Welcome to My New Website

Hi! Welcome to the first entry of my blog. I'm Ryk E. Spoor; click the "About Ryk E. Spoor" tab if you want way too much info on me. What's important in regards to this blog is that I'm a science-fiction and fantasy writer with, at present, five published novels and three more under contract.

My most prominent works are Grand Central Arena, a space opera novel in the Golden Age tradition (or so I like to think) and the Boundary series with Eric Flint, a hard-sf science-adventure (blame any failure in hardness on me, not on any advisors or consultants we may get).

My first published novel was a sort of fix-up of several short stories called Digital Knight, and after that I wrote (with a bit of help from Eric Flint) a short novel (43,000 words) called Diamonds Are Forever, which was published in the collection Mountain Magic.

Forthcoming works include Phoenix Rising, an epic fantasy set on the world of Zarathan (which exists in the same general universe as Digital Knight), Portal (third in the Boundary series), and Spheres of Influence (working title), the sequel to Grand Central Arena.Check out the pages for each individual work for more information, including stuff you won't find anywhere else.

I plan to update this journal at least twice per week, probably during regular weekdays; weekends are unlikely – I need to leave a lot of time as I have a day job in addition to my authorial duties. What, exactly, I'll post will depend on circumstances, but the various categories I expect to cover will be:

• Under the Influence: Discussing one of the authors, books, comics, movies, shows, people, or other things that influenced me in my writing. This will be a personal discussion of what these things mean to me and how they affected the writing, not a review of the work.
• On My Shelves: In these segments, I'll be reviewing a book, movie, video game, or other media which I own. While both Under the Influence and On My Shelves could potentially examine the same work (and, given time, almost certainly will) the focus of the discussion will be quite different.
• Quest for Understanding: Yes, sounds grandiose, but this will be answering reader's questions, preferably ones that don't fall into the same exact category as Under the Influence entries. Any questions should be sent to Voidbuilder@GrandCentralArena.com.
• Podcasts/Youtube Readings: I've been told I'm a good reader, and I'll give you the opportunity to evaluate this, by periodically posting myself reading from my own books, and then discussing the piece I just read – why I chose it, anything interesting about how I wrote that piece, etc. At the least you'll get an idea of how I read and view my own work as a reader. These posts will probably consist of a link and a short description, unless I have a good way of embedding them in the blog itself.

Other category suggestions are quite welcome, and if I come up with any (for instance, a 10-question interview with any of my characters), I'll certainly ask if those are of interest.

If you want to contact me directly, you can join the forum, or just email me (see contact info). Hope to hear from you, and thanks again for visiting!