Banned Book Week . . . At 30

abffe.org

Banned Books Week and I are the same age.  That means that as long as I've been alive someone has been fighting censorship and the promoting the right to spread ideas through tax-funded venues.  Censorship, we can agree, is probably bad in a democratic environment.  It's inimical to the idea that the best will win out.  It's based on the assumption that most people in a democracy are free-thinking, reasonable human beings just looking out for their own well-being.  It's the same kind of assumption that most economists made (and largely still make). 


While I disagree with the assumption, I do agree with Banned Books Week that censorship is (mostly) bad.  Ideas have a way  of getting out regardless, and it doesn't matter how hard you try to stop them.  To paraphrase Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, the more ideas will slip through your fingers. 

But libraries (especially school libraries whose primary target are children) are tax-funded venues.  And tax-payers have the right to restrict what they feel might be offensive or dangerous materials from their shelves.  They are, after all, the community for which the library is intended.  What Banned Books Week is trying to avoid, however, is the tyranny of an individual dictating which books ought and ought not to be read.  In a democratic forum, anything is up for grabs, and if a committee of community leaders get together to decide they don't want The Anarchist's Cookbook floating around, that's all well and good.

So, go support books.  Head on over to the library and check out Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, or To Kill a Mockingbird. 

J.K. Rowling . . . A Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling's new book A Casual Vacancy, billed as her first novel for adults, is out this week.  I was caught a little off-guard when I saw it at the local bookstore, as I hadn't heard anything about it in the last couple weeks.  Usually I keep my ear to the ground but this one just sort of snuck up on me.  Maybe the marketing department over at Little Brown figured she was big enough to pull in sales all by her lonesome. 

With legions of fans just about now hitting early adulthood, this seems like a perfect opportunity for Rowling to make her foray into the world of adult literature.  But without Harry and the gang driving the story, and a depressing unfun story at that, I wonder how quickly those fans will jump on this new book. 

From the bookflap, it sounds like a depressing story.  Set in the small English town of Pagford, it paints an idyllic scene of English country life.  But there's tension lurking under the surface; it seems like everyone hates just about everyone else, and with a recent vacancy on the Pagford Parish council, passions are revved up over who's going to fill it.  It sounds like the kind of grueling fare we'd expect from literary works, and Rowling has demonstrated a remarkable facility for bettering herself as an author.  This is the obvious direction for her to go, and I wish her well, but I'm not terribly interested in reading about small-town English machinations. 

You can find the full review here. 

The Daily Barometer Wants Your Kid to Drink? . . . And Satire

Satire is the first defense of the inept.  I don't mean that satirists are themselves inept; instead, I propose that whenever someone says or writes something that they didn't quite mean--which might have been intended as sarcastic, rhetorical or ironic and is instead taken literally--they retreat behind the defense that they were simply being satirical.  Indeed, many of their defenders will quickly leap on the satire bandwagon.

Satire has long held a privileged place in political discourse.  Its ability to mock without pointing fingers or directly insisting upon illegal or unpopular courses offers satirists protection from prosecution, or worse.  The refrain, "But it was only satire," is a shield that has effectively protected political protestors throughout history.  Yet that privileged position, the shield of satire, is like the proverbial skirt behind which one can hide when chased by schoolyard bullies.  It indeed has the power to protect, but used too often, or ineptly, it opens the would-be "satirist" up to contempt.

Last week, the editors of the Daily Barometer, a university newspaper published at Oregon State University, published what they called "A freshman's guide to college."  Much of the advice in the newspaper insert was pointed toward popular follies of the university experience--how to socialize, how to pass your classes with the least amount of effort, how to avoid spending hundreds of dollars on books which might never be opened.  What drew the ire of the public, and of this writer, was the photograph on the front of the guide--depicting simulated acts of underage, binge drinking (as well as a young woman playing video games, and a young man perusing a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition)--and the promotion of underage, binge drinking in the "advice" section.  

Offered in bullet-pointed lists, their section on drinking included the admonition "Liquor before beer;" advised freshmen to chase cheap vodka with Tampico or Sunny D; and suggested freshman try locally brewed beers instead of the cheap beer they normally shot-gunned.  Let's be clear about this, the first piece of advice was not to make responsible decisions about drinking, but if one chose otherwise, one should at least try to be safe.  Instead, the editors blatantly promoted an illegal and dangerous activity.  

Some have defended this section by pointing out that some freshman are of legal drinking age.  Perhaps.  But the overall majority of incoming freshman are straight out of high school and  by targeting minors specifically for their insert--remember that it is a freshman's guide to college--the editors chose to address their advice to members of the community who cannot legally consume, purchase, or possess alcohol.

By far, however, apologists for the article have complained that it is satire--both the editors themselves, and students in letters to the editor.  Satire is itself a strict literary genre comprised of specific elements with the intent to be perceived as satire.  What's more, to be satire, a perceived vice or folly must be held to ridicule with the intent to shame an individual or group into change.  Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" is satire because it exposed deeply-held class prejudices through a reasoned approach to cannibalism.  No one regarded his proposal as an honest attempt to cure hunger by eating children.

If the editors of the Daily Barometer intended their guide as satire, it should have held underage, binge drinking (itself a problem on campuses across the nation) to ridicule by shaming university administration, students, or society in general.  It did none of those things.  Instead, by offering advice on how best to avoid arrest for underage drinking, on which fruity beverages made the best chasers, and how to get drunk quickly (the carbonation in beer releases alcohol already present in the stomach to the bloodstream so that a person's metabolism is quickly overrun), the editors have crossed both the line of decency and journalistic integrity.

Sensationalism for its own sake, the last defense offered by the editors (though perhaps not in those words), is the opposite of journalism.  Stirring up controversy to promote dialogue about underage drinking on campus is shameful to journalism and detrimental to the conversation, as emotion quickly eclipses the substance of the argument.

The editors of the Daily Barometer have failed the test of satire, and its protection cannot be afforded them as they attempt to defend their actions.  They've done a disservice both to the university and to themselves and instead of offering a legitimate examination of a dangerous excess on campus they have distracted attention.  By advising people to engage in illegal activity, they've exceeded the protection of free speech and should tender their immediate resignation.

If you agree with anything I've said, let your voice be heard.  Share this with friends, link it to your own website.  You can write to the editors expressing your disapproval, or address your concerns to the University.  Let President Ray know that this is an issue you care about.  If you're an Alumnus, get in touch with the Alumni Association.  If you're the parent of a current student, or thinking about putting your kid (and a lot of your money) here, consider how this article affects the campus environment, and what it says about the University as a whole.  But the best thing to do is get in contact with the advertisers whose ad money supports the newspaper.  By expressing your disapproval to them, perhaps we can leverage a positive change in the discussion.



Daily Barometer:

• Editor-in-Chief
• Don Iler
• (541) 737-3191
  editor@dailybarometer.com

The Daily Barometer
c/o Letter to the editor
Memorial Union East 106
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-1617
or e-mail: editor@dailybarometer.com

President Edward J. Ray
Mailing Address:
President
600 Kerr Administration Building
Corvallis, OR 97331-2128
541-737-4133 (phone)
541-737-3033 (fax)


Oregon State University
Alumni Association
204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center
Corvallis, Oregon 97331
541-737-2351
877-OSTATER (877-678-2837)
OSUalum@oregonstate.edu

Alif the Unseen Review

Salon.com

I expected more from this book.  Maybe that was its downfall.  Written by G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen treads a fine line between magical realism, and the fantasy genre.  It's the story of Alif, a hacker tag for a young man living in an unnamed city somewhere on the Arabian peninsula.  He provides data security against aggressive State security; born out of the Arab Spring, this is a trenchant subject, and despite helping to protect agitators and revolutionaries, Alif is strictly a gun-for-hire.  Or, perhaps he's something else.  Instead of actually fighting the battles of his peers, he simply provides them anonymity.

Anonymity is a resounding theme throughout the novel.  People are rarely referred to by their names--Alif, as I've already stated, is not his real name, and though we're offered hints about his true identity, he remains essentially nameless.  Characters throughout the book are disguised by their aliases, as an erstwhile Saudi prince is referred to as often as not by his own hacker tag.  A young American woman studying in the city is known only as "the convert," and the slew of magical beings (including one pretty nifty jinni) are compromised by the fact that few people even believe in their existence.  A young woman in a niqab exists only as glimpses of skin and kohl-lined eyes.

With this pervasive theme resounding through the book, I expected a subtle reflection on state security, the need for privacy in a democracy, and indeed, the book touches on each.  Clearly, a book about a hacker who provides secrecy-services is going to involve those layers of secrecy undone, and Wilson obliges.  When Alif comes into possession of a book reputed to have been written by jinn, he is suddenly the object of the man in charge of hunting down all those people Alif has been hired to protect.  With the very real threat of the State looming behind the hunt, Alif knows that to be captured is to risk torture and death.  Yet the book seems to indeed possess a kind of magic.  Not magic in the fantasy sense, but magic in the coding sense, since it offers insights into building the most powerful computers on the planet.

Wilson's technical naivety shines through here.  Though she manages to get some of the technobabble correct, it lacks of the feel of a truly knowledgeable writer--something that Neal Stephenson and William Gibson have been perfecting over the last two decades.  But I forgave her the shallowness of her technical prowess--this is, after all, a fantasy (or very nearly).  With the hint of jinni in the wings, and set in Arabia, it seems far too easy to populate this world with a sideways world of jinn, effrit and other magical creatures out of The Arabian Nights.  This might have been handled poorly, but by acknowledging her sources, Wilson allows the reader to maintain the sense of disbelief necessary to plod through the abusively ponderous second act into the third.

Which is about where the story falls apart.  What began as something subtle and nuanced becomes a diatribe about modern belief--about the lack of belief inherent in modern society.  Constantly preaching, Wilson's aforementioned "convert" seems to be a poorly veiled (sorry about the pun) version of herself, experiencing the inconsistencies of all modern religions, and the necessary faith one requires to follow them.  This feels both sudden and inconsistent with the tone and pacing of the book prior, and hardly matches the themes she so carefully crafted at the outset.  Indeed, one is forced to wonder if she experienced a crisis of faith while writing this books, as I experienced while reading it.

Real life rarely intrudes, or at least informs, books.  Certainly, the events of the real world might alter the way in which I perceive a particular book, but as I was reading Alif, extremists in Libya set fire to the American embassy in Benghazi and killed the American ambassador.  Meanwhile, protests had been sparked in Egypt over a controversial film depicting Mohammed as a philanderer and a pedophile.  Subsequent protests have since been staged throughout the world, including Australia.

The anger I felt at the death of our ambassador no doubt colored my perception of this book.  And I can't help read into it the way in which the Arab Spring has metamorphosed into a wild grasping for power, as all revolutions must eventually go.  I doubt my sense of disappointment with the novel would have been alleviated if the assassination has not occurred, yet I can't help wonder if some of my own residual anger tempered this review.  I like to think that I am more impartial than that, but I have to admit that it may have.  So, take this with a bit of salt; overall, I thought the book was flawed, with great potential that Wilson was unable to exploit.

I would not recommend this book to a friend.

YA Books . . . And The Grownups Who Love Them

Publisher's Weekly just posted an article that describes a recently reported phenomenon in the Young Adult market.  Namely, that kids aren't the ones reading them.  Adults comprise 55% of buyers of YA titles, and when asked, a resounding majority admitted they were the intended reader.  While this isn't inherently surprising--the staggering success of Harry Potter, the Twilight series, and The Hunger Games was driven in large part by adults participating in them--the variety of involvement in this literary crossing of the aisles is.

Certainly, the YA distinction has only recently been invented.  A market niche intended strictly for people in their early teens and not much older was filled by authors whose primary target was adults.  Ender's Game, perhaps one of the most well-loved science-fiction novels was intended by Orson Scott Card for adults.  But the subjects of the novel--children--have since convinced marketers and publishers that it belongs in both the YA and Middle Grade niches.  As far as I'm aware, it indeed sells well there.

Readers willing to cross the artificial line doesn't strike me as odd.  Many of the books are as morally nuanced as their "adult" counterparts, without relying on the conventions of more grownup fare--sex and violence, namely.  The popularity of books like The Hunger Games, which itself is a deeply nuanced approach toward the examination of violence--and its glorification--in our society, does not rely heavily on depictions of violence that many readers would find offensive.  Twilight, purportedly inspired by Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers, suggests love without resorting to lurid sex scenes--though Fifty Shades of Grey, a fan-fic spin-off, suggests that the soccer moms indulging in Bella and Edward were rife for something a bit more steamy.

Perhaps what this report really suggests is that the artificial demarcation of YA and adult literature is even more ephemeral than we'd suspected, and that good storytelling crosses all boundaries.

Lawless Review

Violence rarely announces itself.  Matt Cave, as writer, and John Hillcoat, the director seemed to have taken that as a maxim as a truism.  "Lawless" is an examination in which violence both insinuates itself into the lives of people who, more-or-less, are just trying to get by, and the heartbreak it inevitably causes.  But its also a portrayal of the slippery slope of feuds and tragedy that masquerades as honor. 

On the surface, "Lawless" is the story of the three Bondurant boys of Georgia at the tail-end of Prohibition.  It's a story about bootlegging.  But only on the surface.  Because at its heart, "Lawless" is about legends and the ways in which we perpetuate and propagate our myths.  Juxtaposed within the story is the Bondurant patriarch, Forest (played moodily by Tom Hardy), whose legend is one of invincibility.  From the outset, we're told that he survived his troop ship sinking on the way to France, his platoon gassed around him, and throughout the movie, his deathlessness is put on display.  Set against him is the moonshine kingpin, Floyd Banner, played admirably by Gary Oldman.  The legend of Banner, styled along Capone-esque lines, is followed through newspaper clippings collected by Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf). 

Violence arrives on their doorstep, in a drive-by shooting in which Floyd Banner screams into town and pumps a drum of lead into (we suppose) a rival, or perhaps a fed.  The ambiguity of the violence leaves the audience guessing about the purpose and the motivation of the killing, and much of the violence in the movie follows the same motif.  Only later, when the new Special Deputy (Guy Pierce) arrives, do we see a more personal kind of violence, as spates turn into murder and the Bondurant legend is tested. 

With rising tolls come the added lure of money, as Jack is seduced to run whiskey across the county line, something Forest has, if not forbidden, then actively discouraged.  But as Jack rubs his growing success under the nose of the Special Deputy (think an oilier version of The Untouchables) the tension rises as the town is forced to take sides against the Bondurant boys.

As I said, a quick and dirty summary of the movie boils down to the rise and fall of the Bondurant bootlegging empire.  As a piece of film, as well as a vehicle for story, it excels.  The acting is superb, especially Tom Hardy as Forest, the war-weary patriarch who can do more with a few grumbled invectives and a cardigan than most actors will do throughout their entire career.  Shia LaBeouf is a perennial favorite.  Guy Pierce makes for a slickly detestable villain, and Gary Oldman, though under-utilized, still captures the screen. 

E-Book Price Wars!

Remember when you could buy a brand new book on your Kindle for less than $10?  If you don't that's because selling books for cheap costs publishers money.  In response, they turned to Apple and signed contracts which introduced so-called "most favored nations" clauses, which prohibited e-book distributors from pricing e-books lower than what iBooks had listed them for.  But, according to The Atlantic Wire, a federal judge last Thursday struck those contracts.  Now, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins and Apple are forcibly separated, and cannot enter into contracts for another two years.  In the meantime, get ready for a price war which will undoubtedly drive prices down, hopefully back to or below $10.    

Libricide! . . . Or, Warm Your Hands In Fifty Shades of Abuse

If you haven't heard about Fifty Shades of Grey yet you're either living under a rock, or you're illiterate.  If its the former, you should probably come on out, I hear it's cold out there.  If it's the latter then I'm really impressed you're reading my blog.  Regardless, Fifty Shades has sparked heated controversy.  You know what I'm talking about, you either love it, or you hate it.  But as The Independent, an Irish newspaper reports, a UK-based women's shelter, Wearside Women in Need, has decided they hate it enough to destroy it. 

They've organized a book burning, scheduled for November 5.  They claim the book glorifies abuse, the objectification of women and normalizes such behavior.  They even liken the behavior of sadist Christopher Grey to British serial killer Fred West.  In response, they feel their only course of action is to burn what copies they can of E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey. 

Random House, the book's publisher, is quick to point out that all depictions of behaviors are carried out by consenting adults.

The usual suspects have been trotted out to condemn the book burning.  Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the book burnings of Alexandria, of the Qin Dynasty, and more recently, of the Nazis.  These are powerful indictments against the Wearside Women in Need, and I think there's a legitimate usage of powerful figures to oppose book burning, or, as the article points out, biblioclasm.

The free market of ideas only works as long as every idea has its day in court.  Everyone is allowed to express themselves and, if the system really works, the best ideas rise to the top, are adopted and the weaker ideas simply die out.  This is one of the fundamentals of democracy, and justly, any talk of book-burning, or the genocide of ideas, is the antithesis of democracy.  But trying to put the genie back in the bottle, if you'll allow me to blur the metaphor, is futile.  The box is opened, the horse is out of the barn.  Whatever metaphor you'd like, the idea is out there and burning a book isn't going to put the world back the way it was.  All they're really doing is stoking the flames of curiosity.

But maybe that's their goal.  The article points out that maybe this is just a ploy to garner attention to their cause.  In that case, shame on them, for inciting indignation for even a worthy cause.  We tell the story of Peter and the Wolf as a cautionary story for exactly this reason.  The threat of a book-burning is a terrible thing, and ought not to be bandied about for political reasons.

Regardless, I deplore the burning of books in every instance.  The suppression of an idea by violence is anathema to the ideals of freedom and ought to be deplored.

Weird Stories . . . I Have Never Read "The Call of Cthulhu"

summeroflovecraft.com

The title isn't entirely right.  I have read "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft; but not until very recently.  Like, within the last week.  There's something really strange about not having read this story yet declaring that I enjoy reading Lovecraft.  Moreover, there's something really odd about saying that I like the so-called "weird" genre without having read the most famous story within the genre.  I chalk it up to not liking what's popular.  I avoid Oprah's book club.  I try not to read whatever happens to be on the New York Times bestseller list (or at the very least I try to read it before it hits that point.)  Maybe it's because I'm a snob and I actively disdain what everyone else enjoys on the assumption that it's kitsch, or low-brow.  That last assumption based on the assumption that the more people you stick in a room, the lower the IQ tends to be.  This of course is the opposite of the Wiki movement and much of the collaborationist tenets of the forthcoming age.  But I digress.

H.P. Lovecraft is someone whose works I have read, on-and-off, for the last decade and a half.  I have several collections of his work, but I came to them rather obliquely.  That is, I remember seeing a collection in the bookstore and feeling a little off-put by the cover art.  It was weird; it was frightening.  It was probably something I wanted to avoid. 

But then I got into Stephen King in a big way, and started hearing about this guy named Gaiman.  I started reading the Sandman comic series when it was released as a trade paperbacks, and I really enjoyed it.  So when I heard that both were heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft I figured he was someone whose work I should probably try. 

The onus of "pulp" still hovered over him, though, and I felt my snobbery rising.  I tucked the book with the weird cover under my arm and hoped no one saw what I had purchased.  I took it home, and I read a couple stories. 

And I didn't like them.

At that time I was unaware of his different periods of writing, what we'd call "seasons" if he were a painter of any renown.  But as it was, there are definite periods in Lovecraft's life that reflect both his ability and his inclinations and I picked a book which highlighted his younger years and his less-mature works.  I have the feeling that I chose that book because the cover was less-weird than the rest, but come what may.  Regardless, I was uninterested in reading further and I had the vague sense of snobbery confirmed; people who liked this guy were just unenlightened. 

So a few years went by, and I had the sense that I'd missed out on something there.  People were talking about Lovecraft in a way often reserved for Tolkien, or Lewis.  He was mentioned in circles that included Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, whose Conan series and Solomon Kane (which, unknown to me until I wrote this post, was made into a movie), I both knew and admired.  Also about this time, I heard about the Lovecraft Film Festival here in Portland and began to understand that, indeed, I had missed something. 

My own writing of this time reflects the heavy influence of weird.  I was reading a lot of Shirley Jackson for writing classes, and Stephen King in my spare time and the early 2000s were simply a strange time to be alive.  Fiction of the time reflected the tension of a nation at war, and the uncertainty of an enemy who couldn't quite be pinned down.  Weird fiction became popular because the world had become weird.  In retrospect, it seems obvious that I should have read more Lovecraft, but I still didn't.

I read Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, Chambers, and others.  All the people that inspired Lovecraft, but I never read Lovecraft, still haunted by stories like "Dagon."  Arthur Jermyn was moving in a deeply subtle way that I still haven't identified--its undertones of racism are almost too odious to dwell on.  But stories like Nyarlathotep and Herbert West (a kind of take on Frankenstein) are too beautiful, and too fun, to easily dismiss.  But I'd never read "The Call of Cthulhu."  Or "Colour out of Space."  Or some of his best known works which best exemplify his philosophy and style.

Until this week.  I'm not sure why this week seemed the most appropriate time to sit down and read those seminal works.  It's obvious that some of the themes in "Cthulhu" are reflections of "Dagon."  Nevertheless, he tells a finer story in his later years, with a surer hand.  The evocation of the weird and terrible is deft and wielded by a master's hand.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed these stories, and continue to find myself surprised as I read on.  "Whisperer in Darkness" is next.

What's your favorite Lovecraft story?  How did you come to find weird fiction?  Share your story in the comments.

The New Kindle Conflagration

www.uncrate.com

Last Thursday, Amazon rolled out their new product line.  With an eye toward the coming holidays, Amazon must be hoping to capture some of the excitement surrounding the forthcoming announcement from Apple believed to be the unveiling of their new iPhone.  Amazon, however, is doing things a little differently.  Instead of focusing strictly on what's forthcoming, they've taken the opportunity to showcase technologies new and old.

The Kindle Fire has a new look, a bit bigger and a bit more powerful; but where Amazon really succeeds is its continuing dedication to pre-existing technologies, improving on the traditional Kindle with a back-light, higher contrast screen, and a pixel count over sixty percent greater than existing technologies.  This is a big deal for two reasons. 

The Kindle still maintains the allure of a read-only device.  That is, instead of handling multiple functions poorly, it focuses on a single product and delivers remarkably.  Amazon has always realized that e-readers are about ease of reading.  While Barnes and Noble, Sony and others jumped on the bandwagon with various degrees of success, Amazon legitimately holds the market firmly in its grasp.  And by reducing pricepoints on pre-existing technology, they're able to capitalize on a key market demographic that isn't terribly concerned about snazzy graphics and downloadable apps.  They just want the book.

www.uncrate.com

But the improvements they've made sound pretty good, including an LED backlight that's apparently been in the works for over four years.  A definite selling-point here, I'm excited to see how it handles as far as eye-strain and reading in the dark are concerned.  The flickering of most tablet screens has always bothered me, and strained my eyes, so that I've foregone extended reading on computer screens.  This seems revolutionary.

More remarkable, though, is managing to maintain the coveted under $200 price-point for their Kindle Fires, despite improvements in screen size and operating speeds.  For a little more, you get a little more, but the Fire's primary use is still mainly apps, videos and music and for under $200 you're getting a pretty good deal.  Including a new HD screen is icing on the cake, and may be what Amazon needs to steal a big chunk of the pie from Apple.

The one feature that doesn't really make sense to me is the Time to Read function, which times your page turns to gauge how long a particular chapter or book takes to read.  I can imagine someone generating tables from these statistics to demonstrate the readability of a particular book, or gauge how much of a fit it is with your style or reading based on your own reading rate.  At best, I'm leery of this feature.  I think it's invasive beyond necessity and seems patronizing.  At worst, I think it's more data floating around the ether about you that doesn't need to be there.

Despite that, I'm excited for Amazon's new releases, and I'm all the more excited to try out the new Kindle Fire for myself.  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments below.

My Favorite Book

Back before assassins were cool (before all the Assassin's Creed hype), I picked up a book about a medieval assassin and have loved it ever since.  What's more, I love the sequels.  And the sequel to the series.  In fact, it might be my favorite book.  Written by Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice leapt to my attention when I was in my middle teens.  I'd recently read the Wheel of Time series (up to book 8 or so at that time) and I needed something else.  I wasn't particularly up on the who's-who of the fantasy world, but I did know that I loved covers by Michael Whelan.  He did Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn covers and I'd seen his work around.  So when I went into the bookstore looking for something thick (I never bought books less than 800 pages in those days) I found Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, with a cover illustration by Michael Whelan.

I remember thinking that the cover looked an awful lot like something from The Once and Future King, or any rendition of King Arthur and Merlin.  A wizened old man holding a lantern over a boy crouched with his dog against a background of a towering castle turret.  But it was a Whelan cover and I had time back in those days to give to just about anything, so I picked it up.  This was Assassin's Apprentice, and like the genre mainstay of young boys altering the course of empires, this was a coming-of-age story, but with a twist.  Yes, the main character is the son of a prince--the crown prince, no less.  But Fitz, as our protagonist is called, is a bastard son of the prince.

Back before it was cool to identify tropes and turn them on their head, Robin Hobb was already doing it here in her Assassin trilogy.  Not only was Fitz a bastard son, he was hated and manipulated into becoming the King's assassin-in-waiting.  Trained in the use of the deadly arts, Fitz has to navigate politics both public and private, constantly glancing over his shoulder.  If being a bastard and a assassin wasn't enough, Fitz is also possessed of the two magical systems this world possesses, the Wit and the Skill.  One allows people to manipulate human thought and emotion, and is used in war and peace to the benefit of the king.  The other is "beast magic" and creates a powerful, sympathetic bond with all animals, but particularly a single animal companion.  Despised by the people, the Wit is a deadly secret that Fitz must guard at all costs.  Which inevitably means it's a secret that's going to get out.

If all this sounds complicated, it really is.  Handled by less deft hands it might have degenerated into something trite.  But Hobb handles it skillfully and weaves a masterful tale that has constantly held my attention.  It is the one book I revisit every few years, and have purchased on several occasions.  In fact, I might go so far as to say that it is my favorite book.  My favorite series.  My favorite pair of trilogies, since she wrote a sequel to the series set nearly twenty years after the conclusion of the first series.  Again, where others might have taken the story someplace trite, Hobb is able to explore not only the world she has created, but also the man her protagonist has become.  Beset by every conceivable trial, he is older, wiser, and harder, yet endearing in his foibles and virtues.  Watching the development of this character through his tempestuous childhood to the sober realities of manhood still is the highlight of my reading experience.  Though I could give you a much deeper plot synopsis, it would be inadequate to express the level of pleasure I derive from reading these books.

I love them.  I hope you will, too.

On Demand Publishing

The Atlantic recently reported that Penguin Group, the second largest publisher in the world, with over 40 imprints in the United States, acquired the self-publisher Author Solutions for $116 million.  With profits of more than $100 million annually, this seems like a pretty good deal for Penguin, and it marks a shift in the marketplace, as publishers finally get it through their head that on-demand is a good thing.  But the article goes on to cite the difficulty of finding an audience through on-demand venues.  The odds, apparently, are pretty bad.  Something like winning the lottery, or becoming the next Brad Pitt.  But let's keep the hope alive, and let people invest themselves in telling stories they hope will sell.

On the one hand, I'm excited by this move.  It means that traditional publishers have decided the time is right to make a move toward profit again.  With brick-and-mortar bookstores on the decline, publishers have been scrambling to figure out where the next big thing would be.  E-books have made extraordinary strides, and as the recent success of Fifty Shades of Mediocre have shown, people are less interested in quality than they are in shallow characterizations and ludicrous plots.  The move on Penguin's part demonstrates that maybe books can still be profitable.  Indeed, the move to a more mobile inventory arguably means that publishers can slash overhead costs such as warehousing and shipping, while still providing quality (such as it is) content to consumers. 

On the other hand, democracy has rarely encouraged excellence.  Athenian democracy more often than not led to massacre and war, and mob pressures have, more often than not, led to things like Revolutions and anarchy.  Art requires a gatekeeper.  Literature requires a moderating influence that editors and publishers have tended to exert. 

While one can make the argument that market forces will moderate production, in this case producing works that people enjoy, one assumes that what people want in inherently good, or even good for them.  People addicted to nicotine seem to enjoy cigarettes, but people realize they're inherently bad for them.  Food, in general, is a good thing, but people like to eat and we've been counseled in moderation.  A treat is nice; eating chicken nuggets for breakfast, lunch and dinner will wind up killing you. 

Editors, those ivory-towered saints, and agents, serve the function of gatekeeper and treasure-hunter.  Sifting through the dross, they often find gold.  Scouring the pebbles, they often find diamonds.

So maybe there is a paradox involved in self- or on-demand publishing, but I think the author of The Atlantic pieces is missing the point.  Inasmuch as authors will probably fail to find a readership, that's sad.  But tragic is the bevy of less-than-worthwhile books that are found.

Plan for September

They say time flies by when you're having fun.  It also flies by when you're so engrossed in classes and learning a foreign language that you forget what day it is.  That being the case, it's September already and I'm not entirely sure where the last month went.  Labor Day is out of the way and except for a moving expedition from Corvallis to Portland (to be repeated in less than a month), I have nothing to interrupt me from blogging and writing.  So, that being the case, here's what I've got on the agenda in the next few weeks.

First, I need to complete my latest short story (perhaps novella, since no one can satisfactorily explain the difference).  The first act is almost done, but the second act is often the most difficult.  With my characters sufficiently established so that I can really start messing with them, the story can get rolling.  Tentatively titled "A Darkness Deeper Than Night" (melodrama, anyone?) it should comprise roughly 25,000 words.  With ~7,000 words already written, that leaves a lot to do.  But not insurmountable, and assuming that I get 5,000 a day, you can expect a rough draft pretty soon. 

As far as the novel goes (the working title of which is "Superhero Novel") I have less to report.  Much of the background has been filled in, and I have a working plot.  While I cannot claim that it's like nothing you've seen before, it's unlike anything I've seen before, so I suppose that means something.  The biggest challenge so far has been the problem of manipulating real history for the purposes of writing a story.  That's not a big deal to most people, but historic verisimilitude is something I strive for.  I've cleared up one sticking point by reminding myself that history at the point at which the story takes place has already been altered.  In fact, by the point we're introduced to the story, I've already established that the world has taken a half-step to the left.  Alpha readers should see a prologue in the forthcoming weeks.

Otherwise, I've got two new novels to review: Alif the Unseen, and Osama.  Both are quasi fantastic-realistic, from what I can tell from the cover flap.  Both are written by (and feature) Middle Easterners.  Edward Said pointed out a long time ago (and others have been pointing out even longer) that we derive our sense of ourselves by contrasting it to an "other."  I'm excited to see our self incorporating a wider voice, as much for its novelty as for what it says about ourselves.

That's the plan.  It's open to revision, of course, but I hope to have something for you all to read soon.  Thanks again for your support.    

2012 Hugo Award Winners

Last night marked the 70th World Science Convention, and winners were announced for the 2012 Hugo Awards.  According to the Hugo people, 1922 ballots were cast and counted.  Jo Walton taking Best Novel isn't really a surprise to me.  While I didn't appreciate it, many other reviewers did, and felt it was deeply compelling.  Doctor Who and Game of Thrones both won, Neil Gaiman for his contribution "The Doctor's Wife," and Game of Thrones as best Long Form.  You can see the rest of the winners below.  To everyone who was nominated, good luck next year, and to all the winners, congratulations.


BEST NOVEL
Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)

BEST NOVELLA
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, September/October 2011)

BEST NOVELETTE
“Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)

BEST SHORT STORY
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

BEST RELATED WORK
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz)

BEST GRAPHIC STORY
Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM
Game of Thrones (Season 1) (HBO)

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
“The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who) (BBC Wales)

BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM
Sheila Williams

BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM
Betsy Wollheim

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
John Picacio

BEST SEMIPROZINE
Locus, edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.

BEST FANZINE
SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo

BEST FAN WRITER
Jim C. Hines

BEST FAN ARTIST
Maurine Starkey

BEST FANCAST
SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente

JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer
of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
E. Lily Yu