Books

Introducing Hydra Books

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This is mainly a post for Bristol area people, but some of you who visit may be interested too. Today I attended the opening of a new left wing bookstore, Hydra Books, which is a project of the Bristol Radical History Group. If you are looking for books on Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism and so on, this is the place to go. They were a bit light on Feminism today, but I’m told that’s a temporary situation and there is more stock on the way.

As with any good bookstore, they are keen to hold events. This will certainly dovetail into my involvement with the local LGBT History Group, and I shall see if I can get some SF-themed things happening too.

The Phantom Review

~ Cheryl ~ 8 Comments

The new episode of Galactic Suburbia references my review of Kameron Hurley’s God’s War. Apparently I said rather a lot about it, and there was a lengthy comment discussion. I have no idea who actually wrote this, but it wasn’t me. Sorry, whoever you are.

Of course I do love the book, and Infidel, and I do plan to write a review. And now it will reference the things that I didn’t say about it. 🙂

Update: And now we have the review. It was Farah’s, and you can read it here. Thanks Ian!

Local History

~ Cheryl

Today I headed into Bath to attend the 40th anniversary of Gay West, an LGBT organization serving the Bath and Bristol area. The people there were overwhelmingly older gay men, but they were very welcoming and happy to have me there. I think I confused one or two of them.

Part of the festivities involved a launch party for a new book by my friend Robert Howes, which charts the history of the organization. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but people who have been part of the organization for many years say they are impressed with Robert’s scholarship. If you are interested in this sort of thing, the book is appropriately called Gay West, and it is available on Amazon.

Bearded Women Reviewed

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I was intrigued when ChiZine sent me Teresa Milbrodt’s collection, Bearded Women Stories, to sell, but I don’t have time to read and review every book I stock so this one just went on the “interesting” list. Thankfully Larry Nolen has had time to read the book, and he was very impressed with it. Here he is talking about the story, “Mr. Chicken”:

What makes this story so effective is that Milbrodt carefully develops the narrator’s situation, as she goes into reflective monologues surrounding her awkward interactions with Mr. Chicken about how men react when they learn that she shaves every morning. Their stammering responses and subsequent “escapes” leave hanging in the air, ready to explode upon contact, the discomfort many males feel about “masculine” and “feminine” roles, particularly when a woman seems to be violating those seemingly rigid divisions.

And here’s his summing up:

There were very few dips in story quality and the collection as a whole serves to reinforce through reiteration and re-exploration the themes of strangeness and feminine struggle for acceptance. Bearded Women is one of the best debut short story collections I’ve read over the past few years and Teresa Milbrodt will be a writer whose future I shall follow with keenness, as she already displays more command over her stories than several veteran story writers. Highly recommended.

You can read the whole review here, and buy the book here.

While I’m talking about the bookstore, I should note that we have two new books from Lethe for sale today. They are:

Beatts on Bookstores

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This morning over breakfast I listened to the latest episode of Alisa Krasnostein and Jonathan Strahan’s podcast, Live and Sassy. This featured an interview with the owner of one of my favorite bookstores: Alan Beatts of Borderlands Books in San Francisco. It is well worth a listen, if you are at all interested in the book business.

Alan talks mainly about the impact of ebooks, and Amazon in particular. The most notable point he makes is that if we, as readers, buy just 1 in 4 of our books online, without increasing the number of books we purchase, then most bricks and mortar bookstores will go out of business, because they can’t survive a 25% drop in turnover. The chain stores will go first, as indeed Borders already has, and independents will suffer a brief renaissance in their absence, but ultimately most of them are doomed.

Where I got most interested is where the discussion turned to “what next”. Assuming that bricks and mortar books stores do vanish, where will we buy books in future. Amazon obviously. ABE books for second hand? Oh, they are owned by Amazon. The Book Depository? Oh, they are owned by Amazon. See where I’m going with this?

Alan says that he thinks publishers will increasingly try to sell books direct to the customer. Gollancz’s SF Gateway ought to be a good example of this, except that it isn’t because they don’t sell the books themselves, just point you to Amazon. Angry Robot, with far fewer resources, managed to get the job done right.

Of course creating an online bookstore does cost. Alan says it is far too difficult for a small press. That’s not actually true. Lee Harris managed it for Angry Robot, and I used the same software to create my store. The problems here are twofold. First, there’s currently no off-the-shelf store software that does ebook purchase as seamlessly and conveniently as Amazon. Hopefully that will change soon (and indeed I’m working on something myself). The other problem is volume. Licensing the store software is expensive, and if you don’t have much turnover then you won’t make any money. One of the reasons I started a bookstore is to attract more customers and sell more books, because there is no way it would have been economic just selling my own books.

Alan also talks about websites that sell books through affiliate schemes. You can do that, and you might look like a bookstore, but it is really hard to make any money that way. If I sell books through a bricks and mortar store like Watestones they are liable to want 35% or more discount before stocking them. If I sell ebooks through Amazon they take at least 30%. My own store takes 15%, because I’m trying to help small presses. I’m not making money at that rate. Amazon’s affiliate scheme promises “up to 15%”, but you generally only get that much on big ticket items and selected best sellers. You normally get a lot less.

Also, as Alan mentions, Amazon has a patent on the way in which their affiliate scheme works, which makes it hard for other stores to do such things as well as they do. And of course if your “bookstore” is essentially just a front for Amazon then you are not really increasing competition.

There are a few people trying to do genuinely independent ebook stores. Baen’s Webscriptions, Small Beer’s Weightless Books, and my own store, are all examples within the SF&F community. But is it much more difficult to make this work than it is with a bricks and mortar bookstore.

How do you compete? On price? No, Amazon ruthlessly monitors rival stores and will reduce prices to match any offers. On selection? No, Amazon sells everything. On convenience? Very difficult, as Amazon has far more money and can develop much better software than you can. By being local? Well only if you live in a country without an Amazon store, and they are starting to expand.

The thing about online retailing is that it makes to very hard to differentiate yourself from anyone else. And that means that it is difficult to see any future for bookselling except direct from major publishers, or from Amazon.

As someone who has spent much of her career in economics breaking up monopolies, this worries me a lot.

Book Review – The Watergivers Trilogy

~ Cheryl

Another day, another book review done. Well three books actually, as this time I have turned my attention to Glenda Larke’s excellent Watergivers Trilogy. If you think these books are just fat fantasy for girls, think again. Go read the review to find out why.

That’s 11,454 words actually published thus far. That’s pretty poor, but I do have another 7,300 or so words in first draft stage, which certainly counts as far as NaNoWriMo is concerned. And that’s not counting words edited (for Clarkesworld) or papers I have written for the Day Job. It is proving an interesting exercise this far. My main worry is running out of books to review, but at least then I will have cleared the review backlog.

Back to Egypt

~ Cheryl

I have a couple of things to note about my new Egyptian pals today.

Firstly there was a fabulous interview with Ahmed Mourad in The Guardian over the weekend. It details part of his life story that he touched on during the panel in Bristol, but which I wasn’t confident writing about if I couldn’t check facts with him. I found him to be a lovely young man, and when you have read the interview I’m sure you’ll agree that he is a brave one too. I’m looking forward to reading Vertigo.

I have, however, read Utopia, the science fiction novella by Ahmed Khaled Towfik. My interview with him is still in progress — I need to check on the spelling of some Egyptian names — but you can now read my review of the book.

Ben Gets Reviewed

~ Cheryl

One of the best things about being a publisher is finding out that people enjoyed a book that you produced. When they write a long and smart review saying so, that’s even better. If you would like to learn more about Ben Jeapes’s short story collection, Jeapes Japes, you can check out what Paul Wilks has to say over at The Future Fire.

And, as the publisher, it is my duty to point out that you can buy the book here.

Finlandia Prize

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

The Finlandia is Finland’s version of the Booker. Obviously the field is smaller, as there are a lot fewer Finns than members of the Commonwealth, but on the other hand the Finns don’t arbitrarily ignore some works because of their content. Johanna Sinisalo’s Not Before Sundown (Troll in the US) won the Finlandia as well as the Tiptree.

This year’s short list doesn’t include anyone I know, but it is notable for being all female. I have some hopes for this book:

Laura Gustafsson broke in to the list with her first novel Huorasatu (“Whorestory”), which was earlier seen as a play. The author rewrites ancient myths as she charts out the prehistory of women and constructs the perfect world.

Can any of my Finnish readers tell me more about it? It sounds rather like a Cat Valente novel.

Also of note is the fact that there is a “Junior Finlandia” for YA books. This year one of the nominees is Routasisarukset by my good friend Anne Leinonen and her writing buddy, Eija Lappalainen. Tero describes the book as “the first in a series of novels set in a dystopian 24th century”, and Irma tells me that the book reminds her of Le Guin. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for them, both in the prize, and at the book fairs next year as this is the sort of recognition that helps sell translations.

Book Review – The Cloud Roads

~ Cheryl

Today’s review is an interesting novel (well, first part of a series) from Martha Wells that is being marketed as fantasy but has some interesting biological speculation in it. As you might guess from the fact that I’m reviewing it, there’s a gender angle in there too. To find out more, read the review.

That’s 1091 words for a running total of 7330.

Cat In Store

~ Cheryl

When I announced the publication of Clarkesworld #62, I waxed lyrical about a book that Neil Clarke was publishing. That book is Myths of Origin, a collection of four novellas by Catherynne M. Valente. I am delighted to say that the book is now available from the Wizard’s Tower ebook store. As always, the book is DRM free, and has no region restrictions. You can buy it here.

Two of the four novellas included in the collection were reviewed in Emerald City. If you want to see what I had to say, check out The Labyrinth and Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams.

New From ChiZine

~ Cheryl

I have a couple of new books from ChiZine in the bookstore. First up is Bearded Women Stories, a collection of decidedly weird tales by Teresa Milbrodt about, “mothers, wives, and lovers: all of them trying negotiate a world that is quicker to stare than sympathize”. It has a fabulous cover, which I’d post here to amuse my genderqueer friends even if I wasn’t selling the book. More information here.

The other book is Enter, Night by Michael Rowe, which is a more classic text featuring a 300-yea-old horror in a small, remote Canadian town. It sounds like a fine read for fans of fear. Details here.

Book Review – Debris

~ Cheryl

Here’s another finished piece, this time a debut novel from a female science fiction writer. Or is it fantasy? This is another one that people will argue over. Who cares as long as it is a good book? You can find my thoughts on Jo Anderton’s Debris here.

Total words so far this month: 3473.

You Don’t Have To Be Mad…

~ Cheryl

Love of the weird is an affliction. There can be no doubt about it. The very reading of that dread tome, The Necronomicon, can cause a man to lose his sanity. And while that book might be quite a hefty chunk of paper, it is hand-written and full of hideous illustrations. It is a little difficult to keep count, but at a rough estimate I put it at barely over novel length, around 42,372 words. Fortunately it is not fiction, so that won’t cause Jess Nevins any problems when he comes to do Medieval Hugos over at io9.

Ahem. I digress. The book is relatively short. How much more mind-warping, then, would a full 750,000 words of weird fiction be? For that is the size of the monster that Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have unleashed upon the world with The Weird. In the wake of the book’s launch, the true cost of its creation is beginning to be revealed.

Exhibit 1: Adam Mills, a young man supposedly hired by the VanderMeers as an intern to help produce the book. So hopelessly obsessed has this unfortunate lad become, that he has taken it upon himself to compile a list of the opening lines of all 116 stories collected in the anthology. Mills writes about the experience here. Donations towards his psychiatric treatment are gratefully accepted.

Meanwhile the heartless VanderMeers are seeking to profit from the poor boy’s condition. Not only have they published the list, they are asking innocent readers to add to it with opening lines from their own favorite stories. Where will this end? Tabloid hacks around the world are already sharpening their quills in anticipation. Weird Fiction Causes Cancer! You read it here first.

And yet, can some good possibly come of this sorry tale? I think perhaps it might. You see, these opening lines are the work of some very fine writers indeed. They are mostly highly intriguing, designed to draw the hapless reader into the story from the very outset. In other words, they are all stories waiting to happen. Were I ever to be in the position of running a creative writing course, one of the challenges I might set the students would be to pick one of the opening lines — obviously from a story that they haven’t read — and complete the tale. There is no need to wonder where to get your ideas from. Here are 116 of them, all ready for use.

Death Comes to Bristol

~ Cheryl

I spent yesterday evening in Bristol at the fabulous St.Georges where I was magnificently entertained by the Aurora Orchestra and Peter Straub. Like most of the audience, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I very much enjoyed what I got. It went something like this.

automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing, automatic writing…

For their Hallowe’en tour, the orchestra is playing a set that includes many somewhat spooky pieces of music. They open with an arrangement of the popular carol, “Adeste Fideles” (“O Come Al Ye Faithful) by Charles Ives which slows the tune to a funereal pace. It is decidedly unheimlich, and sets the scene perfectly.

Also in the first half is “Octandre” by Edgard Varèse which people other than me (much to my relief) have compared to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”. I discover that the theme from The Thomas Crown Affair, “Windmills of your Mind”, was originally a French song called “Les Moulins de mon Coeur”. I think I prefer the original. The first half closes with a very familiar piece: “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas, made famous by Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.

An American writer called Peter is visiting London. His past is about to catch up with him.

The second half opens with a performance by pianola genius, Rex Lawson. If you think that a pianola is just something on which crappy music is churned out in the salon bars of Westerns, you need to hear this guy play. (YouTube is our friend. Here he is, playing the scherzo from Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream”.)

“Sweetheart, you’re not carrying a drink. No matter how they feel, his women are always carrying drinks.”

“No, I’m carrying a gun. Haven’t you noticed? He wants me dead, but I’m not going to spend eternity in the Mississippi just for his sake.”

She wasn’t. Health & safety rules required a last minute change to the script. Apparently even a toy gun was deemed unsafe, but a knife was perfectly OK. Sopranos carrying knives can still be dangerous, even if they are only singers, not New York gangsters.

She is, however, heavily pregnant. This is fortuitous circumstance, but somehow it is entirely more appropriate that a dead woman who has just walked out of the Mississippi river should be so.

“But I’m not…” Peter says. “I didn’t come here to be…”

Aldo smacks his knee. “You wound her up, you know, you can’t blame her for wanting to get rid of you.”

Other music for the second half included “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel”, a song by Schubert in which the titular woman has far less luck than Penelope in waiting for her lover to return; and Valse Triste, a Waltz written by Sibelius as part of the music for a play written by his brother-in-law, Arvid Järnefelt. The play was called “Kuolema”, which is Finnish for “Death”. The dancers, aside from the heroine, are all ghosts. When she joins the dance, there is a knock on the door.

“I’m going to kill him, that selfish stupid blind heartless…”

Peter takes the stage for this final piece. He and the soprano, dance. She stabs him.

Peter is dead.

The end.

Happy Hallowe’en.

Zoran Živković News

~ Cheryl

My friend Zoran Živković has a special feature devoted to him in the new issue of World Literature Today. There’s a post about it over at the Translation Awards website with links to all of the features, but I’d particularly like to highlight the interview that Zoran gives. It is a fairly wide-ranging discussion, touching on issues such as literary snobbishness and the value of small presses. Right at the end, we discover that Zoran has written a new novel. This was a big surprise to me. When last we met he told me that he had nothing left to write about, and I somehow managed to miss the publication announcement back in March. But, as it turns out, the Serbian government has its uses. I shall be emailing him to find out what is happening regarding the English language edition, which it appears is currently only available in a boxed set with the Serbian, German, Slovakian and Hungarian editions.

SF = yrotsiH ?

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Catching up on the latest Horizon over lunch (cosmology, love it!), I heard one of the scientists explain that physics is clever stuff because, as well as using it’s equations to predict how things will turn out in the future, you can also use them to look back and see how things must have been in the past.

Well, as above, so below, so to speak. Understanding human behavior can work both ways too, except we tend to look at the past to understand how things may play out in the future.

While we were at BristolCon, our local expert on Transhumanism, David Roden, was in Dublin at a conference on the future of humanity. The slides from his presentation and an overview of the argument are available here (I love the “Cylon evolution” picture).

David’s core argument is that it is very hard to understand how we will react to post-human beings until we actually encounter some and can interact with them. He has a point. After all, they can come in all shapes and sizes and levels of friendliness. We really don’t know what we’ll get (only that they will appear in the not too distant future).

But, as I tried to point out at the Steve Fuller event last week, we have been through periods of time in which not all humans were deemed human. The definition of fully “human” was pretty much restricted to “white, male, able-bodied, cis and straight”. That’s why I was excited to see this book review, covering What it Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present
by Joanna Bourke. It sounds like a good read, it may help us deal with the situation we have now, where social attitudes are only slowly catching up with science as to what “human” means, and it could provide useful pointers for the challenges to come when genetic tweaking of our offspring becomes commonplace.