The Perilous Offence: It Smelt of Americanization

Or what colour is a football?

I’m just finishing up Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) and I can’t help but be annoyed at the apparent level of Americanization that occurs in this book. For a background, Midnight Riot is set in London and features a rookie cop who is thrown into some rather interesting events that may or may not involve magic (okay, they do involve magic, but that’s not the issue). Throughout what has been a largely enjoyable read, I keep getting yanked out of the flow of the story by what appears to be the American cleansing of a British novel (did you spot the pun?).

For example, the main protagonist mentions his love of soccer several times during the book and discusses it once or twice. Really? Someone raised in a rougher part of London likes soccer? I’m pretty certain it’s called football ‘round those parts. Even the title was scrubbed a bit – Midnight Riot is published as Rivers of London in the UK. Now, a there could be a whole separate debate on which title is more appropriate – each is both somewhat appropriate and rather out of place based on the content of the book, but Midnight Riot seems to me to be much more generic. As a reader, a book called Rivers of London peaks my curiosity, but Midnight Riot – no interest there. If it weren’t for some positive buzz I’ve seen elsewhere from trusted sources, I’d have let this book fly right by.

I can except that when a book crosses the pond that Queen’s English spelling gets shifted to American English. That’s fine – after all, I read American English. But I think it takes things too far when the colloquialisms of language become effected. I want to feel the atmosphere of a book, and when a born-and-raised Londoner speaks of soccer all sorts of flags go off, destroying that carefully crafted atmosphere. Most books I read that originated in the UK don’t scrub so thoroughly, so that’s probably why this one stands out so much.

Why? Does Del Rey see this one having such mass appeal that they need to dumb it down? Is it even necessary to dumb down a British book for the masses of the US? I think a tremendous disservice was done to the readers here, and to the author as well who put so much work into creating an atmosphere that feels like the streets of London.

So, good readers, what do you think of all this?

Blogging Advice: RSS Feeds

It’s not often that I give blogging advice – I’m not that sort of guy and this blog is not that sort of blog. But as a reader I am noticing something that really annoys me – more and more blogs are chopping off their RSS feeds. The blogs/websites give a teaser in the RSS feed and require you to click on the link to read the rest of the article. This is a bad idea that hurts those blogs/websites and is a disservice to the readers.

I assume that the reason blogs do this is to bring people directly to their site. Whether they just vainly want the stats or if there is an actual economic reason (like increasing hit counts to increase advertising rates), it is still a bad idea. In the SFF world, you want people to read articles. You aren’t looking for a profit (and if you are, look somewhere else). Publisher sites and blogs want to inform readers, bring more readers, etc – they want people to buy the books. So, you want people to read the content, not (necessarily) visit the website.

The extra step of clicking on a link really does keep people from reading the content – it certainly keeps me away. Very few teasers are enough for me to bother to read an article, but if I have the full article in front of me, I’m much more likely to at least skim it, if not read it in detail. Another key point is that many of us are reading our RSS feeds while working. And many readers work for large corporations or government entities that put up a lot of web filters. From experience, many SFF websites and blogs are blocked by these security filters. My understanding is that the Federal Government blocks pretty much all blogs. Some examples – Suvudu, SF Signal, YouTube, big name authors like Neil Gaiman – you guys are blocked by my corporation’s web security. But the content comes through RSS feed. If you want me to read, I need the full article (thank you Neil Gaiman and SF Signal for the full feed).

So, check your feed – is it a full feed? Tor, Suvudu, and many blogs – your feeds are not full feeds and I don’t read your articles as a result. I am not alone.

Also, don’t put ads in your RSS feeds. Flash is bad, ads are almost always Flash, it slows down the RSS feeds to a crawl and is extremely annoying. If you have ads in your RSS feed, you will almost certainly be dropped and I will no longer read your content.

/rant

Good Cover Art Gone Bad

On the whole, I think that the cover art by Daniel Dos Santos for Green by Jay Lake (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound, review) is quite good. It’s the kind of cover art that would make me pick up the book to see what it’s about – and I think it’s something that would likely appeal to a wide-ranging audience (even though it still somewhat fails the ‘would I want people to see me reading this in public’ test).

Then, I read the book. The character featured on the cover is the main character of the novel, also named Green. Yes, she is an adolescent girl, yes she cuts her face beneath a pomegranate tree (though I don’t recall her hanging upside down). So it fits. Only in the book Green is a person of color. In the very least she has dark skin – I always pictured her with a South Asian appearance to match my perception of the country she was born in, but her descriptions in the book leaves her appearance pretty open aside from the consistent description of dark skin.

So, why is a cover that is otherwise a fairly good representation of the content of the book misleading about this small bit? I’ve seen Jay Lake mention on either Twitter or his blog that he likes the cover a lot – now is he just saying this because that’s what a good author does, or does this little inconstancy bother him. I think it would really bother me.

The assumption I jump to is that there is a perception that a person of color in the place of the nice white girl we have instead could reduce the sales of the book. True or not, that really rubs me the wrong way. If it is true, nothing is going to change until there are more people of color on covers (see Tobias Buckell’s Ragamuffin with cover art by Todd Lockwood). Or it could be that the cover artist didn’t know that Green was a person of color, which is entirely possible since he was likely given only a short excerpt to base the cover art on).

Thoughts?

Amazon's Amazing(ly bad) Response

Via the wonder that is Twitter, I was lead to the Seattlepi.com and Amazon's response to Amazon's Amazing(ly bad) Ranking Policy :

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

As has been discussed over and over again, this doesn't explain many of the facts - like author's being informed by Amazon of a change in policy. And what I don't see is an apology of any sorts. So, I'm still waiting - I'm less likely to cut off all the Amazon links around here, but at the same time I'm a bit more inclined to look elsewhere for the future. I guessed that this would go away, but if Amazon responds in this way, they are just asking for it to fester for some time.

Tasteless Article

There is a new article up over at BookSpot Central that examines the ‘best looking women on fantasy and science fiction book covers’. I am literally at a loss of words to describe how tasteless and offensive I find this article. Doesn’t the world exploit women enough without this kind of help? Shame on BookSpot Central.

Disclosure: I am an Associate Reviewer at BookSpot Central and I know the author of this article in that capacity. We’ve had countless exchanges over about 3 years now and I generally like him.

Update: BookSpot Central has pulled the article in question.

Red Eagle Dances on Robert Jordan's Grave

Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time is one of my favorite series of all time – basically, when I started reading these books nearly 15 years ago I started on the path that brought me here. Or, I wouldn’t be blogging about this and that right now if it weren’t for The Wheel of Time. I’ve gone into more detail here.

So, I’m am quite upset about the way things are developing with the potential for these books to be made into a movie – see this announcement. Now, I’m not a big fan of books to movies (as I’ve said before), but in this case it goes much deeper. Below is an excerpt from one of Jordan’s final blog entries.

I hear things now and then floating out in the air. For instance, I hear that word was floating about ComicsCon in San Diego that I am displeased with Red Eagle. Too true. Too very true. In a few more months that last contract they have with anyone on God’s green earth that so much as mentions my name will come to an end and we can see what happens after that. You see, among other things they forgot an old dictum of LBJ back when he was just a Congressman from Texas, when he famously, or infamously, said “Don’t spit in the soup. boys. We all have to eat.” Worse, Red Eagle though they could tell me they spit in the soup, or pee in it, if they wanted to and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. You can’t apologize your way out of that with me, not that they tried. There isn’t enough money in the world to buy your way out of it with me. Not that they tried that either. So they get no further help from me. Once they are completely out of the picture, we’ll see what happens.

It’s easy to tell that Jordan felt that Red Eagle Entertainment had done him wrong and after they completely screwed up the New Spring comic effort, I have to admit that I have no love for them. The problem is that the development deal I linked above involves Red Eagle Entertainment – and as you can see from the above quote, this is not what Jordan wanted. In fact, I’ll go as far to say that this deal is in objection to a dying man’s wishes. It’s not surprising that the many dedicated fans of Jordan’s didn’t react too favorably to the announcement of Red Eagle’s involvement.

Earlier this week, Dragonmount did an interview with Red Eagle Entertainment about the project. Below is an excerpt.

DM: In one of his last blog posts, Jim made a negative comment about Red Eagle Entertainment that fueled a lot of speculation about Red Eagle Entertainment and your intentions with respect to THE WHEEL OF TIME. How will you convince Jim’s fans to trust you and give their full support to Red Eagle Entertainment’s WHEEL OF TIME projects?

REE: Let us first say that nothing Jim ever said did anything to diminish our great respect for him, his creative energy, and his vision for THE WHEEL OF TIME. He has set the bar very high, and we intend to honor his memory by carefully undertaking our film and other projects so as to meet the same standards of quality that he brought to his authorship of THE WHEEL OF TIME epic.

So, when confronted with the issue, Red Eagle basically turned around and said that Jordan (Jim refers to Jordan’s given name rather than the pen name he took) didn’t offend them – they got the question completely ass backward and managed to insult Jordan yet again. And they seem to miss the fact that their very involvement is a dishonor to Jordan’s memory as expressed by Jordan himself.

I’m not going to bother to quote the comments at that interview, but people associated with Red Eagle take things even farther, further insulting Jordan and questioning the state of his mind.

So, what’s the point of this rant? First, I want to inform people and fans alike of the situation. From the tone of the rest of this post, it should be no surprise that I’ll not be seeing any movie that Red Eagle has anything to do with. Furthermore, I’ll not be touching anything that Red Eagle touches – call it a boycott of Red Eagle. I won’t go as far to call for everyone to boycott Red Eagle, but I certainly think it should be considered. And let’s all pray that that this movie deal falls apart and dies the death it deserves.

Just Another Critic Who's Grip on the Cliff's Edge is Slipping

Here is an article published in the Washington Post by book critic Ron Charles about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Look, he has some good points - close examination on the excitement around HP does bring up some interesting problems. Declining reading is troubling. Yada yada yada

But, underlying the few good points he makes is sense of superiority that just turns off most people. He gets defensive about his profession and in doing so is basically ridiculing those who just don't get it. He's preaching to a choir here - this article is written for those steadfast Harry Potter haters and critics like him (in certain circles I’m sure it’s equally important not to like Harry Potter – Malfoy rejoice). The rest of us little serfs just don't get it. The opposite is true - he doesn't get it. While it is very depressing that so many of these people who are enthusiastic about Harry Potter have probably read nothing other than Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code in the last few years, dismissing the appreciation of these books by steadfast readers (such as myself and most of you reading here) is a gross oversight. Dismissing the sense of wonder and excitement this series has produced in children is criminal. Harry Potter is a gateway to other (and better) fiction, sure not as much as we hope, but that doesn't make it any less important.

This is just another version of what has come become way too common. A print critic attempting to justify their existence by telling how everyone else has it wrong - a buggy builder decrying the automobile.

The Scourge of The

I’m sure that I can’t be the only person who’s noticed just how often a book title begins with the word ‘The’. Am I the only one who is annoyed by this? To be completely honest, anytime I see ‘The’ as the first word in a title, I’ve already mentally marked the book down a bit. Now I can’t ever recall having not bought a book due to this, but I’ve come to realize that titles are among the most important aspects of me choosing a book, and it bugs me. To me, it just seems somewhat lazy when ‘The’ is the first word – I’m sure this is an overgeneralization, but it does represent my gut feel.

I took a quick look to see just how prevalent it is – I’ve posted a total of 68 book reviews since starting this blog about a year and half ago. Of those books, 28 start with ‘The’ – that’s over 40% of the titles starting with the same unoriginal word. I didn’t bother to count up how many tags/labels I’ve attached to various posts, but 39 of them start with ‘The’, and most are book or series titles.

What does this mean – well, I suggest that if a writer or editor is looking to come up with a good title that’s more likely to grab the attention of someone like myself – avoid the scourge of ‘The’. Really, put just a bit more thought into it and the title will benefit.

Am I alone here? Thoughts? Any comments from someone who has actually had to come up with at title?

*I’m particularly proud of the fact that I used ‘The’ to start the title of this blog post.

**The was utilized 20 times in the writing of this post.

A Report from Readercon 18

Matt Denault has written up a spectacular report on Readercon 18 for FantasyBookSpot. I highly recommend reading it as some real interesting things were discussed.


Ok, so I’m going to focus on something that actually applies directly to me and rant a bit – the panel discussion title “Reviewing in the Blogosphere” with John Clute, Kathryn Cramer, Jim Freund (M), Ernest Lilley, Tom Purdom, and Gordon Van Gelder. So, the first observation is that I don’t believe any of these people actually qualify to be on a panel titled “Reviewing in the Blogosphere” – these people are certainly qualified to talk about reviewing, but they review for publications and such. Ideally, this panel should been populated by half with some amateur blogger reviewers or message board reviewers – essentially someone that’s never received a paycheck for a review.

As a result, it seems that the discussion quickly turned into “Reviewing On-line” and the challenges that the Ivory Tower have faced as they transition from print to screen rather than anything about blogs. This was not a discussion about reviewing on blogs, but the same discussion on reviews that continues to occur with these Ivory Tower reviewers who disdain the likes of me. Matt sums up some of Clute’s responses:

Clute responded that these plot summaries plus reviewer opinion are not really reviews. Asked what a review should do, Clute replied that it should be just like any other piece of writing any writer might produce, something that deploys all the skills she or he can muster, that they are proud of, and that they can envision still being in-print (and still being proud of) 10 years from now.

I can agree with much of this – a plot summary is the worst kind of review. A plot summary plus opinion can be just as useless. Many blogger reviewers do suffer from either a ‘laziness’ or perceived need to get something out quickly – this certainly applies to myself at times. Putting some true time and thought into a review is important.

However, the latter part of the summation above is where I start to disagree. John Clute writes detailed critique-style reviews. This is not something that should always be strived for. A quick review like what I write here is often all that is needed or wanted. I write reviews the way I do because they are the type of reviews I want to read. I want a quick idea of what the basic plot is and a basic idea of what is good and bad about the book. For this to be too meaningful, I need to have some knowledge and trust of the reviewer. I really don’t look for the more detailed review-critique until after I’ve read a book.

Clute seems to stop short of implying that everyone writing reviews should write as he does – but does imply that it’s not a place for amateurs. I’ve been annoyed by ‘Clute-worship’ in the past and it still annoys me now. This isn’t because of anything that Clute does – I actually believe that he deserves all the attention and praise that he gets. But there is often this idea that if you don’t strive to write a review like Clute does, that you just shouldn’t bother at all. That’s what I don’t like.

Ok, so back from the tangent – I would have loved to read a nice summary on “Reviewing in the Blogosphere” – instead they presented an Ivory Tower perspective of reviewing on-line. That’s too bad.

Oh, and let’s not forget that I’m commenting on a second-hand account of it all – I could easily be way off base.

Matt – great reporting. I hope FBS sends you to all the cons.

A Tale of Two Covers – Gardens of the Moon

In this installment of my irregular series of cover art discussion I discuss two different covers of the same book: Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson One is the UK version and the other a US version. To muddy the waters even more – it’s not a black and white discussion. I don’t particularly like either cover – it truly is a gray area here (which is rather appropriate since it is a Steven Erikson book’s cover I’m discussing).

Chris Moore is the artist who produced the UK version (above) of the cover art for Gardens of the Moon. I definitely file this cover in the ‘traditional fantasy’ section with a nice castle in the background and some wizardly dude in the foreground holding a sword with lightening flashing from it. All in all, it’s quite cheesy, though it doesn’t quite achieve the point of me being embarrassed to be seen reading the book.

Really there isn’t too much for me to say beyond it being traditional fantasy cover (thankfully it is dragon-free). It has almost nothing to do with the actual content of the book as far as I can tell. It’s just there.

Stephen Youll is the artist behind the US version (above). This cover is almost universally despised as far I can tell. In some ways that puzzling, and others it’s quite clear why. Looking at the big, detailed version, I have to say that the artwork really is spectacular – particularly the background. The dark red background appropriately sets the mood for the book.

Of course the problem is the people on the cover. These two look to be taken from a harlequin romance cover and dressed in armor (isn’t cleavage a nice, practical touch for armor?). While the backdrop is nice, these people make for a truly embarrassing cover – I certainly wouldn’t want to be seen reading a book with this cover. The only positive about the people is that the woman isn’t worshiping the man – though she is still placed in a lower, subservient position. For the paperback version (below) they markedly improved the cover by omitting the woman, though the cover remains quite bad as they left the man.

Again, I can’t see any real relation to the actual plot of the book. As I mentioned above, at least the dark red color appropriately captures the mood.

So, what’s the conclusion – in my opinion, they both suck as cover art. However, the nod certainly goes to the UK version (as it usually seems to) for not being utterly embarrassing to be seen with*.

*No, I’m not overly concerned about my appearance to others or what they think of me or my reading tastes. But that does not remove the shame of being associated with truly bad cover art.

Crossing Over to the Dark Side

Mixed emotions often follow ‘big’ announcements, and my emotion is in the minority (or seems to be) for one of the latest. As anyone who is familiar with the name George R.R. Martin has surely heard by now, it has been announced that HBO has picked up the rights to film Martin’s landmark A Song of Ice and Fire series – and it seems that things are progressing rather quickly in terms of production. Translation: this sounds like it’s for real. So, what’s the reaction from Martin fans – shouts of joy, unintelligible glee, proclamations that HBO is the only place that can do it ‘right’, etc.

My reaction – irritation, some anger, and now disappointment. While there are loads of good arguments for why it’s good when a work of one media crosses over to another, I’m ignoring them all and concentrating on how I feel about this. It saddens me that what people are treating as the greatest thing to happen to this series is its cross over to visual media – it will be watered down, loose its magic, and ruin my imagined interpretations and people scream in joy. What is it saying about books and the written word when such a reaction occurs? Is this indicative of people believing that a work is ‘incomplete’ if it’s only in the written form? Has imagination been monopolized by the huge, visual media conglomerates? Could these joyous revelers survive a week, or even a day without their TVs and video games?

As most of you know, I’m a regular poster at several message boards. One – Wotmania OF, where I’ve been a member for a long time now is the perfect example of how the written word seems to be fading in significance. Over the past 5+ years that I’ve been active in some form at that board I’ve seen it regress from a place of great discussion to one where a forum originally intended for book-talk has the majority of its activity talking about TV shows. What the fuck is up with that! TV shows? Come on, even the best TV show can’t stack up against a merely mediocre book. It seems that the visual media market has made the imagination an endangered species, and is working hard towards its extinction. I know there are others who think the same – speak up. Write, talk – be more intelligent and eloquent about it than I am (or less – whatever works).

I think I'm starting to get a handle on why the internet and such scares the publishing industry so much.

Saddened has grown to real anger, so I’ll stop here. /rant

PS – These related posts talk about books that just can’t be made into movies.

Related Rants: Can’t a Book Be Just a Book?

I Hate Making Lists!

I am very bad at making lists, and this is nothing new. Ask me what my favorite of anything is and you’ll probably get a vague, non-committal answer. A list is just another form of an absolute for me – it’s either part of the list, or not – it’s absolute, it’s certain. I don’t deal well with things that way (ironically, some of the more keen observers may be able to make a connection between opposition to absolutes in an inclusion in one of the lists at the end of this post). I’m even worse when I’m asked to rank things in lists.

Lists just don’t allow for the expression of different moods, different times, different audiences, different circumstances, what I haven’t read, what I don’t know about, etc. I almost want to list all the reasons I hate lists, but I know I’ll leave something out – do you feel my pain here people.

I’m a bit better at making lists when it’s from some finite group of a reasonable size. For example – I was able to make this best of list for books I read in 2006. But even that was a struggle.

Several years ago as part of a detailed personality test that I got to do as part of pre-marital counseling I found out that my dislike of lists goes strait to my personality (INTP for those who are curious). This came up fairly often since several of the exercises were making and ranking various lists – basically I would find ways to eliminate things by making them irrelevant. In the end this would make that particular exercise almost useless since my ranking method was totally incompatible with the scoring system.

So, I was asked for a top 10 list for books and a top 5 list for series over at Fantasybookspot. As an associate review for them, I can see why, but it just chafes – in a really uncomfortable place. If I were asked to make this list in a week, it’d probably be different. If were for a different audience – it’d be different. I’ll look at the list a year from now and wonder what the hell I was thinking. I hate these lists. Anyway, below are those lists – I at least got them changed from Top 10 to Recommended Books or Series (and notice the lack of numbers - they are in no particular order or rank).

Be assured that there are reasons for the books and series making these lists and they are of course personal to me – they are my lists, however much I hate them. Comment, criticize, ignore…whatever. I’ll back up why it’s on my list if you want, but I just can’t bring myself to do a more detailed explanation of each item at this time.


Recommended Books

• City of Saints and Madmen – Jeff VanderMeer (review)
• Vellum – Hal Duncan
• Tigana – Guy Gavríel Kay
• Perdido Street Station – China Miéville
• The Years of Rice and Salt – Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Forever War – Joe Haldeman (review)
• Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
• Infoquake – David Louis Edelman (review)
• Snow Crash – Neil Stephenson (review)
• Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami (review)

Recommended Series

• Wheel of Time – Robert Jordan
• Malazan Tales of the Fallen – Steven Erikson
• The Prince of Nothing – R. Scott Bakker (review)
• The Dark Tower – Stephen King
• A Song of Ice and Fire – George R.R. Martin

The Conservative Freaks Get All the Press

The SFF genre seems to be suffering a real image problem right now, and we have the likes of Orson Scott Card and Michael Crichton to thank for it. Is this how the genre is really perceived by the general public? Is this image really out there? Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I would consider the best the genre has to offer to have a ‘liberal’ slant to it if you had to label it.

I’m not trying to have a political discussion, though anyone who has read enough of what I post here or at various message boards likely has a good idea about where I fall on the political spectrum, BUT I find this disturbing. Look at this article in the LA Times, or at the bullshit that Crichton has pulled lately, this essay by Card, and who can forget the objectivist ranting of Terry Goodkind (you’ll have to search that out on your own).

My gut reaction to all this: horrified, saddened, angry, darkly amused, nauseous, speechless.

NFL Network Sticks It to the Fans

I apologize for going off-topic; yes this is football related and has nothing to do with SFF.

I HATE the NFL network, or at least what the NFL has decided to do with it. In my mind the NFL is the best run major professional sports league in the US, but this really knocks them down a long way.

Does the NFL not want people to watch games? Are networks not paying them enough money? What is the point of playing games on an obscure network that almost nobody can watch?

As far as I know, to watch a game on the NFL network, you need to have satellite TV. Very few if any cable outfitters have picked up the network yet. Why? Because the network wants cable providers to pay them like they are ESPN and not a new, unproven upstart for a niche market. What’s the result – fans are cut out from watching games. Fans get pissed off (like this one), fans look at the greedy owners in the league and are completely disgusted, and the reputation and quality of the entire league goes down.

Look, I have satellite TV, but I refuse to watch the network. Now, I did break this boycott to watch for a few minutes last Thursday. And what is the quality of broadcasts? It’s even worse than the announcers for Monday night games (something I didn’t think was possible) and the quality of the product looks like it did over 10 years ago. There is absolutely no step forward, only backward.

I can only hope and plead the executives in charge pull their heads out of their asses and stop this. Let the established and accessible networks doe their jobs and televise the NFL. I hope all fans in the league join me in refusal to support this crackpot and short-sighted move of the league – don’t watch the NFL Network.

So, the big test comes next weekend when my Cowboys play Atlanta in a Saturday night game on the network. This game has big playoff indications, and I would want to watch it even if it didn’t. But I hate the NFL network and don’t want to support it in any way. I don’t know what I’ll do yet, but I do know that I hate the NFL network and consider it an insult to the fans that have helped make the NFL the league that it is.

Star Wars Rant!

Scalzi starts off with a discussion that Lou Anders has been involved in at his blog and the dissolves into a scathing rant against Lucas and Star Wars. I have to say that I agree with much of what he says. Particularly this:

You know what I felt when Episode III was done? Relief. I was done with the Star Wars films. I was free.

It looks like it's generating the controversy you'd expect.

Worldcon and Hugos - a Report and Rant

Well, I've not ever been to a con and I'm not a voting member for the Hugos, but I'm often curious to hear about what goes on. Someday perhaps I'll go, but for now it's vicarious or not at all. Anyway, the report by William Lexner (aka Stego) is the best I've seen so far - and there are lots out there.

Reviews, Bribes and Misconceptions

I saw this post over at the Emerald City Blog and got a bit pissed off even though it doesn’t really apply to me. It all begins with this passage from a review over at Strange Horizons:

Just like everyone else, I am rather suspicious of hype. As soon as I hear something is the best new thing ever I start to wonder what's wrong with it. Sometimes, as in the case of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the praise seems warranted. Far more often I want to know how the reviewer was bribed to tell me such lies. Which brings me to The Lies of Locke Lamora, a book awash in buildup. There's a movie deal and already a fair number of foreign rights deals, and the buzz surrounding it seems determined to convince us that it will be a best-selling novel.

Now, on the surface this just seems to be an attempt to be clever in saying that hype is troublesome – not a stance I disagree with. However the bit in the middle about reviewers being bribed and telling lies is the real kicker. First, the implication is that reviewers are unethical and profiting significantly from the reviews they write; then it says that if the opinion of a reviewer differs from their own, it must be a lie (insinuating that there are clear right and wrong opinions about books). Wow, need more be said about how unfortunate and ridiculous this is?

Of course there are probably a few exceptions where these very things are happening. But to be so broad in implicating pretty much every on-line reviewer is disgusting.

I couldn't help but relate this answer in an interview that Scott Bakker gave:

I think the temptation to write for your reviewers is a peril that every author faces. Since reviewers are not typical readers, succumbing to this temptation means writing for people with very specialized expectations. I actually think this is a very profound cultural disease, one which has lead to the degradation of spectacle as a literary category, and thus to the effective segregation of thoughtfulness and mass appeal. Here in North America at least, literary culture trains those with the desire to challenge readers to talk amongst themselves - or in other words, to write for people who have the least to gain from being challenged. They pilfer all the talent, then call popular culture dreck. Then, rather than acknowledge their own institutional role, they blame it all on the evil corporations, even though the human fascination for spectacle predates General Electric by the length of recorded history. After all, something must be preventing the masses from coming to them and to their status-preserving preference for the mundane.

There seems to be a bit of this attitude evident in the statments above.

Now, there is this blog talking about all the money being made when reviewers link/promote books they review with links to Amazon. You may have noticed that the books here at this blog have these links. I have a rather small audience around here and I’m certainly not a well-known reviewer or critic that’s receiving ARC’s and the like (though, I’d like it if I did – hint). So, while I’m not exactly the target of these types of statements, it still grazes me enough to be insulting.

For those curious about the rewards I’m bringing in from all those Amazon links, I’ve had a total of 12 books purchased through those links, of which I bought 11. This works out to just about $11, keeping in mind that most of that money was my own anyway. While I’m sure that other, more popular and respected reviewers out there make more money than this, I’m also confident that they are not exactly breaking the bank on this. In fact, I’d bet that the vast majority don’t even come close to breaking even if you consider how much time and effort they put into create the links and such in the first place.

So, if you think that someone like me is profiting with this blog, keep taking those drugs and consider marketing them to others. If you like a book and plan on buying it, consider clicking on link from here – I just might get enough money out of it to afford half a book this year.

So, now I will quietly wait for my bribe money.

EDIT: The author of the review I mention from Strange Horizons has responded to her word choice here.

EDIT: More and more reactions. And some more.

Lecture Me Not

I recently bought a collection of short stories that was published by a small, independent outfit. In the back, after the ‘about the author’ entry is a ‘note to the reader’ that gives me a lecture. The tone of this short letter is non-threatening in an effort to not come across too high and mighty, but it failed, leaving me a bit peeved off. This letter reminds me that I should not buy used books, sell my books to used books stores, visit libraries, and it cautions me to not even lend my books to a friend or colleague – unless they would likely buy that book or others.

The intent of this letter is to remind me as a reader that authors don’t get paid unless you are buying a new book. In the chain of money, when a new book is purchased the publisher is getting money, which eventually makes its way to an author. When a book is bought used, that money is not going to the publisher – they’ve already had their cut for that book. And clearly, no profits are made when a book is lent by individuals or libraries.

Authors generally don’t make much money, most need a day job. This letter implies that it is my duty as a reader to buy new books to support authors and publishers. That somehow I have sinned against an author when I buy their books used, or god forbid, check out a copy from the library.

I will admit that I hadn’t previously thought much about buying used books, and how that money is not trickling back to the author. I do see the point in supporting these authors, especially authors who don’t have big contracts, and are not as widely read. And I agree that authors need money to function in society, just as I do (which the letter was kind enough to remind me of). However, the inclusion of this letter leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Who are these people to lecture me on how I should spend my money. They know nothing of my finances, of how much I spend on books, on how often I buy new books versus used books.

The more juvenile side of me wants to boycott this publisher and to never buy a new book again. The realist in me knows I already spend too much on books, and if anything, I should not be buying books at all at the moment. My tax dollars pay for the library, I should use it more. But things are never simple.

The truth is I want to buy new books – hardback books at that. But this is just unrealistic considering my financial place in the world. I’m relatively secure and should appreciate it more, but can I afford to spend $30 for every book I buy? Now consider that I’ll buy about 100 books in an average year; that’s $3000 per year on books (not counting taxes). Sure, I can cut that down a bit by sales and such, but the point remains whether I’m spending $500, $1500, or $5000 on books in a year. That is just a lot of money – especially considering that all too often the quality of the book binding is just not what it once was. I’ve had books fall apart after two reads, and I’m not that hard on books.

Yet another factor is the already rampant consumerism in the western world and how it relates to the production of books. Not enough books are constructed out of recycled materials, most books require the death of trees and all the consequences associated with deforestation and yes, global warming. Right now, reading a used book (or recycled book in this context) is much more environmentally conscious than reading a new book. I suppose I could always read an e-book, but what that does to my eyes and sanity deserves an article in its own right – let’s just leave it at I’m not a fan of e-books.

So, in the end, I’m quite irritated that some small publisher, whom I did buy a new book from, had the audacity to print a lecture telling me that it is unethical to buy used books and that I need to think twice about lending books to friends. Yes, it’s a bit of an overreaction, but then I’ve never been very good with condescending lectures from anyone about anything. I entirely sympathize with authors, especially the majority of whom don’t earn a lot of money. I too have to work for a living and can certainly relate, but I can’t agree that this justifies the printing of this letter in its current form.

So, has this letter from the publisher managed to alter my buying habits? Only in one small way, I am now less likely to buy a book from them in the future – new or used. Not their intent I should think.

EDIT: Due to popular demand, the name of the publisher: Yard Dog Press

Please Don’t Judge My Book by Its Cover

How many times have you seen the cover art for an anticipated book and wanted to scream? How many books have you passed over because of that terrible cover, only to find out later that it actually is a quality read? This is the long way of saying that I generally loathe cover art for SF books. It really makes me want to hurl, preferably all over those Harlequin romance wanna-be covers.

Yes, I often choose not read books in public because of the silly cover art; or I’ll choose a book with relatively benign cover art to avoid those accusing glances from the guy sitting next to me on the plane; sometimes I just leave the jacket at home.

Why is the cover art so bad? Is it because publishers think their audience demands these types of covers? Do people actually want them – am I alone in my cover-art despair? Look at the European versions – while they are often bad, they are almost universally better than we get here in the US. Is there a conspiracy among the literary elite, the proverbial ‘Ivory Tower’, to keep SF from gaining any respect by dressing it in ridiculous clothing? Am I just searching for excuses for my insecurities?

Now, I know that while I rant on this, things are actually getting better. There are actually ‘epic fantasy’ series out there without dragons and maidens and other clichés on the cover. You can pick up a ‘space opera’ that doesn’t have some strange looking planet with a spaceship gracing its cover. Some of the latest ‘urban fantasy’ and ‘magical realism’ have truly great art on the covers, often creepy at that. Are publishers and cover artists finally getting it? I really hope so.

I’ll restrain my desire to douse the SF section in my local bookstore with gasoline, light it, and cackle maniacally in the flickering light from my soapbox, for now anyway. But, please, any of you who can actually have a say in this matter, stop insulting my intelligence with such truly terrible and juvenile cover art.

Can’t a Book Just Be a Book?

This should be a short rant that hopefully won’t piss too many people off…that being said…

Is anyone else just a bit tired of all the cross media ‘pollination’ going on? Can a successful SFF work remain only in book form? Does it have to become a comic, graphic novel, animated series, soundtrack, or movie? Am I the only one who’s a bit tired and insulted by apparent need ruin my imagination? Simply said, no graphic comic or movie will ever exceed the images I create in my head. If I enjoy it in book form, I don’t want to see it in any other form. Now, I will admit, Peter Jackson’s LotRversion was spectacular, and I enjoyed his creation. But, the little things he did ‘wrong’ still annoy me, and now my original mental images of the series are forever polluted by his production, however well done it was.

Yes, I know that it brings more popularity and notoriety to the genre, which insures its survival and helps to guarantee there is a large number of authors out there producing quality and entertaining stuff – victory through numbers. But I for one don’t cheer with the latest announcement of a ‘new’ movie or comic.

Related Rants: Crossing Over to the Dark Side