New Weird/Bizarro Summer Reading: Want to join me?
Over the next two months I will be researching and reading for an essay I am writing on the New Weird and Bizarro subgenres and their influence on SF/F in the last ten years. The list isn’t terribly long, and does include some older titles for historical reference, but I thought I would see if some of you wanted to read along with me. Perhaps we can have some discussions here about whatever happens to strike our fancy. So, my reading list is as follows: –The New Weird edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer–City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer–The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston–Foop! by Chris Genoa–Natural History by Justina Robson–The Etched City by KJ Bishop–Doctor Identity, or Farewell to Plaquedemia by D. Harlan Wilson–Veniss Undeground by Jeff VanderMeer–Angel Dust Apocalypse by Jeremy Robert Johnson–Wanderers and Islanders by Steve Cockayne–The Accord by Keith Brooke–Viriconium by M. John Harrison–Perdido Street Station by China Mieville–The Bizarro Starter Kit (orange) and (blue) I’ll also be reading numerous short stories by Jason Sanford and others. I can provide a short list of those if anyone wants to know. I’m pretty certain that I am starting with Perdido Street Station on Monday, which is probably the easiest of the titles on this list to get. That said, if anyone wants to join me, let me know in the comments. I’m already doing about half of these with a friend, and I’ve love to have the additional company. It would be interesting to get a bunch of people talking about the same book on here. Alright, off to reading for me!
Amazon (Retailer) vs. Macmillan (Publisher): Epic Battle or Silly Mistake? (Update)
(Some new links and stuff have been added on the bottom.) The short version: Amazon pulled all of Macmillan’s titles (print and otherwise) from their website due, apparently, to the publisher’s desire to raise ebook prices. Speculation says this is because Amazon wants people to buy the Kindle, making higher prices for ebooks bad news when it’s a big publisher pushing the price game. But there are also speculations that this is in response to Macmillan’s deals with Apple, about which Amazon is not at all happy. The long version: I’ll send you to others for that, because I don’t want to simply repeat what has already been said. There’s Scalzi’s three posts on the subject, then Writtenwyrdd’s take, and Tobias S. Buckell’s take. My take: I can’t help feeling like this is going to end up poorly for Amazon. Yes, playing hardball seems like it would work in principle, but I don’t think Amazon has seriously considered the competition coming their way via the Nook, Apple’s iPad (a minor nuisance right now), and the dozens of other companies pushing the ePub format. It could go bad for the publishers too, I suppose, but Amazon is the one that really should be rethinking its business model right now. Because if the Nook and the other ePub format folks take off, then Amazon will be unable to compete or negotiate because the publishers will no longer want to work with them on electronic format (or print format even, since B&N does both, and generally at the same prices as Amazon). Amazon will have to consider pushing other media over books. But what do you think? (An even more detailed analysis of what is going on can be found here at Tobias S. Buckell’s blog and at Jay Lake’s blog. You can read Macmillan’s response here.)
One More For the Crazy: How To Ruin Your Career
This will be brief, folks, because you should be reading this post and following the links to the incident rather than wasting time seeing what I have to say. I’m not even the first one to get to this, obviously. The short of it is this:Candace Sams, author of some book whose title sounds idiotic to me, developed a particularly nasty case of complete nutjobbery. Some Amazon person gave a negative review of her book, and she decided to comment, only not in the way anyone with a brain might. There are, as of this moment, twenty-seven pages, some of them hers and a lot of them from people trying to fan the flames. Around page 15 or 16 is where she starts claiming that she is getting the FBI involved, but really, the whole thread is a enjoyable foray into one author’s psychological downfall. There is, of course, nothing wrong with responding to a review, per se. Sometimes authors want to get a bit more information or clarify a point, or something. But Nutty Sams has done exactly what no author should do: gone off on a wild tear on the reviewer and anyone else that isn’t on her side. The good news is that Nutty Sams has received a lot of free press for this, the kind of press that most writers can only dream of getting (she’s apparently been Gaiman-ized). The bad news is that this may very well be the end of her career. At least she gave everyone a bit of fun on her way down. That is all. Update: The Guardian talks about this incident here.
Thoughts On Taking Criticism
These last few days have put a lot of interesting thoughts into my head, particularly on the issue of how to take criticism. I consider this to be a writer’s best skill aside from talent, because how you react to what others say about you or your writing will have an influence on how you are perceived by others, and will say a lot about who you are as a writer. Take my recent discussion and criticism of self-publishing and the dozens of responses there (some of which have been removed by one of the authors, which I have saved primarily because they were interesting, particularly in this discussion here). What is interesting about that particular post are the kinds of reactions taken against what I wrote: some were relatively calm and collected and were more interested in debating the issue, some were vehemently opposed, so much so as to make personal attacks, and then there were some who seemed to be unclear on how they wanted to react, deleting posts or generally making rude comments and then attempting more rational discussions elsewhere (and these are general observations, not hints at particular individuals) There is only one individual who has had any useful impact on me in this discussion. This person has acted in a way that I think should be a model for people in that particular industry (with some minor exceptions, which are mostly irrelevant). Instead of attacking me personally for my criticisms of an industry s/he ardently supports, s/he debated me on it, seemingly attempting to get at the crux of the issue. To be fair, I find myself agreeing very much with this individual on many points, and disagreeing with her/him on others, and s/he seems more like the kind of person that could change my mind on the issue of self-publishing than many of the others that have been a part of the discussion. Why? The mostly level-headed approach and the ability to tackle the issue without resorting to reducing discussions to the I’m-high-and-mighty form, or feeling the need to make unsubstantiated claims of validation, etc. And this is interesting, because it says a lot about how this individual was able to take the criticism, and how writers should take criticism in general. The reality is that no matter what kind of writer you are, you are going to get criticized. Even great writers get hit with negative comments. They either shrug them off, get irritated and blast the critic, or let it consume them from the inside out. And published, successful writers have exhibited all of those reactions; some of them get away with the more nasty comments, and others don’t. Those that react negatively, who attack or let criticism consume them, are those who probably shouldn’t be attempting to write publicly in the first place. It hints at an insecurity, a deep fissure within the self that suggests how mutable an individual can be in the face of a negative comment. And reactions do have weight on how one is perceived. I think, here, of the Cole A. Adams story, in which an author got so upset about being criticized that he basically goaded the critic into committing suicide. Obviously that hasn’t happened here, but there certainly have been some bitter, angry individuals who have seen fit to make personal attacks instead of either ignoring the criticism or tackling it in a more level-headed manner. And like Mr. Adams, these aren’t people I could see myself ever working with, even if I were more interested in the industry they support. But I don’t suspect most of them care about that, much like Mr. Adams probably doesn’t care that a lot of people no longer want to work with him (or maybe he does). The point is that criticism doesn’t go away because you get upset about it; it remains, always. But if you can’t take the criticism, why be in a particular industry at all, whether it be music, acting, or writing? You can’t avoid it unless you keep yourself private and never let your work be viewed by people who may potentially criticize you for it. But maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s okay to react in the way that some authors have in the past. What do you all think? Where do you draw the line between acceptable behavior and acting childishly?
GRRM: Tired of Your Crap
…and for good reason. This was brought to my attention by a friend (whose blog I would mention here, except I’m not sure he or she would like me to for very complicated reasons):Apparently GRRM is pretty much sick and tired of all of you out there yelling at him about the lateness of his next book. In fact, what I thought were a few fan complaints here or there are actually massive whiny fits by people who a) don’t know what it’s like to be a writer, and b) are selfish, rude jackasses. In GRRM’s words: Some of you hate my other projects. You don’t want me co-editing WARRIORS or the Vance anthology or STAR-CROSSED LOVERS or any of the other projects I’m doing with my old friend Gardner Dozois, and you get angry when I post about them here. For reasons I don’t quite comprehend, the people who hate those projects seem to hate WILD CARDS even more. You really don’t want me working on that, “wasting time” on that, and posting about it here. Some of you don’t want me attending conventions, teaching workshops, touring and doing promo, or visiting places like Spain and Portugal (last year) or Finland (this year). More wasting time, when I should be home working on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. There’s plenty more at the link I listed above, but these are good examples of the kinds of crap GRRM is dealing with in comments, at message boards, and in emails, the latter of which, to me, seems exceedingly rude. His response was basically a friendly way of saying “f*ck off,” showing us that GRRM loves his fans more than they seem to love him (or are those folks who are ripping on him really his fans?). My response to all this is somewhat less friendly: STFU. That stands for “shut the f*ck up,” in case you were unaware. I know this may be hard for all of you out there to understand, but GRRM does have a life. He is allowed to watch football and have friendly bets with friends. He’s allowed to travel, to visit his family, to hang out with his buddies, to have a few beers here or there, to go out for a smoke (or a nice waltz in the sun), and he’s allowed to have marital relations (assuming he’s married). And you know what? He doesn’t even reserve a lot of his time for that. He spends a lot of time teaching, going to conventions to visit YOU, the fans, editing books, and writing short stories, etc. The man has a career. He doesn’t owe you anything. I may not be a reader of his books, and I certainly have opinions on the whole wait thing, as outlined here, but I’m not going to get on this man’s case for trying to have a life and trying to maintain a career. Writing a book isn’t easy. It’s not something that takes a few months to churn out, especially not works like GRRM’s, which are complex and long. It took me almost a year to write WISB, and that book is in rough shape at best (plot holes, grammar and spelling errors, etc.). And it’s taken me a lot longer to get SoD written for probably the same reasons that GRRM is taking his time. Plots don’t get simpler as a series progresses: they get more complicated, especially because as the series closes you are forced to begin sealing up all the holes. An author like GRRM has a lot to think about in regards to his characters, his themes, and his world. And all authors are different. Some may be able to churn out a decent book in three months; others may take a year or two. A lot of authors start off having an entire series already written. GRRM is going into this somewhat cold, I presume (well, as cold as you can be several books into a series). And you know what? All this pressure, this pushing and prodding and bitching and fighting with him over how long it’s taken him to write it: it’s making it worse. He’s not going to write this book faster if all you, his supposed fans, can do is bitch and moan over it. Sending him emails telling him he sucks and should stop having a life probably makes him unwilling to want to continue writing. He’s already got editors breathing down his neck about this. They’re not there to support him so much as push him to give them a product they can sell (he may have a good relationship with his editor/s, but that doesn’t mean that the publisher isn’t pushing). The last thing he needs is for the people that he cares so much about, who have made his career what it is today, to start throwing temper tantrums over his desire to maintain his sanity. I hope this is one of those instances where karma comes into play. What goes around, comes around, right? To conclude this rant, I’d like to reiterate: STFU. Leave him alone if all you’re going to do is bitch. If you don’t like waiting, then read something else. He’s not the only one writing books. Jackasses.
Atwood Boycotts Dubai
Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature in Dubai will now be down one world-class author after it banned a book containing a gay character. Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, was to be amongst over 60 prestigious authors attending the event, but since the organisers decided to ban Geraldine Bedell’s The Gulf Between Us. In a calm, to-the-point letter, she explained she cannot condone censorship and therefore had to decline involvement with the festival. I’m with Atwood on this one. Of the 5.6m inhabitants of Dubai, the majority are foreigners, and in recent years EU and US citizens have been arrested for having LGBT relationships. This book was banned under the same anti-gay laws. Whether you’re pro- or anti-gay rights, there’s an argument against censorship here. A book shouldn’t be banned just because you don’t like what it says.