Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Simon's Saga

For those of you who took the bait and have been traveling throughout the Local Galactic Neighborhood with the intrepid Simon of Space you're probably feeling a lot like me: Ever anxious to catch the next bizarre and fascinating episode, but already feeling slightly nostalgic - knowing that the story is somehow drawing to a close. It's been an enjoyable ride. I like reading everyone's comments - especially in retrospect - and seeing other's predictions of what would happen next. Despite always trying to guess what will happen, there's always a new planet to visit with another completely unpredictable landscape that changes everything. Thankfully there's still a few loose ends that need tying up - and hopefully a few more planets to boot.

What I love most about Hemming as a pulp SF writer is how fearless he is. Although I'm sure he had something of an outline when he started it all, you can still tell he's writing on the fly. If he gets a new crazy idea, he just writes it into the story - improvising as he goes. It's a little rough in places, but I like that you can taste the uncooked/rawness of the story. Ironically, where it lacks for polishing is often where his unbridled creative energies shine most. I imagine once he's done he'll probably go back to edit/refine what's he's written into a more publishable form, and I admit I'm curious as to what sort of changes that'd bring. I'm also curious as to what impact everyone's comments and feedback has had on the story development too (e.g. did he switch certain outcomes once he realized they were, perhaps, too predictable?) But that would be harder to gauge.

At any rate, the whole concept is a grand experiment, and I'm grateful I've been able to witness events as they unfurled. In following Simon from his undignified birth, it's been gratifying to see how both Simon, and the blognovel readership itself, have grown and developed. For those of us who've come to know Simon, we can always hope for a sequel - or a least more original SF from MFDH. And for those of you who haven't yet read Simon of Space - You don't know what you're missing . . .

2 Comments:

Blogger Humour and last laugh said...

interesting!

9/13/2005 10:04 PM  
Blogger Dædalux said...

The good news is SOS is now going to be formally published, so I'll get to see what changes get made after an editor gets a hold of it.

10/03/2005 7:52 PM  

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