about his struggles as a writer. He wrote a two part blog on: To Kindle or Not To Kindle, which kept me wondering will he or won’t he??

Probe-filing

They are informative and well-written, but both have a staff of reporters.

SF Signal states in their submission policies: Please note that due to immense backlog, we no longer review self-published and vanity press works. Therefore, they are missing out on a lot of undiscovered talent, and review and promote those who are lucky enough to already have a helping hand in marketing their works. 

I am not a fan of this. 

Without self-published authors, we would have missed out on such greats as Huge Howey’s Wool, and readers would have much less to choose from if there were no self-published authors. The list would be limited to the same old talent and same old, same old tired prose that the big five traditional publishers deem worthy.

My list of Best of The Beast are blogs written by individuals trying to initiate their own brand of creativity into the world. Not a brand stamped NY’s Best.

Kurt Vonnegut says it best: The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.