J.K. Rowling is currently in court in New York, trying to assert complete control over all critical or secondary works even vaguely related to her copyrights (and, more importantly, Time Warner's trademarks) in the Harry Potter properties, by suing the publisher of The Harry Potter Lexicon. She's trying to stop publication of the book, which, if I remember my Constitutional Law class from long ago, requires a much stricter test than an action after publication would.
To be blunt, I think she is absolutely wrong in her actions, and must lose the case if there is any justice in the world.
Reasons why Jo Rowling thinks she should get what she wants, in this as in everything:
1) Having someone write non-fiction about her fictional world makes her sad. "It has really decimated the demands of my creative work for the last month," she said in a New York Times article on the trial. Also compare to her sadness last year over early reviews; I'm half-convinced Rowling would outlaw all reviews or criticism of Potter if she could.
2) She is the only one allowed to decide who may profit, in any way, from Harry Potter. From the Times: "She said the book, which would cost $24.95, would compete unfairly with an encyclopedia she had been planning to create since 1998, the profits of which — possibly millions of dollars — she had planned to donate to a British charity."
3) Some of the entries steal her words. "She claims the author has lifted large chunks of her own language without quotation marks," reports the Times.
4) Some of the entries don't steal her words. The Times: "She complained that the entries consisted of words like 'Death' or 'Voldemort' arranged alphabetically, followed by what she considered bare-bones definitions."
5) Some of the entries say things that are original, and she doesn't like those, either. "She also objected to what she called the book’s “facetious asides,” like a comment about whether Hagrid could fit into a booth at McDonald’s," notes the Times.
Those reading carefully will note that only #3 is actionable in a court of law, but all five came up in her testimony yesterday. So what is she really saying? "I'm rich, powerful, and well-liked, with millions of zealous fans, so you have to do what I say"?
The bottom line: Rowling is demanding more power and control over secondary works than any entity should ever have. Judge Robert P. Patterson, who is hearing this case without a jury, should rule strongly and unequivocally against her claims.
[relying heavily on The New York Times's coverage]
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tiptree Winner
The annual James Tiptree, Jr. Award was recently bestowed upon The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall.
As usual, there was also an "honor list" of works which didn't win but were contenders. (I presume that's what "honor list" implies; these weren't the nominees or shortlist since they were only announced after the winner was selected.)
As usual, there was also an "honor list" of works which didn't win but were contenders. (I presume that's what "honor list" implies; these weren't the nominees or shortlist since they were only announced after the winner was selected.)
That "honor list" contains:
- “Dangerous Space”, Kelley Eskridge, (Dangerous Space, Aqueduct Press, 2007)
- Water Logic, Laurie Marks (Small Beer Press, 2007)
- Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom, Karen Miller (HarperCollins, Australia, 2007)
- The Shadow Speaker, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (Hyperion, 2007)
- Interfictions, Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.) (Interstitial Arts Foundation/Small Beer Press, 2007)
- Glasshouse, Charles Stross (Ace, 2006)
- The Margarets, Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Collins 2007)
- Y: The Last Man, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Pia Guerra (available in 60 issues or 10 volumes from DC/Vertigo Comics, 2002-2008)
- Flora Segunda, Ysabeau Wilce (Harcourt, 2007)
[via SF Awards Watch; it's not up on the Tiptree Award site yet]
My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Every so often, I stare at my to-be-read shelves and a great lassitude falls upon me: I can't decide what to read, or think of a reason why I ever thought I might want to read any of those books. That is the time for Wodehouse.That time came again recently, and so -- after dithering in front of those shelves for probably half an hour, picking up books and putting them back down -- I read My Man Jeeves.
This book, originally published in 1919, collects some of the very earliest Bertie-and-Jeeves stories: four of them, along with four somewhat similar stories about Reggie Pepper (another amiable upper-class dullard, adrift in New York as Bertie Wooster is in his stories, but without the steadying hand of a Jeeves). Comparing the two series of stories shows immediately how useful Jeeves was for Wodehouse -- Reggie had to be at least somewhat intelligent, to get out of his own scrapes, but Bertie could be sublimely incompetent so long as he had Jeeves to guide and save him.
Bertie is himself from the beginning of his first story, and even his background is pretty well worked out -- he's in New York to get away from his overbearing (and as-yet-unseen) Aunt Agatha. Several of the plots will be familiar to Wodehouse readers -- and not just because Wodehouse re-used the same plot motivators many times, but because he re-used the entire situations of some of these stories for later works. These Jeeves stories aren't as sublime as the best later ones, but Bertie and Jeeves are always good company.
This shouldn't be anyone's first Jeeves book -- I'd suggest Joy in the Morning, The Code of the Woosters, or the stories in Very Good, Jeeves! -- it could go quite well as the fifth, or tenth, or (even, sadly) last.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Am I Now Or Have I Ever Been?
Yet another meme-list-of-questions; Janni Simner invented it, and Gwenda Bond did it in public where I could see.
1. Have you ever killed a man? I have never been convicted of a felony in New York State.
2. With your own hands? I never use my own hands.
3. What, in your opinion, is the best way to transport contraband across state and country lines? State is easy -- trucking will do for most contraband. Country lines are a bit tougher, and generally require small watercraft.
4. Even if you're transporting explosives? I do generally prefer to send nuclear material via train, but trucks are just fine for everything else.
5. Really? Have you ever known me to lie?
6. Have you ever stolen a library book? Oh, yes.
7. On purpose, or only because you found it under your bed years after you reported it lost and paid the fine? Very much on purpose. Through defenestration, actually.
8. Where were you on November 1, 2007? Wouldn't you like to know?
9. Can you prove it? No. More importantly, neither can you.
10. You had to think about that, didn't you? Not for a second.
11. How much is it worth to you for me to pretend I didn't notice? The operative question is actually how much is your life worth?
12. Have you spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder? (And if you know a faster method, will you share it?) There is no such thing as an immunity to iocane powder, only a stubbornness to accept death.
13. Name three different ways to start a fire. Matches, calling on Zeus for a lightning strike, and begging the next campsite over.
14. Now try to convince me you only know that because you were a Girl/Boy Scout/Guide once. If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do about it.
15. How many digits of pi can you recite from memory? Five after the decimal place.
16. Did you have to count out the digits on your fingers to answer that? No.
17. Did you check online to make sure you remembered right before answering? No.
18. Does all this talk about numbers make you uncomfortable? No.
19. Or are you just wondering what it has to do with the rest of the meme? One does wonder.
20. Seriously, where did you bury the body? Burial is for amateurs.
21. Where were you on March 16, 2036? I was at the opening of the Ruckheiser Center, but I will be assassinating the Anti-Pope. By the third time around, I'll probably be in Timbuktu.
22. If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too? I would have been the one who pushed them.
23. What is the ninja replacement score for your life? -1
That was more enjoyable than most...
1. Have you ever killed a man? I have never been convicted of a felony in New York State.
2. With your own hands? I never use my own hands.
3. What, in your opinion, is the best way to transport contraband across state and country lines? State is easy -- trucking will do for most contraband. Country lines are a bit tougher, and generally require small watercraft.
4. Even if you're transporting explosives? I do generally prefer to send nuclear material via train, but trucks are just fine for everything else.
5. Really? Have you ever known me to lie?
6. Have you ever stolen a library book? Oh, yes.
7. On purpose, or only because you found it under your bed years after you reported it lost and paid the fine? Very much on purpose. Through defenestration, actually.
8. Where were you on November 1, 2007? Wouldn't you like to know?
9. Can you prove it? No. More importantly, neither can you.
10. You had to think about that, didn't you? Not for a second.
11. How much is it worth to you for me to pretend I didn't notice? The operative question is actually how much is your life worth?
12. Have you spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder? (And if you know a faster method, will you share it?) There is no such thing as an immunity to iocane powder, only a stubbornness to accept death.
13. Name three different ways to start a fire. Matches, calling on Zeus for a lightning strike, and begging the next campsite over.
14. Now try to convince me you only know that because you were a Girl/Boy Scout/Guide once. If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do about it.
15. How many digits of pi can you recite from memory? Five after the decimal place.
16. Did you have to count out the digits on your fingers to answer that? No.
17. Did you check online to make sure you remembered right before answering? No.
18. Does all this talk about numbers make you uncomfortable? No.
19. Or are you just wondering what it has to do with the rest of the meme? One does wonder.
20. Seriously, where did you bury the body? Burial is for amateurs.
21. Where were you on March 16, 2036? I was at the opening of the Ruckheiser Center, but I will be assassinating the Anti-Pope. By the third time around, I'll probably be in Timbuktu.
22. If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too? I would have been the one who pushed them.
23. What is the ninja replacement score for your life? -1
That was more enjoyable than most...
Reviewing the Mail: Week of 4/12
This week's pile is somewhat larger than the last few, so I'd better dive right into it.Another pleasant surprise leads off this week: Penguin's Tarcher imprint has a new biography of Charles Fort, by stage magic designer and magical historian Jim Steinmeyer, under the easily-findable title Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural
. I've read various little pieces about Fort's life before, but I've never seen the whole story -- so this is very welcome. (I see Steinmeyer is also the author of Hiding the Elephant
, a book I've wanted to read for a long time, and might even have a copy of lying around somewhere.) Charles Fort publishes on May 1st. (And I've started reading it already, if that means anything to anyone.)
To tie in with the biography, Penguin is re-issuing his four great books as The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort
with a Steinmeyer introduction. I think Fort's four amazingly skewed books have been unavailable for a while -- I read them in a library omnibus edition over a decade ago, since that's the only way I could find them -- so it's great to see them come back, especially with such an appropriately garish cover. Every book about the paranormal since the thirties -- whether credulous or skeptical -- derives directly from Fort, and very few of them have even come close to equalling his dry, witty tone and command of obscure data-points. If you've ever suspected that "we are property," this is the book for you. It will also be available from booksellers everywhere in May (and one of those booksellers, whose name I blush to mention, has a blanket 5% additional discount for all pre-orders).Cory Doctorow's new novel is Little Brother
, and it's aimed at a teenage audience for the first time in his career. It comes with a glowing Neil Gaiman quote, and a lot of strong pre-publication reviews. I have to admit that I haven't managed to read any of Doctorow's novels yet -- though I've seen a lot of his short non-fiction and stories -- so I'll probably have to remedy that this year. Tor's Starscape imprint publishes Little Brother in May.
My one manga this week is the first volume of Kaze No Hana
by Ushio Mizta and Akiyoshi Ohta. The cover shows a cute teenage girl (with big eyes, of course) in a school uniform, and a sword peeks out from behind her on the back cover. Using only those facts, I suspect most of my readers can figure out what this book is about -- our heroine has some sort of mystical powers (or is in the possession of a sword that does) and she has to fight monsters. A quick glance at the back cover copy reveals that is substantially true -- and that she's also an orphan with amnesia! Yen Press is publishing Kaze no Hana, Vol. 1 in April, which means it's probably already in stores.
Ace/Roc sent me some of their new paperbacks this week, and on top of the stack is Talia Gryphon's Key to Conspiracy
. It's the second in a contemporary paranormal fantasy, and boasts a Laurell Hamilton quote. (I don't remember Hamilton giving out quotes much, so that could be a big deal.) Our heroine is a Paramortal psychologist/ex-Marine Special Forces operative, and -- reading between the lines of the back-cover copy -- I suspect that she, too, has was is euphemistically called a "complicated love life." (Didn't I read that one Ace author had that written into her contract?) Key to Conspiracy is on sale April 29th from Ace.From another subgenre comes Lisa Shearin's Armed & Magical
, a humorous fantasy novel from the author of Magic Lost, Trouble Found
. It's another Ace book, also coming April 29th. (And Ace has been very strong in humorous fantasy for a couple of decades now, so I expect this will be a lot of fun, if not terribly deep.
And then there's Sean Williams's Earth Ascendant
, second (and last?) in his Astropolis series. It looks like far-future space opera, which is something Williams does well. This is yet another Ace book for April 29th.Last from the Ace package is their trade paperback reprint of 2007's Wizards
anthology, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It contains a number of excellent stories by people like Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Nancy Kress, Garth Nix, Kage Baker, Tad Williams, and Peter S. Beagle -- it's pretty much an all-star cast. (Full disclosure: I liked it so much I bought it to offer at my old job at the club.) If the hardcover last year was too rich for your blood, perhaps this paperback -- coming May 6th -- will be better for your wallet.
The first of the "Year's Best" books that I've seen this year is Night Shade's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Two
, edited by Jonathan Strahan. It's a collection of last year's best stories, it's got a neat John Berkey cover, and it was published in March.Also from Night Shade is John Joseph Adams's reprint anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
, which published in January.Paolo Bacigalupi's first collection is Pump Six and Other Stories
, and Night Shade published it in February. I see that I've read most of it as the stories appeared in "Year's Best" anthologies, but I'm still hoping to get to it soon. (Although that's in part to see if Bacigalupi's growing mundanista pessimism gets toxic in large doses -- the stories I've read are all excellent, but they all also very definitely have a grim outlook towards the future.)
And last this week is a novel that people have been telling me I should read for the past ten years -- Glen Cook's space opera The Dragon Never Sleeps
. It, once again, was published by Night Shade, and it was available in February. So those of you who have been haunting the used-book outlets for fifty-dollar copies of the mass-market paperback from twenty years ago are now in luck.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Quietly Gloating
When today started, I had a stack of fourteen books on top of my printer -- that's where things sit between the time I read them and when I finish writing about them. It's probably as tall as that stack has ever gotten, and my main job today was to work the stack down.
(Not to mention that I also had the stack of books from my Montclair trip yesterday that I wanted to post today, and the stack of review copies that came in last week for my Monday morning post. I was surrounded by tall stacks of books, believe you me.)
Not everything is ready to post yet -- and it'll dribble out over the course of the week, anyway -- but there are now only five books left in that top-of-the-printer pile, and I've written partial reviews of all of those.
I think I'm done for the day. With any luck, there will be a blizzard of my opinions about books in this coming week. (It's up to each of you to decide if that's a good or a bad thing.)
(Not to mention that I also had the stack of books from my Montclair trip yesterday that I wanted to post today, and the stack of review copies that came in last week for my Monday morning post. I was surrounded by tall stacks of books, believe you me.)
Not everything is ready to post yet -- and it'll dribble out over the course of the week, anyway -- but there are now only five books left in that top-of-the-printer pile, and I've written partial reviews of all of those.
I think I'm done for the day. With any luck, there will be a blizzard of my opinions about books in this coming week. (It's up to each of you to decide if that's a good or a bad thing.)
Incoming Books: 12 April
I took a trip to my favorite local bookstore, the Montclair Book Center, yesterday, and brought up a good-sized pile -- so I'll list those books separately from the usual Monday "Reviewing the Mail" post. My two boys accompanied me, and I let them each pick two books -- Thing 1 chose two Yu-Gi-Oh volumes (which I wouldn't link to even I could remember what they were -- probably middle books of Millennium World), and Thing 2 picked:The Pigeon Wants a Puppy
by Mo Willems, latest in the picture-book series about a pushy pigeon by a guy who's won a couple of Caldecotts already. It's the fourth book in the series, but it's still energetic and original -- Willems isn't milking the concept yet.
Flotsam
by David Wiesner, which won the Caldecott itself a year or so ago -- it's an engrossing wordless book with a wonderful gimmick that I won't spoil. Wiesner has done a bunch of great wordless picture books, like Sector 7
(about a boy who vists the Empire State Building and befriends a cloud) and Tuesday
(about the very strange occurrences one Tuesday night) -- he's good at image-to-image transitions in ways that I bet comics people would be interested in as well.And then, for me, the loot included:
Four P.G. Wodehouse books from Overlook Press -- Plum Pie
, Money for Nothing
, The Inimitable Jeeves
, and The Girl on the Boat
-- because I'd somehow gotten behind. I love this series: they're cleverly-designed and very eye-catching, with impressive production details. And Wodehouse is one of the funniest writers of all time, as always.Flann O'Brien's The Complete Novels
, in a handsome Everyman's Library edition -- I didn't know this was going to be published, but now I can get rid of my ratty old copy of The Third Policeman and, with any luck, actually get to read At Swim Two-Birds this year. Or maybe next.
Rick Geary's biography of J. Edgar Hoover
snuck past me earlier this year -- it was published by Hill and Wang's "Serious Comics" imprint and seems to have mostly avoided comics stores, but I finally saw it and nabbed it immediately.I'd been hoping the Morrow people would send me Jeffrey Ford's new novel The Shadow Year
for review, but that didn't happen, so I bought it myself. Jeff Ford is always worth it.
I also continued getting the new snazzy Penguin edition of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, with Moonraker
. Someday I might just sit down and read five (or all?) of them in a row. As I recall, they do progress from book to book, so it could be an interesting experiment to read them as a meta-novel.I special-ordered Greg Egan's Dark Integers and Other Stories
, since I didn't expect to see it in person until a convention (if then). I probably should have done a bit more research, since it contains five novellas, four of which I've read -- I'm still happy to have more Egan short fiction on my shelf, in a durable form, but I was looking forward to reading more new stuff by him, and this won't be it. (Perhaps the new novel will come along soon, though.)
Sex and Sensibility
is a book of cartoons by women cartoonists, with some interpolated essays, about sex and love and related matters. It's a big new collection of magazine-style cartoons, which I love, so I couldn't resist it. It's edited by Liza Donnelly, and, oddly, was published by Twelve, the big newish Hachette imprint which does one book a month and promotes the hell out of it -- I wouldn't think this could sustain that level of hype.And last for me was Martin Amis's new nonfiction collection with the exceptionally long title: The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom
. I've heard that Amis's views on Islam are controversial, to put it mildly, but he's always an engaging writer, even when he lets his own hobbyhorses run away with him (as in Koba the Dread and, fictionally, in Night Train).
So that's way more than I'll be able to read soon -- plus a big pile of review books that I'll list tomorrow. Better get to cracking those books...
Friday, April 11, 2008
Authors on TV
Cynthia Cooper, who wrote the fabulous Extraordinary Circumstances about her experiences as the WorldCom whistleblower, will be on TV not once but twice in the coming week:
- Her reading and Q&A on C-SPAN's Book TV will re-run on Sunday the 13th at 4:00 PM. (And again Monday morning at 6:00 for you early-birds.)
- And she'll be interviewed by Tavis Smiley on his PBS show on Tuesday the 15th.
People Who Need Boundaries
Dear Author has the story of DeborahAnne MacGillivray, a romance writer (and "secret co-publisher" and cover artist for Highland Press) who clearly doesn't think three-star Amazon reviews are good enough for her darling prose.
MacGillivray's attack on the reviewer who dared to not love her book is covered here, while more of the convoluted story of Highland Press is here. (I can't say I understand all of this, and some of it seems to be posturing on one side and hysteria on the other, but it's definitely weird, unprofessional behavior.)
She's off the reservation and running wild, folks -- and some of the passive-aggressive responses in comments are nearly as entertaining.
[via Diana Pharoah Francis]
MacGillivray's attack on the reviewer who dared to not love her book is covered here, while more of the convoluted story of Highland Press is here. (I can't say I understand all of this, and some of it seems to be posturing on one side and hysteria on the other, but it's definitely weird, unprofessional behavior.)
She's off the reservation and running wild, folks -- and some of the passive-aggressive responses in comments are nearly as entertaining.
[via Diana Pharoah Francis]
Itzkoff Level Now Orange
Dave Itzkoff is a hard man to track down -- he's supposed to be the SF reviewer for the New York Times, but he's more often found doing other things. If he's not reviewing literary fiction, he's interviewing a scientist. If he's not searching for the "new Arthur C. Clarke," he's providing reading suggestions for presidential candidates. Where, oh where will the Itzkoff turn up next?
This week finds Itzkoff on the Times's PaperCuts blog, using Charton Heston's recent death as a springboard to quote the ending of Harry Harrison's novel Make Room! Make Room!
It's nice to see that there is another SF novel that he's read -- even if it is one that's thirty-plus years old -- but, in typical PaperCuts style, the post is really just an excuse for a blogger to grab a YouTube clip, retype something out of a book he already owns, and call it journalism. And Make Room!'s trendy dystopian environmentalism is exactly the kind of thing I would have expected the young Itzkoff to have gravitated towards.
So I still stand by my original characterization of Itzkoff: "the guy who read some SF in college, and didn't engage in it terribly deeply." Although, if he comes back with a passioned defense of A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, he may have a chance to convince me otherwise.
This week finds Itzkoff on the Times's PaperCuts blog, using Charton Heston's recent death as a springboard to quote the ending of Harry Harrison's novel Make Room! Make Room!
It's nice to see that there is another SF novel that he's read -- even if it is one that's thirty-plus years old -- but, in typical PaperCuts style, the post is really just an excuse for a blogger to grab a YouTube clip, retype something out of a book he already owns, and call it journalism. And Make Room!'s trendy dystopian environmentalism is exactly the kind of thing I would have expected the young Itzkoff to have gravitated towards.
So I still stand by my original characterization of Itzkoff: "the guy who read some SF in college, and didn't engage in it terribly deeply." Although, if he comes back with a passioned defense of A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, he may have a chance to convince me otherwise.
Quote of the Week
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
- George Orwell
- George Orwell
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Born Queen by Greg Keyes
I've been a big supporter of Greg Keyes's "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone" series from the beginning -- I bought the first book, The Briar King, as a Selection at my old job, and burbled about it thusly:Six years ago, I introduced a fantasy novel to the SFBC by saying “If you love good fantasy, you owe it to yourself to read this book.” I don’t say that kind of thing lightly, but I said it about A Game of Thrones, and I’m thrilled to say it again about The Briar King: this is a book you have to read if you like sweeping fantasy.Now, I have to admit, here, that I thought Keyes's previous series, "The Age of Unreason," went somewhat off the rails as it went on, after a brilliant first volume (Newton's Cannon). So I was a bit apprehensive that the same thing might happen to "Kingdoms:" that it might lose focus on the characters that made the first book so impressive and wander away from its strengths.
But "Kingdoms" is now complete, so I can say, definitively, that didn't happen at all. Keyes shows a real brilliance for keeping his story moving in Born Queen, shuffling between about half-a-dozen viewpoint characters but cutting out all the fat -- scenes are precise, only as long as they need to be, and they get shorter and tighter as the book goes on. It's wonderful to see a writer who really understands how to control tension and keep the stakes high. The Born Queen is an epic fantasy novel that's just the right size, not bloated like so many of its competitors. (In fact, I expect many readers will wish it was substantially longer -- but that's the essence of entertainment: leaving the audience wanting more.)
A plot summary probably won't make much sense to people who haven't read the earlier books, and could give away plot-points for those in the middle of those books. So I'll skip lightly: a certain viewpoint character is now in power, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Another one of the viewpoint characters also comes into power -- and, in both cases, I'm speaking in a fantasy sense more than as in a political one -- with unexpected, and not positive, results. Other than that, it starts out about as you'd expect the last book in a multiple-viewpoint fantasy series to do: the major characters are scattered, doing separate things. I was about to throw in their names, but it always annoyed me, back at the clubs, when the descriptive copy for late books in fantasy series would say things like "Llad'nafar must re-invoke the Stone of Forgetting, while the Duke of Dork races to save the life of the fair Melililiii, beset by Orcs in the Darken Forest." So I'll avoid that part. The cast here is made up of the people who survived the previous books -- you know, by now, who they are.
If you've read the earlier books: The Born Queen finishes up the series with a bang, and without any filler. It starts at a brisk walk, and picks up speed as the book goes on.
If you haven't read the earlier books: for god's sake, don't start here. But the series is now completely, and excellently complete, so go grab a copy of The Briar King and get ready for something special.
Either way, this is one of the better epic fantasy series out there. Even more, it was planned for four books, and was completed in four books, without bloat or fuss. Keyes is a damn good writer, and an even better storyteller; he knows how to tell the story he set out to tell, without getting distracted by other things. That should be celebrated, in our era particularly.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
A Meme I Am
This one came from Diana Pharoah Francis:
You're feeling: a bit hungry
To your left: is most of my officeicle, including too many papers strewn across the work surface
On your mind: how to sell more books, Sales Conference, lunch
Last meal included: Grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzels
You sometimes find it hard to: care
The weather: is outside, and I am not. I prefer it that way.
Something you have a collection of: Take your choice -- if I have more than two of something, it starts to look like a collection. Books, CDs...I've even got four computers now.
A smell that cheers you up: the sea.
A smell that can ruin your mood: That's rather a personal question, isn't it? (Or maybe this didn't mean mood as in "in the mood.")
How long since you last shaved: approximately six hours
The current state of your hair: growing out, but still controlled
The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): here at work, the looming, ominous overhead bins.
Your skill with chopsticks: indeterminate. I've only used them once or twice, and didn't make a complete fool out of myself.
Which section you head for first in a bookstore: manga/graphic novels, usually -- but generally because I'm with one or more of my boys. On my own, I tend to poke through the remainders, look at the new tables, and then wander off towards fiction and/or SFF.
Something you’re craving: King & Sons pizza
Your general thoughts on the presidential race: I was hoping for convention fights on both sides, but I've realized that the rules are so different now that it can't happen that way. So now I just wish it was already over, and Anybody But Bush had already won.
How many times have you been hospitalized this year: None. But the year's still early!
Favorite place to go for a quiet moment: The couch in my dining room.
You’ve always secretly thought you’d be a good: international assassin.
Something that freaks you out a little: Not being absolutely sure of what I'm doing.
Something you’ve eaten too much of lately: Little chocolate eggs.
You have never: been convicted of a felony in New York state.
You never want to: True dat. It's the central flaw of my character.
(And, the other night, I realized why I enjoy doing these silly list-of-questions meme; it gives me a chance to channel my inner Al Jaffee. Yes, I'm yet another American ruined by Mad magazine.)
You're feeling: a bit hungry
To your left: is most of my officeicle, including too many papers strewn across the work surface
On your mind: how to sell more books, Sales Conference, lunch
Last meal included: Grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzels
You sometimes find it hard to: care
The weather: is outside, and I am not. I prefer it that way.
Something you have a collection of: Take your choice -- if I have more than two of something, it starts to look like a collection. Books, CDs...I've even got four computers now.
A smell that cheers you up: the sea.
A smell that can ruin your mood: That's rather a personal question, isn't it? (Or maybe this didn't mean mood as in "in the mood.")
How long since you last shaved: approximately six hours
The current state of your hair: growing out, but still controlled
The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): here at work, the looming, ominous overhead bins.
Your skill with chopsticks: indeterminate. I've only used them once or twice, and didn't make a complete fool out of myself.
Which section you head for first in a bookstore: manga/graphic novels, usually -- but generally because I'm with one or more of my boys. On my own, I tend to poke through the remainders, look at the new tables, and then wander off towards fiction and/or SFF.
Something you’re craving: King & Sons pizza
Your general thoughts on the presidential race: I was hoping for convention fights on both sides, but I've realized that the rules are so different now that it can't happen that way. So now I just wish it was already over, and Anybody But Bush had already won.
How many times have you been hospitalized this year: None. But the year's still early!
Favorite place to go for a quiet moment: The couch in my dining room.
You’ve always secretly thought you’d be a good: international assassin.
Something that freaks you out a little: Not being absolutely sure of what I'm doing.
Something you’ve eaten too much of lately: Little chocolate eggs.
You have never: been convicted of a felony in New York state.
You never want to: True dat. It's the central flaw of my character.
(And, the other night, I realized why I enjoy doing these silly list-of-questions meme; it gives me a chance to channel my inner Al Jaffee. Yes, I'm yet another American ruined by Mad magazine.)
Numbers, Endlessly Fascinating Numbers
Publishers Weekly this week has an article with a couple of charts from R.R. Bowker's new PubTrack Consumer service, tracking book sales in 2007 by source of purchase and by genre.
The "Source of Purchases by Units" is what PW led with, but it's fairly boring, and doesn't say much that's interesting. (Though "Book Clubs" is the third-highest source, at 12%.) But on the "Genre Purchases by Units" chart, the numbers are quite different from the conventional wisdom, and I had to read the article a couple of times before I could figure out why. (More on that later; for now, the sales are to adults of new books, and are of units, rather than dollars.)
The charts aren't online, so here's the genre one -- overall, fiction was at 49% and nonfiction 51% --
(As far as we've noticed, it hasn't and isn't.)
Here's the deal, and the intriguing bit (which also may explain why Romance is relatively small) -- these numbers are self-reported, via "an online weekly survey of consumers' buying habits that is completed by about 15,000 consumers weekly." So, assuming that these people are representative -- and I think that's a fair assumption -- then the takeaway is that readers think that they're reading more Mysteries and SF books, and fewer Romances and Fantasy books, than we in the publishing world think they are.
Some of that may be negative perception of those genres -- Romance and Fantasy are the most obviously, blatantly escapist genres, and many people may not perceive their own reading that way -- but some of it is also clearly a difference of perception about the current group of cross-genre books. Most of the mystery/romance/fantasy crossovers -- urban fantasy, paranormal romance, etc. -- are published as Romance or Fantasy, but it seems that readers view them somewhat differently.
Or am I reading too much into one statistic? (And, in any case, what are the other 28% of nonfiction readers reading?)
The "Source of Purchases by Units" is what PW led with, but it's fairly boring, and doesn't say much that's interesting. (Though "Book Clubs" is the third-highest source, at 12%.) But on the "Genre Purchases by Units" chart, the numbers are quite different from the conventional wisdom, and I had to read the article a couple of times before I could figure out why. (More on that later; for now, the sales are to adults of new books, and are of units, rather than dollars.)
The charts aren't online, so here's the genre one -- overall, fiction was at 49% and nonfiction 51% --
- Mystery/Detective 17%
- Romance 11%
- Science Fiction 5.5%
- Religion 5%
- Bio/Autobio 4%
- General Fiction 3%
- Espionage/Thriller 3%
- Cooking 3%
- History 3%
- Fantasy 3%
- Graphic Novels 2%
- Health & Fitness 2%
- Business/Economics 2%
- Horror/Occult 2%
- Computers 2%
(As far as we've noticed, it hasn't and isn't.)
Here's the deal, and the intriguing bit (which also may explain why Romance is relatively small) -- these numbers are self-reported, via "an online weekly survey of consumers' buying habits that is completed by about 15,000 consumers weekly." So, assuming that these people are representative -- and I think that's a fair assumption -- then the takeaway is that readers think that they're reading more Mysteries and SF books, and fewer Romances and Fantasy books, than we in the publishing world think they are.
Some of that may be negative perception of those genres -- Romance and Fantasy are the most obviously, blatantly escapist genres, and many people may not perceive their own reading that way -- but some of it is also clearly a difference of perception about the current group of cross-genre books. Most of the mystery/romance/fantasy crossovers -- urban fantasy, paranormal romance, etc. -- are published as Romance or Fantasy, but it seems that readers view them somewhat differently.
Or am I reading too much into one statistic? (And, in any case, what are the other 28% of nonfiction readers reading?)
Monday, April 07, 2008
Playing Chicken With the Lawyers
Keith R.A. DeCandido has discovered a book called Star Trek: The Death Wave, by a chap named Austin P. Torney. (Actually, Torney describes Death Wave as a "screenplay/novelette," which sounds an awful lot like "Office? Submarine!")
Pretty boring, huh? Well, what if I told you that Death Wave was published by an outfit called CreateSpace, and that there's no sign that it was authorized by anyone who actually owns Star Trek trademarks?
So -- anyone think that Viacom will be as warm and fuzzy with Mr. Torney as they have been with Phase II?
Pretty boring, huh? Well, what if I told you that Death Wave was published by an outfit called CreateSpace, and that there's no sign that it was authorized by anyone who actually owns Star Trek trademarks?
So -- anyone think that Viacom will be as warm and fuzzy with Mr. Torney as they have been with Phase II?
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