Kindlestones & Other Stuff
A couple of book-related pieces. First, UK book chain Waterstones has decided to get into bed with Amazon and sell Kindles and Kindle eBooks in its physical stores:
As well as selling the Kindle device, Waterstones will allow Kindle users to digitally browse books and take advantage of Waterstones’ special offers.
In a statement, James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones, said: “The best digital readers, the Kindle family, will be married to the singular pleasures of browsing a curated bookshop.”
It seems only yesterday, James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones, said this about his digital strategy:
“We’ll be different from Amazon,” he says, with characteristic ebullience, “and we’ll be better.”
Actually, it was yesterday. Make of that u-turn what you will.
I’m not quite sure what to think of this just yet. The merging of corporate power is always worrying, especially since publishers will be the ones to suffer: they’ll have to stump up even more for promotions and they’ll be made to offer even more discount to this monopoly-to-be. It’s amazing just how much Amazon charges to send out promotional emails. This also means consumers suffer through a lack of choice.
On another level, this could nudge-out self-published authors and smaller presses from a crowded marketplace. Such smaller presses had free reign for a while, but if customers significantly enter Waterstones to browse for books, then they’ll be under the influence of what publishers have paid for in terms of positioning (you think those books just get put in visible places for no reason?), before downloading onto their devices. This means those publishers who pay the most money will probably get what they want; but then again, that’s how the industry has always worked.
All ifs and buts and contradictions, of course, but I do wonder what Mr Daunt is up to. He’s clearly a clever chap, so why the epic u-turn? Is there some unbelievable footnote that we’ve all missed? Are Amazon funding some of the refurbishment and so on? Is it short-termism or a clever long-term strategy? Are Amazon using this as a way to get into physical stores and sell books from their own publishing imprints? Will we see a rebranding as Kindlestones?
Personally, I’d actually quite like to be able to browse and download to my iPad (not Kindle) – but whether that’s possible or not, whether other formats are supported or not, I don’t know. Let’s hope this doesn’t mean DRM is flavour of the month again. I’m still bamboozled as to how Amazon’s shit device can possess such a large share of the market.
Speaking of small presses and self-published authors: this is the perfect example of how a writer should not go about publicising their own books:
I hate to further bring attention to what has since been called: “Mathias’s Meltdown”, but I think his aggressive advertising tactics and willingness to bring negative attention to himself warrant discussion.
It’s worth following. Chuck Norris has nothing on this guy.
C. S. Lewis on Media Distortion
Children are not deceived by fairy-tales; they are often and gravely deceived by school-stories. Adults are not deceived by science-fiction; they can be deceived by the stories in the women’s magazines. None of us are deceived by the Odyssey, the Kalevala, Beowulf, or Malory. The real danger lurks in sober-faced novels where all appears to be very probable but all is in fact contrived to put across some social or ethical or religious or anti-religious ‘comment on life’ …
Via Brain Pickings.
John Updike on Criticism
From the introduction of his 1977 book Picked-up Pieces, John Updike offers six rules on good reviewing (which, unfortunately assume the author is male):
My rules, drawn up inwardly when l embarked on this craft, and shaped intaglio- fashion by youthful traumas at the receiving end of critical opinion, were and are:
- Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.
- Give him enough direct quotation–at least one extended passage–of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.
- Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.
- Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants’ revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)
- If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?
Whether or not it’s a good or bad trend (and being an author I’m bound to mention this point), I suspect too few reviewers of science fiction and fantasy fiction really seem to put much effort into point 1. Perhaps that’s because genre critics are fascinated with taxonomy and heritage, and end up trying to compare the book to others, rather than examining it in isolation. Maybe that’s just the nature of genre, though.
(Via Brainpickings.)
Editorial Choice, Comments
Expertise. An editor making a choice. Having someone who knows their shit put things in front of you, rather than you hacking through the vast swathe of content online to find something that interests you; or having to trawl through customer reviews that look as if they’re written by people with as many IQ points as letters in their name (iTunes, LoveFilm and Amazon – I’m looking at you).
It’s a subject that’s been on my mind recently, as I’ve recently started using the Band of the Day app for the iPad. It’s pretty nifty, built on the simple concept that a bunch of people who know their shit harvest a bio, samples and videos and present them in an appealing way. It’s rekindled my interest in music, which I’ll admit I’ve lost recently. There’s so much nonsense out there, that it’s nice to find some sincere people who clearly love music and have taken the time to present it well.
I guess that it’s the same with book editors, too. Sure they’re there to sell stuff, but book editors have to trawl through lots of submissions to put what they think is decent stuff out there (of course, on ‘decent’ your milage may vary). They think it’s good. They want you to like it too. Editors of review sites, too, also play the same game (though in some quarters I’d like to see more editorial opinion and consistency). The gatekeeper still has a role to play.
I think there’s a danger that editorial opinion online is lost to the subconscious yearning for an apparent choice. Editorial selections are, for me, becoming increasingly important once again. I don’t want to look through hundreds of opinions, which is probably why I find LoveFilm customer reviews to be useless. There was a time where I was all for having essentially crowd-voted suggestions on good music and literature, but I’ve found that my tastes seem to differ from the average ratings far more often than not. This is not at all to dismiss crowd-sourced opinion – it has it’s place, and for some it’s very important – but these days I want experienced people who have good knowledge to put what they think is the best in front of me, so I might discover something new and interesting, and maybe better myself in the process. It’s like trusting the person in a music shop who enthuses about certain bands, or have someone explain a piece of artwork to you. It makes, somehow, for a far richer experience.
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Vaguely related to online culture, I noticed an interesting article in the New Statesman about not leaving comments at the bottom of articles:
When I give someone a book as a present, I don’t hand them a marker pen so they can scrawl “DID YOU GET PAID FOR THIS?” on the final page. So when did we get the idea that allowing comments on articles was a Good Thing?
The anti-comment backlash has been gathering pace for a while now. Every so often, a writer puts their head above the parapet to say that, actually, they don’t really enjoy every facet of their life, career and appearance being raked over directly underneath an article they’ve spent time crafting. Or that they feel slightly miffed that a drive-by “YOUR SHIT” or “FIRSSSST” gets almost equal prominence with their original work.
A few places have already taken the step of removing comments: one of them is the satirical Daily Mash website. “One of our well-worn catchphrases is: “I have no interest in your worthless, ill-informed opinion. And we’re not kidding,” the Mash’s editor, Neil Rafferty, told me. “What you don’t want is to write a piece of comedy and immediately below it, have lots of people trying to be funnier than you. It’s a tiresome experience and it detracts from the actual article. It was banned fairly early on; we tried it for two weeks and it was hellish.”
Roman Vindolanda
Roman Vindolanda is well worth your time. Just south of Hadrian’s Wall, it was a frontier fort and village, occupied for over 300 years. It’s constantly spurting archeological treasures, such as the famous Vindolanda Writing Tablets, which are the oldest surviving handwritten documents in the UK, and the oldest one written in Latin by a woman – anywhere. The museum is excellent, though doesn’t permit photographs unfortunately. I was so inspired, I very nearly bought a replica Roman helmet and sword. Very nearly.
On Private Writing
I’ve recently discovered Day One, a journal app for iPhone, iPad and MacBook. And because of Day One, I’ve also rediscovered the joys of private writing.
One of the things that I lost over the years, as a novelist, was the pleasure of unpublished writing. Now, of course, the joys of being published far outweigh that – I’m not even going to pretend otherwise. Having an audience of people who actually want to look at the things you put down on paper, that’s amazing.
But there’s a lot to be said about writing solely for myself.
I downloaded the app as an experiment in nature writing. One of the books I enjoyed so much last year was Roger Deakin’s Notes From Walnut Tree Farm, which was a posthumous collection of observations and reflections ironically not intended for publication. As a result, they were very raw and honest, which came together as an utterly fascinating piece of literature. Inspired by that, I’ve started making my own broad sketches, thoughts of the natural world and so on. Sure, I used to have a writer’s notebook, but these days I ended up just firing emails to myself as reminders of thoughts – hardly ideal. And if I’m honest, even then I was conscious and hopeful that my writing might one day see publication in one form or another, that what I was writing would find an audience. Not so with using the Day One app.
Perhaps I grew out of reflection to some extent – or at least reflecting in quite the same way as I used to. Publishing deadlines probably do that to a writer. But the Day One app seems to fit so nicely into a busy life – I can make notes on the go, sync it in the cloud with my other devices, so I can pick it up and continue that line of thought at home. It inspires inward thought, and I don’t have to arse about with pen and paper while I’m at it.
And the important thing for any of these pieces of writing is that they are not for publication. Unlike a writer’s notebook, I never intend for any of these sketches to be seen by anyone other than me. Unlike a blog or Twitter, they’re not out there in the hope someone stumbles across them. It’s very liberating. It’s something of a relief, in fact, to be writing without the angst or the worry. It even seems a brief countercultural statement in an age where everyone likes to punt out a piece of writing online. Sure, this is all self-indulgent nonsense, but isn’t that what private writing is about?
Climate Change & Science Fiction
A couple of interesting debates on climate change over at the Strange Horizons site, for those of you are interested in the subject. All of it is very good stuff.
It’s what Niall mentions in his post that had me really wondering about climate change in SF, however:
As mentioned in the previous post, this week we have some discussion of writing climate change fiction; and if, as Vandana Singh says in her final comment, it is “increasingly important to write about climate change as passionately and creatively as we know how”, we might also ask: how are we doing for criticism that calls attention to and examines such writing?
A quick survey of the critical resources available to me suggests not all that well.
I wondered if there was little criticism because there simply isn’t much Science Fiction being written about the real effects of climate change in the first place? That there isn’t much to really interest Science Fiction writers?
I mean, aside from the sea levels rising, there isn’t much for Science Fiction wow-porn. Climate change is the slow, steady evil that will effect everything else in our lives. There is no instant Hollywood apocalypse. It is causing heavier rainfall in certain areas, droughts in others. It will see food prices rocket. It will see people die and suffer from disease on a wider scale than we’ve seen previously. And some of these health effects can be very subtle. There are no wars over climate change, but there are wars over the effects.
See what I mean? Not exactly the stuff that a Science Fiction writer, certainly not one interested in big concepts or ideas, can really use all that easily. Climate change is the mother of all evils, and the effects are profound; but they are subtle and complex and not easily dealt with in a novel concerned with the big idea. I’m not even sure Science Fiction is really the field that should be dealing with climate change.
Climate change is reality – it is happening right now, it was while I studied it at university, and has been for decades. Perhaps there is material for the effects of climate change being a backdrop for a novel, but shouldn’t mainstream authors be dealing with this, rather than Science Fiction authors?
I’d also say that most of these effects will be felt most shockingly in the developing world. Authors who write predominantly about the West, and Western concerns, will not likely be all that bothered.
Anyway, food for thought.
Hindenburg Disaster Real Footage (1937)
I remember seeing photos of this in a book I read as a kid, but had never seen the video footage. It’s still pretty shocking. The actual explosion is around 2:30.
(Via kottke.org.)
Lawrence Durrell Centenary
It’s not just Charles Dickens who is having a party this year. So is Lawrence Durrell, author of my favourite series of novels, The Alexandria Quartet, a brilliant, metaphysical classic of the 1950s.
The books follow a group of individuals based in Alexandria, Egypt, up to and including the Second World War. That’s about as general as one can really get, as it covers a huge number of themes – sexual and political tension, a whole wealth of the region’s history, religion and philosophy – and Durrell wraps these in momentous descriptions of characters, place and time.
Each novel in the series undermines the previous one; minor characters suddenly become the focal point, giving the reader a completely different understanding on what went before. Every paragraph is breathtaking.
A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants…
These are the moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory, like wonderful creatures, unique of their own kind, dredged up from the floors of some unexplored ocean…
Brother Ass, the so-called act of living is really an act of the imagination. The world—which we always visualize as ‘the outside’ World—yields only to self-exploration! Faced by this cruel, yet necessary paradox, the poet finds himself growing gills and a tail, the better to swim against the currents of unenlightenment…
The Guardian recently featured a podcast on Durrell, which is well worth your time, and if you’ve not read The Alexandria Quartet, you really should. It is Durrell’s centenary after all.
Efforts to avoid Racefail
I’m more conscious than ever about Racefail in new projects. Over the past few years, writers, blogs and forums have done a cracking job in dissecting various types of issues that form part of an ongoing debate. We are, I’m sure, more educated on when novels go wrong.
I think most novelists will agree that part of writing a novel is minimising problems. There will always be flaws in novels. Someone, somewhere, no matter what you write, will always take issue with a writer’s portrayal of race, gender, and so on. All a writer can do is be aware of where they have failed and try to fail better next time. For my previous novels, I had the excuse that race was split along the species line, but for Drakenfeld, everyone is human, so I felt I should confront the issue of race head-on rather than avoid engaging with it at all.
I’m currently writing a black character, but painfully aware she’ll easily be perceived as the ‘sidekick’ to the first person lead, who is not black (he’s not particularly white, either – I’m evoking a classical, Roman-Perisan location, but that’s besides the point). I’m aware, then, of the gaping chasm of racefail that stands before me, like I imagine it can stand before every author.
I’m trying very hard to make sure she exists in her own right, has complexity, doesn’t exist solely to further the plot of the non-black character, that she’s strong without being magical, that her race is addressed in the context of the world, that I’m making sure the reader understands such things without it being a lecture, and without me incorporating guilt of Western privilege (probably unavoidable, if I’m honest). In a secondary world of my own building, I must address such things.I like to think I’m not going to head feet first into the ZOMG turban dudes = bad like some. I’m half-Indian, but I’m not sure that really helps all that much, other than perhaps it reinforces some vague awareness of the inherent problems with addressing issues of race in a novel.
It should be simple, but unfortunately it isn’t. To some extent, I feel a little like Italo Calvino’s Mr Palomar in my efforts to engage and over-engage with the situation, but I’ve decided that’s a healthy thing. It’s better to be Mr Palomar than to waltz into a novel blindly and reinforce current cultural prejudices. Not thinking is no excuse.
Anyway, one particularly fantastic short-hand resource, I’ve discovered, is tvtropes.org, which assiduously lists the many pitfalls of film and literature tropes, but has a good deal to say about race, too:
In order to show the world that minority characters are not bad people, one will step forward to help a “normal” person, with their pure heart and folksy wisdom. They are usually black and/or poor, but may come from another oppressed minority. They step (often clad in a clean, white suit) into the life of the much more privileged (and, in particular, almost always white) central character and, in some way, enrich that central character’s life.
A vast and brutal database, it’s actually been very helpful in showing me where I can go right as well as wrong, and I recommend spending a bit of time looking up the tropes if you get a moment. Anyway, as ever, not sure I was going anywhere with this – it ended up being more navel-gazing than I hoped. I just wanted to share a healthy concern.