Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Full Throttle Space Tales #6: Space Battles 17 Explosive Tales of Spaceship Battles (all original to this volume) Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt Flying Pen Press, 264 pp., tbp, $16.95, Release Date: April 18, 2012 Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 can now be  purchased here starting now (preorders end April 17).     Red Alert! Red Alert!  [ Read More ]

We’ve all seen it. People flaming mad over silly things someone did on the web. And I’m not talking political or religious posts or family infighting, either. I’m talking fairly common little things which really shouldn’t be that big of deal to anyone. They are always things that really deserve people getting riled up about  [ Read More ]

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Steve Martin talks about how important diligence has been to his success. And the website Study Hacks, which explores how some people succeed and others don’t explores his comments. I also recently read that a high percentage of Robert Frost’s most acclaimed poems were written after he’d reached  [ Read More ]

Well, the Con Programming Chair from Constellation in Lincoln, NE, April 13-15 sent me my panel schedule. I’ll be launching Space Battles there as well as promoting my other stuff. More details to follow when I have them. Elizabeth Bear is the GOH. Hope to see some of you there. Character Building – Saturday, 11 a.m.  [ Read More ]

I recently commented on a post by Mike Duran, an author friend, who got slammed by self-publishing fans for the gall to suggest one might actually want to have patience and explore options before rushing into self-publishing. HOW DARE HE?! You’d have thought he was talking about abortion or gay marriage from the vehemence of  [ Read More ]

I am a film school grad of California State University, Fullerton. I spent several years working in TV and film and had a script in development at Disney. It never got made. I never got rich and famous. But the lessons I learned from film school and, particularly, the books of Syd Field about story  [ Read More ]

It’s been done. All too many times, if you listen to some. The story is world famous, well known. Many know its details by heart. Yet it’s compelling and you have an idea you know is different—one no one’s done before. So how do you keep it fresh? Adapting a well-known story for fiction has  [ Read More ]

One of the highest compliments I’ve gotten on my debut novel, The Worker Prince, and I’ve heard it over and over, is that it “feels like reading Star Wars: A New Hope.” This was very deliberate on my part, and I referred a lot in writing it to Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy and Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi  [ Read More ]

Well, a long while ago I placed my first comedic noir Science Fiction story in an anthology edited by my friend Jaleta Clegg. The table of contents has finally been announced and publication is this Spring from Hall Brothers Entertainment. So here’s the official scoop:           Wandering Weeds: Tales of Rabid Vegetation  [ Read More ]

Star Wars/Forgotten Realms author Paul S. Kemp has this to say about my next novel The Returning: “The Returning blends themes of faith with classic space opera tropes and the result is a page-turning story that takes off like a rocket.” Here’s more info, including the previous blurb, and I expect a cover image in  [ Read More ]

I read a lot of books for my author interviews on SFFWRTCHT and blogs like GraspingForTheWind.com, www.SFSignal.com, and Ray Gun Revival, as well as my own blog. In fact, reading for those dominates my reading time. I rarely squeeze in books for fun or learning anymore. Most of the time, I’m excited to read the  [ Read More ]

Recently I came across a situation that reminded me how important transitions and seeding story details are to good fiction. These are things which most pros do without even thinking about it, but up and coming writers, learning craft, probably have to be more deliberate about. I will not specify where I encountered this but  [ Read More ]

Just in from my friend/mentor and one of my favorite authors, a blurb for my second novel: “THE RETURNING has romance, assassins, tension, both modern and classic science fiction notions, and very smooth writing. What more could you want? Bryan Thomas Schmidt keeps improving. As good as THE WORKER PRINCE WAS, THE RETURNING is better.”  [ Read More ]

Well, I know my writers have been patiently but yet anxiously waiting for an announcement, so here it is. These are the stories accepted for the anthology SPACE BATTLES: Full Throttle Space Tales #6, in a series from Flying Penn Press. Releasing around April 18, edited by myself and headlined by Mike Resnick and Jean  [ Read More ]

Well, it’s Theodore Geisel’s birthday again and with the movie release pending for The Lorax, it has me thinking once again about my childhood. Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat is one of the first books I ever remembering owning. I got it for my birthday as a young child. (I can’t remember which one my  [ Read More ]

Well, I got my first publishing related mention in Locus. Sometime last year I was listed in a photo caption for Rainforest Writer’s Village despite not actually being there for the picture (so that doesn’t count). The announcement of the sale of my second novel showed up yesterday with mention of my editor, Randy Streu,  [ Read More ]