No, not “mundane”, “pastoral”. Who knew that there was such a thing? I am ashamed to say that I did not (which probably means I have not been paying attention when reading Mr. Clute). I have been educated by Sam Jordison, whose trip through the annals of Hugo Award winners has reached Clifford D Simak’s Way Station. As always, I find Sam’s take on these books very interesting. Read the whole thing here.
Books
You Are Reading the Wrong Books, McCrum
At the Guardian Book Blog Robert McCrum complains that no one is writing books about liberty these days. Well no, they are not, except in the grand tradition of George Orwell’s 1984: that is, science fiction. You know, people like Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, Cory Doctorow, and so on.
I have pinged Cory, but feel free to go and educate Mr. McCrum if you feel so inclined.
Emo to the Max
Those of you who enjoyed Liz Hand’s Mortal Love, or who just like overwrought passions, may be interested in Franny Moyles new book, Desperate Romantics: Private lives of the Pre-Raphaelites. If only celebrity magazines had been around in those days, they would have had a field day. A review in The Independent sets the scene:
There’s the mother of a stillborn child telling guests not to wake the baby in an empty cradle; lovers wrestling on a tow path as one tries to hurl herself into the canal; a 48-year-old man chasing a carriage that he believes contains the teenage object of his obsession.
Drug addiction, adultery, madness, paranoia, suicide and sexual torment are all here – the darker side of High Victorianism.
It occurs to me that this could add a very different atmosphere to steampunk.
Le Guin on Litt
Over at The Guardian, Ursula K. Le Guin reviews Toby Litt’s generation ship novel, Journey into Space. She doesn’t like it.
Nick Lowe on Hollywood
Over at the Locus blog, Graham Sleight is talking about his BSFA interview of Nick Lowe, the excellent Interzone film reviewer. Graham got Nick to talk about Hollywood and why their movies end up as they do. He has some interesting points to make as a result, but I’d like to go off at a tangent. This bit caught my eye:
Secondly, he argued, Hollywood has become wedded to a model of how narrative works that’s increasingly narrow and prescriptive. He called this the “protagonist” model, whereby a story has to centre on a single person whom the audience has to find sympathetic and who has to grow or learn something about themselves in the process of the film. And (to finish paraphrasing Nick’s point) we have to find them in some sense heroic by the end of things.
I recognize that narrative structure all too well. People occasionally blame it on Joseph Campbell, but he didn’t really invent it, he just codified it. And it isn’t just Hollywood that is wedded to that structure. You find it in a lot of fiction too, especially fantasy.
The reason you see so much of it is that it is very popular. It is the classic escapist formula: “give me a character that I can identify with, and have them make a huge success of their lives”. In essence it is the basis of all romance literature. Many readers lap this sort of thing up, and commercial entities such as Hollywood make sure that they provide it.
This also tends to be the sort of narrative that newbie reviewers castigate as a “Mary Sue” plot, because they assume that the author has created this character as a reflection of herself, rather than as someone for the reader to identify with.
I don’t think that there is anything we can do about this. There will probably always be more readers who want escapist literature than who want literature that will challenge them. All we can do is continue to promote more challenging works and hope that some people will give them a try.
Shopping and Twitter
I spent a few hours today in Taunton shopping and looking at apartment rental prices (which are finally starting to come down). Much of this has been chronicled on my Twitter feed. I’m finding Twitter very useful for this sort of thing, because it is so easy with the iPhone to take pictures and tweet about them. In particular I have been cheesetweeting. I’ve also reported on the books I have purchased.
On the subject of Twitter, I do now have the technology to create a daily Twitter digest here. I’m holding fire on this because I gather that this really annoys some people. I can’t see why (though I do ignore Twitter digest posts myself), but I’m willing to entertain explanations.
Link Love Works
A while back I got asked to blog about an article on books for kids featuring gay and lesbian characters. I did so, but also used it as an opportunity to plug Marcus Ewert’s wonderful 10,000 Dresses. An lo, now the author of the original article, Brett Berk, has written a lovely review of Marcus’s book. I love it when things like this happen. It makes all of the slaving over a hot keyboard seem worthwhile.
Neil & Amanda: With Added Artwork
Thanks to the generosity of Neil and Amanda, and the help of Amanda’s colleague, Beth, I have been able to add some artwork to my video diary of the Dublin reading. Now you can not only listen to Neil reading, and Amanda singing, but also view a variety of Amanda corpses. There is some very fine photography in the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book – much of it by Kyle Cassidy, who it turns out has a more direct connection to the SF community as his last LJ post saw him enthusing over getting to meet the likes of Ellen Datlow, Michael Swanwick and Greg Frost.
Anyway, the whole diary, now complete with dead Amandas, can be viewed here.
Inside the Design Process
John Coulthart has a fascinating post up which chronicles the decision processes involved in designing a new book cover for Jeff VanderMeer. I often see people around the blogosphere complaining about book covers, and often an unspoken assumption behind the complaint is that no thought has gone into picking the cover. Doubtless there will be some people who don’t like the cover John and Jeff finally settled on, but the process of getting there certainly wasn’t easy or trivial.
Too Many Books
OK, so it appears that I need to read Alison Goodman’s Aurealis-winning novel, The Two Pearls of Wisdom. But I also want to read Peter Murphy’s book, John the Revelator. I picked up a copy in Chapters and one the basis of the first few pages is every bit as good as Neil said it was (and no, I didn’t doubt him for a minute). I’d use the excuse of not being able to get hold of a copy, but I have actually seen copies of Alison’s book here in Darkest Somerset – the publishers are giving it a very heavy push, which I am absurdly pleased about. It also looks like it is being marketed as YA, so I’m slightly relieved that I’m not going to ICFA because I would have to read it before then and re-write part of my paper if I was.
Neil & Amanda: The Reading
Well, that was pretty much as expected, apart from the entire store being a mobile phone dead zone, which killed my chances of Tweeting anything. But you know what a Neil Gaiman signing is like, don’t you.
There were hundreds of them. Probably over 500, though no one knows for sure as the store took a policy decision to let everyone in rather than mess with tickets. Neil, very wisely, insisted on a “one item per person” limit for the signing, and as a result he and Amanda got through the line in a little over 3 hours. For a Neil signing, that’s not bad. I’ve known him be signing for 6 or more hours.
But before that there were readings, and songs. The readings came from the forthcoming book, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, which will consist of a bunch of pictures of Amanda being dead in various ways, and stories by Neil as to how she got to be that way. Listen up, because the following is important.
- The book is not yet available
- The current plan is that only 10,000 signed copies will be produced
- You will only be able to buy it online
- You should pre-order, or you probably won’t get one
That’s what I understand the situation to be. If I’m wrong, I am sure that Neil or Amanda will be in touch fairly quickly to correct me.
Also Amanda sang three songs, with the help of her trusty ukelele. One of them was the old house song that I so loved last night. It gets better with repeated listening.
The venue looked good too. As Pádraig promised in the video, the store was transformed with drape. Someone had the smart idea of festooning it with a bunch of buttons. They had a life of their own, and every so often during the reading one of them would leap off and try to attack Neil. Fortunately they were only buttons, and having leaped, found themselves stuck on the floor, powerless. It was creepy though.
I have about an hour of video. It needs to be edited and uploaded to YouTube in byte-sized pieces. I will get on with it as quickly as I can. But not now, as I have to be up early to catch a plane.
Talking of planes, Amanda is headed for Australia and New Zealand. The tour dates and links for ticket purchase can be found here. I know that a lot of people from Oceania read this blog. I’m betting that a lot of you like good music. You should go and see Amanda while she is down your way. Because she is wonderful. Trust me on this.
And finally, I was really impressed with the staff at Chapters, most of whom came shyly forward after all of the punters had gone, offering their own copies of Neil’s books to be signed. Most of them had worked a 12-hour day, and they went home very happy. It is a very fine shop, staffed by people who love books. Dublin is very lucky to have it.
Update: Beth, who is on the business end of things rather than rushing around the world, writes to tell me that not all 10,000 copies will be signed, and that the pre-order isn’t actually live yet, but you can sign up to be notified as soon as it is.
Kids’ Books with Gay Characters
I continue to get email in an interesting way. This time it is from a web site called Babble, which bills itself as, “The magazine and community for a new generation of parents.” They want me to plug an article that looks at books for kids that include gay characters. It is by Brett Berk, and you can find it here. Overall I thought it was pretty good. I’m not an expert on the field, but it is good to know that those books are out there. I knew about And Tango Makes Three, but not the others. Obviously there are more such books around, and the article does welcome comments if you want to suggest some.
I would have liked to see mention of Ten Thousand Dresses, by my good friend Marcus Ewert, which as far as I know is the only young children’s picture book about a transgender child.
How Not To Write A Novel
You wouldn’t think that was something people needed a guidebook for, given how many truly awful novels get written each year, but according to The Independent the purpose of Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark’s book is to help people avoid basic mistakes. The book is subtitled “200 mistakes to avoid at all costs if you ever want to get published”.
One piece of advice that they may have missed is not to get involved in train wreck flame wars like this, which turned up in one of my Google Alerts.
Sam in the High Castle
Over at The Guardian, Sam Jordison’s exploration of past Hugo winners has struck gold. Well he has just been reading The Man in the High Castle, which is a favorite book of mine as well.
Sam expresses confusion as to why the “book-within-a-book” is titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. I admit to not having a clue myself, but I did find some speculation. Warning: trying to work out what Phil Dick was thinking is like trying to drink from a whirlpool.
And one other thing: check out the comments. I do believe that “dergus” is complaining that Sam’s post is too SerCon for a blog. I am greatly amused.
Update: Here’s my own review of the book (from the pre-Ann days when I had horrible typos in Emerald City).
Gwyneth on Politics
I’ll have more to say about Spirit by Gwyneth Jones when I have finished reading it. However, I would like to share a small section of it with you now.
The book is set in the same universe as the Aleutian Trilogy, but many years later after the Aleutians have left Earth. Our planet is now ruled by the Chinese, who still have an obsession with bureaucracy and correctness of thought. The heroine, Bibi, is being interviewed by her boss, Verity, on Bibi’s first day at work as a Social Practice Officer in Baykonur.
“I have a question for you, Bibi,” said Verity, level-eyed. “You should know the answer. What is the difference between a rebel and a Reformer?”
“Rebels are just attention-seekers,” answered Bibi. “Their aim is self-aggrandisement through destructive tactics; they are parasites on the system, offering no genuine opposition. Reformers are sincere. They believe they can change the world, for the good of others, and will always work to that end, even at great cost to themselves.”
Her supervisor didn’t smile but she nodded, looking mollified. “You may go. Think about getting a soc’. It would be a great help to you.”
Bibi sped away full of energy, scorning the elevator tubes, flying down the abyssal, plunging stairwells: mentally completing her response to Verity Tan’s test question, adding the conclusion she had tactfully withheld.
And therefore rebels, who can easily be paid off, are harmless or even useful to the State: although sometimes they have to be destroyed, as you’d rid a dog of fleas. Whereas Reformers are truly dangerous fanatics, high minded enemies of order, reason and humanity —
It occurs to me that this is very relevant to the way in which political discussion is generally conducted on the Internet.
By the way, a “soc'” is an eye implant for your computer system. Bibi was tactful about her answer because Verity is a supporter of the Reform movement, and also because Bibi’s family were rebels whom the State found it necessary to destroy.
Wesleyan Plans German Anthology
I got a press release from Wesleyan today advertising a forthcoming anthology of science fiction translated from German:
In The Black Mirror & Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria, editor Franz Rottensteiner offers a diverse overview of German-language science fiction spanning from the 1870s to today. Rottensteiner has carefully selected engaging stories from such authors as Kurd Lasswitz-who is known as the “German father of science fiction,” eccentric fantasist Paul Scheerbart, and popular writers from the past, such as Otto Will Gail and Hans Dominik. Modern authors such as Wolfgang Jeschke, Herbert W. Franke, Andreas Eschbach, and Carl Amery are also represented, as are some from the “other” Germany-the late German Democratic Republic, where a distinct style of science fiction developed.
This is the sort of book I would have jumped at a chance to review for Emerald City.
Forward Planning
The Bath Literature Festival is taking place at the end of the month. As expected, there is not a trace of SF, but I am tempted to go and see Ben Goldacre.
God Killers
I have finally got around to finishing Liam Sharp’s book. Sorry it has taken so long.
I think God Killers can best be described as heavy metal fantasy. It has that particular blend of violence, sex, decaying civilizations and lashings of DOOM that remind you of early Moorcock and Métal Hurlant. China described it as “muscular” and “melancholy”, which pretty much fits the bill.
I have to say that at the moment Liam is a better artist than he is a writer. But at the same time he has plenty of vision and commitment to doing something interesting, so you never know what he might come up with.
More Talking Squid Talk
Over at the Guardian Book Blog, David Barnett complains about mainstream authors who claim that their books full of SF tropes are “not science fiction”. He even links to Ansible.
Which is really just an excuse to remind you that Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World is one of the best SF novels of 2008 and really ought to be on your Hugo ballot. The paperback is out now in the UK.
Stross Timbered
Argh. Trust Crooked Timber to do their major Charlie Stross event when I’m on the road and don’t have time to read it. And they’ve got Paul Krugman doing one of the articles, for heaven’s sake. Ah well, when I get back.