July 2008

World in the Satin Bag

Independence Day, 2008

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Not much to say here except that today is probably the only holiday that really matters in America. You can disagree with me if you want, but we wouldn’t be who we are today if the Founding Fathers hadn’t decided to go through with submitting the Declaration of Independence. We owe a lot to our troops as well, who deserve our respect for all they have done for us, in good times and bad. May our soldiers overseas have a great Independence Day and I hope you all come home safely and soon. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

Rant About Book Covers

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I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes publishers choose a cover that makes you wonder what they were thinking. Such is the case with Charles Stross’ new book, Saturn’s Children. I was not at all happy about the U.S. release cover after I saw a picture of it online somewhere, but I’m even more upset having now seen the U.K. version. Our friends across the pond get this:And we get this:Excuse me? What the hell? Why can’t we have the cool scifi cover with the spaceship and flashy colors? The biggest problem for me is that the U.K. cover looks like they actually put serious effort into it, considering it for what it is: a science fiction novel by one of the field’s most popular writers. The U.S. cover looks like some crappy, second-rate book I’d expect to see published on Lulu: that stale, computer drawn, fake looking female figure with the big breasts that defy gravity and otherwise look completely fake. I don’t know what Saturn’s Children is about, but either way, if I didn’t know who Charles Stross was, I wouldn’t touch the U.S. version of the book with a two hundred foot pole. The cover is ugly and I think Mr. Stross is undeserving of this sort of treatment.The way I see it, the cover of a book says a lot about the book itself. We’re not supposed to judge, I know, but at the same time we have to realize that people are going to judge a book by its cover. That’s why it’s such a problem to sell a book in the stores (like Borders). Most books end up spine out rather than cover out, and as such are less likely to get snatched up and examined by the ravenous book consumer.One of the things that I do when I’m in the store and walk around the new fiction area and look at the covers. I pay attention to the image, the author, the title, and anything else on the cover that might be of importance. If I don’t recognize the name, the cover is what has to sell me enough to pick up the book. There are too many books in the store for me to pick up every single one and give the same amount of attention to (by reading the back, for example). The job of the publisher is to attract my attention.Likewise, the publishers need to be aware of their intended audience. Luckily Stross’ new book will likely sell just fine with either cover, since his name is well known anyway, but if Stross were a new author with a cover like that, I can see it having issues. Stross’ audience are hard SF readers (and near future readers). As such, the publisher has to market to that audience, unless this new book is a significant change from his usual, in which case they have to figure out what works for that audience. If you have an epic fantasy book, you need a cover that fits it. Don’t put flying bunnies on it unless it’s a book about flying bunnies (and probably humorous). A science fiction book needs something that not only tells us about what’s inside the book, but also targets us, the scifi reader, with imagery that screams “scifi”. Computer animated figures don’t scream “scifi”. That screams “cheap”. Many people don’t realize this (or maybe they do), but there are entire website devoted to selling pre-drawn figures like the one on the cover above. All of them are obvious and while I respect the talent it takes to be able to get to that level of artistic talent, the art itself is not “great stuff”. It’s amateur. Video games produce better looking characters these days.The quickest way to get me to not touch your book is have a horrible cover. And the quickest way to get me to think your cover is horrible is to have something that looks like it was drawn on a computer. The trick about computer art is that it has to mask the fact that it is from a computer (unless, for some reason, you need a cover that looks like it came from a computer). Yes, you can do great things with a computer, but it takes practice and talent. It looks amateur to put obviously computer-based art on a book cover when you could just as easily find a piece of hand-drawn art for the same price. Even crappy hand-drawn art looks better than the computer drawn figure. Yes, I’m saying it. I’ve seen my fair share of poorly drawn book covers, done with real art, by hand. Ten times out of ten, it’s better than any of those annoying computer figurines you see on some covers. A good bit of advice for publishers, particularly the small presses (and I’m not pointing out anyone in particular here, but this is mostly aimed at those of you who do a lot of e-books), is this: it’s better to take a piece of handdrawn (painted, etc.) art that doesn’t look all that great than to take a silky and shiny computer-based drawing of a figure that looks just like every other computer-based figure that has been drawn. Seriously.

World in the Satin Bag

Movie Review: Wall E

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Pixar has done it again. Possibly one of the best films in the last ten years and quite probably the best film of the year. If Wall E doesn’t win a mass of awards when awards season starts up I’d be surprised and ticked off. Almost everything you can do right in a film is done in Wall E. After the blunder of Cars (which is so unlike a Pixar flick in comparison to some of the company’s better works) we are given a grim view of the future, but touched with the awesome, vivid, and powerful storytelling that made us all love Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, except one thing: most of the story had to be told without the benefit of human characters. To put it simply: I love Wall E.To the breakdown: Direction 5/5I’m not even sure what to say here. Pixar has managed to turn a tiny, junker robot into possibly the cutest “living” thing to ever grace the big screen. Simple things like the cute up and down motion of Wall E to how the two robots (Eve and Wall E) interact are examples of the amazing way the director managed to make me love the characters of this film. There are absolutely NO moments in this film that made me go “eh, that wasn’t good”. Everything is pulled together seamlessly, all moving progressively towards the end. The love story is not over the top, but balanced perfectly throughout. It’s just…amazing. Cast 4/5The only complaint I have with this movie is one that probably won’t bother anyone. It didn’t really bother me either, but it was something that made this film just short of perfect. The voice actors are somewhat sparse. Granted, Wall E, Eve, and the other robots are all dominated by slightly robotic voices, but the few human characters are a little generic (particularly the male characters). I think perhaps diversifying the cast of human voices would have helped, but maybe this is just something I noticed and that nobody else really cares about (it doesn’t detract from the story, but I’m apprehensive to give anything a perfect score).Adaptation N/AThis wasn’t technically adapted from any works of literature, but the parallels to previous written works about robots and human society in the future are there and noticeable if you pay attention to such things. Writing 5/5While the story for Wall E is somewhat typical (in a way), it is also extremely powerful. Earth is devastated. Mankind has abandoned the blue planet after essentially killing her with junk and other goodies (yes, Global Warming is a part of things). For the most part, this aspect of the story will roll right over your kid’s heads, unless they are very well educated. They’ll see the dead Earth, and when they ask about it, just make something up. Pixar doesn’t try to cram environmental stuff down your throat here (and people that say that’s what they’re doing are probably the same folks that think kids are too stupid to think for themselves, and thus coddle their children to create little wimpy kids who have been brainwashed). Ranting aside…Wall E is the last remaining “cleaning” robot. His job is to clean up all the garbage left behind and essentially make Earth livable again. Humans, however, have long since left on a luxury liner with the promise that the company Buy N Large (sort of like the the future Walmart) will clean things up and eventually call them all back when the Earth is back to normal (or at least life sustaining).Wall E, of course, has grown his own little personality after being stuck on Earth for some 700 years, sporting a fascination with love and old 20th century musicals (plus an obsessive habit of collecting bits and pieces of former human life, and anything that tends to draw his attention). Then he meets Eve, a “drone” sent from the Axiom (the luxury liner) to determine if Earth is good to go…and well, you can figure out how things go.The story is absolutely heart warming. The love story is accented in just the right way in the writing that it’s believable and, well, cute. It reminded me the cuteness of my own relationship, which hit a chord with me. I don’t generally like love stories, but this one really gripped me. And I almost cried…something I don’t do very often.Point is, the story is fantastic, with plenty of good stuff for the adults (let’s face it, even if GW is a part of this story and it’s preaching the green card it’s still giving us an example of the worst case scenario…a picture we need to see and one which science fiction has been doing for a long time). The kids will enjoy this too. Many people have claimed this was a sleeper on Fandango, but I don’t see it. The kids in the theater were cracking up and so were the adults. It’s simply one of the best films made in a long time. Visuals 5/5It’s Pixar at its best. What more is there to say? Overall 4.75/5What else is there to say? Between being one of the cutest stories since Finding Nemo and possibly one of Pixar’s best films to date, this is a science fiction nut’s wet dream. It’s everything that makes scifi wonderful and exciting, with all the cuteness, comedy, love, and visual stimulation of the computer animation world. If you haven’t seen Wall E, what are you waiting for? What’s wrong with you? Take your kids, or go with your friends. This film should be drowning in ticket sales right now.If you have enjoyed Pixar films before, see this. If you haven’t, see this. If you don’t know what Pixar is, see this. If you haven’t seen a movie in a while, see this (it might just make you love movies again). Wall E = awesome.

World in the Satin Bag

Poll Up

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The poll is on the right there and it will only apply to the book I’ll be reading AFTER the book I’m about to start reading (once I finish the one I’m already on). I apologize that there are no links to the books. I couldn’t find a way to do make the titles into links to the Amazon entries for them. If you know how to do this, or know of a poll site that will let me, then let me know. Anywho, the vote will be up for about six days or so. Vote away! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t anymore after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

Some Errors

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I’m not sure what is going on with Blogger right now, but there are some weird errors happening in regards to my expanded posts. Not sure what, but just a warning that if you’re reading the site from the main page, some things might look weird. I’m working on it. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

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