bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

*Writing from somewhere in a hermetically sealed room* As I am now in the brain-melting throes of writing my dissertation (12,000 words and four weeks to go), these round ups are focused on what dedicated SFF UK imprints are doing to digitally market themselves, their books and their authors to their fans and wider readerships.

Gollancz: have recently announced they’re making the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction, ‘the definitive reference work in the field’, available free online. In another step towards helping more genre books reach wider audiences, and helping audiences to reach more books, Gollancz are launching the SF Gateway. It’s going to be the ‘world’s largest digital SF library, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks’ (so not an intergalactic gateway to other such gateways, but still pretty neat). Available to access this autumn, the project has been headed by Gollancz’s digital publisher, Darren Nash. This really is an amazing venture, and really utilises the digital form. In a further step towards digital domination, Gollancz are also teaming up with pulp website Good Show Sir, with the goal of making every cover linkable to the actual text by 2012 (this last part might be a lie, but they’re missing out on a trick – who wouldn’t want to read about Nazi gnomes?!).

Angry Robot Books: are back again this week because I’ve been writing the section in my dissertation (known henceforth as the ‘Big D’) about how negative perceptions of the fantasy genre are often linked to cheap, and badly written, swords and sorcery fiction from around the 1950s. This was otherwise known as ‘pulp’ fiction (so-called due to the cheap wood pulp paper that enabled the printing of several key fantasy and science fiction magazines around that time). The Big D points out that publishers have been trying to put their sordid, scantily-clad maidens past behind them. Commissioning editors who were interviewed for the Big D all agree wholeheartedly that negative perceptions are linked to the covers for these texts (please see Nazi gnomes cover for reference). Art Directors and the like have been working for years to rebrand SFF away from these ‘pulp’ covers, only returning to them in a retro, ironic fashion. I write all of this because this week, Angry Robot announced the signing of swords and sorcery author Paul S Kemp. Kemp is ‘unashamedly a fan of the classic ‘swords and sorcery’ fantasy’. His series of novels will be bringing ‘swords and sorcery right up to date’. But with a few key changes. It’s about thieves and treasure hunters, who are the new assassins (Douglas Hulick’s Tales of the Kin helped with that), and Angry Robot are keen to emphasise that it uses ‘very modern language’. I’ve done a few questionnaires for my essay, and people generally find the language and names used (see Tolkien’s works for detail) off-putting when it comes to reading fantasy, and so would rather not. Could more books of this ilk being published, with modern covers, modern language and trending themes, be part of the key of helping SFF to reach wider audiences, without the need for a HBO series?

I will leave you with a quote from H. P. Lovecraft on the matter of being published by pulp magazines (which he was): ‘the field is so repugnant to me that it’s about the last way I’d ever choose to gain shelter and clothing and nourishment.’ Beautiful.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Genre for Japan/ Floor to ceiling books: Amanda Rutter has been doing something amazing with the SFF genre in recent weeks – helping to raise money to assist relief efforts in Japan. She and a few other highly dedicated individuals have been requesting items to auction off from publishers, editors and authors. Together, they raised £11,203.36, which is, frankly, amazing. Some of my favourite donated items were signed copies of The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, the Angry Robot e-book collection, a year of books by Tor UK, a signed and stamped edition of I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, the chance for you to be in a novel by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, a signed proof of The Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman… This actually just turned into a list of what was on offer, because it was all phenomenal, so you might as well just have a look yourself.

Orbit: have launched a unique, visually stunning advertising campaign for Simon Morden’s Metrozone series, about a worldwide nuclear disaster with a Zombieland-esque lead character who has survived by adhering to his own strict rules and ‘equations of life’, and then breaking them. Throughout London graffiti artwork has been appearing, warning citizens of the arrival of the Metrozone, and the pending apocalypse. This is such a brilliant, creative way of advertising a Science Fiction (or any) book, rather than the usual picture of cover and standard ‘have you read this yet you should do’ line. More please.

Locus Awards: the tickets are on sale now for the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, taking place June 24-26 in Seattle. So if you happen to be in the area and want to pop on by (and who wouldn’t?), purchase your tickets now.

Gollancz: are celebrating 50 years of publishing Science Fiction and Fantasy and they’re giving you the opportunity to vote for your favourite Gollancz book. There’s quite a surprising mix on there, including William Heaney/Graham Joyce’s Memoirs of a Master Forger, which I had the pleasure of reading recently and completely fell in love with it. Such a beautiful, whimsical read and highly recommended. If you vote you’re also entered into a prize draw to win a subscription to SFX magazine and the top ten books in the charts this autumn. Worth it.

Tor UK: China Miéville in interview at Only the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy blog, with questions from Pornokitsch, Mithril Wisdom and sffworld.com. Dauntingly eloquent, his verbose discussions include: losing his shit with excitement (who hasn’t?), being a lover of squid, Eygptian shabtis (right?), ‘Is urban the new fantasy’ (what?) and shenanigans. Choice quote: “(Do you mean) ‘The adjective "urban" is becoming increasingly disaggregated from what one might have thought its referent would be, and instead portending various fashionable aesthetic tropes actually contingent to metropolitan quiddity'?” End quote.

Voyager: is a review by me, so here it is again, as if I haven't flashed myself about enough with little regard for any of our dignity.

#lbf11: it’s the London Book Fair next week and I’m going down hellishly early tomorrow to set up the University of Central Lancashire stand in order to wax lyrical about the MA Publishing course and our Letters to Africa project. When I say wax lyrical, I of course mean babble incoherently. I will also be walking past the stands of major publishers attempting to pluck up the courage to see if anyone will speak to me.

A little list: Publishers I would like to see: Voyager, Tor, Gollancz, Orbit (although, they weren’t there last year, but Atom was)… and I think that seeing some independents would be just as exciting, particularly for my dissertation – Sparkling Books and Angry Robot in particular.

If you’re off to the fair, I’ll probably be hovering in the background somewhere near you on my 60th circuit.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Angry Robot Books: I feel like I’ve been living and breathing Angry Robot for the past few months, as I’ve just carried out a research project on their digital activities for my MA. Just when I thought I was ready to hand it in, they do something new. I could hardly keep up, which is, of course, exactly why I chose them. They’ve just introduced their ‘Ask the Robot’ feature (by my deadline too, thanks guys), which they’ve set up on a site called Formspring that I’ve only just learned about, but which now knows more about me than my closest friends (‘Can Formspring access all your personal details? Formspring LOVES birthdays, when’s yours and don't you think your Diet Coke dependency is getting out of hand?). Basically you can ask Angry Robot anything and they’ll answer it. All answers will also get copied to their Twitter feed, which cunningly means you’ll want to follow them there too. OK, so you get the odd ‘If a woodchuck could (and would) chuck wood, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck?’ question (‘2’, in case you were wondering). But also this offers the chance for readers to get under their robotic exterior and see how they’re wired. I have 4,500 garbled words and a pie chart that say quite, quite well. Incidentally, that's 4,500 words that would have benefited staggeringly from this feature. First post from user Disgruntled MA Student: 'Dear Angry Robot, why wasn't this feature in place a couple of months back when I needed it the most?'

Lauren Beukes: author of the amazing Moxyland and Zoo City, the Angry Robot writer has just been told by the Hugo Awards committee that she’s eligible for the 2011 Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Voting closes on March 26th and you can vote if you’re a Renovation member, or by joining. If you can afford the membership fee, or you’re already a proud card-carrying member, what are you waiting for? The awards will be presented at the Hugo Ceremony, at the annual World Science Fiction Convention (run by the World Science Fiction Society, who also sponsor the Hugos) on 17th – 21st August, in Reno, Nevada. There are 15 categories in total, not including the Campbell. Also, the award is shaped like a delightful rocket.

Orbit: I was quite distressed earlier as I couldn’t access their site. Am I addicted? *Drinks caffeine to calm nerves* Anyway, Orbit UK have just announced their acquisition of three new titles of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files (mentioned two posts in a row, it must be a record). The series' crazy-amazing mix of Urban Fantasy and crime noir (as Orbit dubs them) make for genuinely unique books, whilst still managing to contain the usual UF tropes. I’m not sure any cover artist’s work excites me quite as much as Chris McGrath’s designs for this series. Maybe it’s his addition of a stylish hat for the character of Harry Dresden (one he notoriously never dons in the text itself), but Orbit UK’s covers have always been a poorer comparison. Until now. As if they’ve noted my anguish, Orbit UK have melded McGrath’s designs for Penguin/Roc USA, with Little, Brown designer Peter Cotton’s and created these absolute beauties. The latest File, Ghost Story is due out July 26th, a whole four months later than normal. Still, the wait is always worth it. Side note: I am absolutely gutted that I missed their competition to win all of the new covers (and the books too, obviously). And I call myself a rabid fan.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

I haven’t written a post for ages because of several factors. It was Christmas. I was in a food-induced stupor. It was my birthday (not particularly relevant but I was determined to eat my weight in tiny little cakes and it was very time consuming). A further food-induced stupor followed. My assignments were due in for my MA. I started a new job. So. After all of those excuses, I’m finally back behind the computer and fighting the food haze in order to fill a genteel black hole.

So what have I missed whilst preoccupied with cake?

i09: these guys, whoever they are, have released The Power List, filled with people who ‘rocked science fiction and fantasy in 2010’. These 20 listed individuals have been helping to cajole SFF out of its niche and into the glaring spotlight of the public eye, which is exactly what my dissertation is focussed on (or will be, one day). Even better, rather than simply striving to reach a mass market, they’ve only made the genre richer for the rest of us. Some of those involved in drumming up the geek chic in 2010 are: Steven Moffat who demonstrated that it was possible to do a worthy remake of Sherlock Holmes without resorting to Dick Van Dykian dialects. Oh, and pulled off a freaking ace new series of Doctor Who. Orbit author Paolo Bacigalupi (pronounced Batch-i-ga-loop-ee according to Paulo), whose novel The Windup Girl has won the Hugo and Nebula awards, is on there for proving that ‘hard SF can still be relevant and popular’. I’m experiencing a love-confusion relationship with it at the moment, as I’m not a major fan of SF (barring Douglas Adams, obviously), but it’s engaging and like nothing I’ve ever read before. Also the cover is gorgeous and, while this might sound odd, the book has a weighty feel to it that makes it so satisfying to hold and read. Also it smells great. Review to follow. Another score for Orbit as Publishing Director Tim Holman has been setting up the imprint’s New York branch. Even Sandra Bullock gets a nod for playing self-consciously kooky crossword writer (she wears red boots!) in All About Steve. No wait, for being in SFF movie Gravity directed by Alfonso Cuarón. After Steve she knows the only possible way is up. Head on over to i09 for the full list. Now.

Voyager: the blog has been a bit quiet over Christmas, but they did receive some honey off author Janny Wurts, which is nice. Also, I’m heading down there for a week at the beginning of February as part of my MA, something I’m a little (read: ridiculously) excited about. I really just wanted to share that.

Orbit: on the Orbit blog Robert Jackson Bennett (author of Mr Shivers, reviewed here) wrote this hugely interesting piece ‘On the Death of Geek Culture’, in response to Patton Oswalt’s ‘Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die.’ The essence of the latter is Oswalt saying that everyone can be an expert (ie, a geek) on an aspect of niche culture so no one is. The niche has become the norm. Oswalt wants a return to the niche, pre internet, pre YouTube fan-bashing of classics, pre wiki-bloody-pedia (god, I love that thing). Bennett’s response is interesting because his arguably unique stance, as a Horror/thriller author, is that this would be a Bad Thing. Geek culture is cultural agoraphobia. It’s under the bed sheets with the torch and comic. It’s secular, insular and it’s well and truly down the rabbit hole. I can see both of their points. But Oswalt seems to want a return to a pre-nostalgia driven society so he can be, well, nostalgic (but original). And Bennett is suggesting that SFF and geek culture can be used as escapism, rather than a momentary retreat, which is a bit too dismissive of what is a wide-ranging passion for so many people. Or maybe I can’t agree with him because I don’t feel like I’m ‘trapped in a prison of artifice and quirk’, geek culture isn’t an excuse not to step out of my comfort zone because there is nothing comforting about reading a book with a dragon on the front of it in the middle of a crowd of commuters reading Hilary Mantel. Or maybe that's just my geek-shame speaking. Maybe it's time to push the boundaries and try something new. Like reading Science Fiction instead of purely Fantasy, that would be totally wild.

Angry Robot Books: ever the savvy publisher, this relative newbie in the SFF world is always ready to innovate and do things just differently enough to get noticed. For the entire month of March, the imprint will be accepting unsolicited manuscripts. They’ve hired a team of readers to wade through what will inevitably be an absolute mountain of novels composed of wannabes, no-hopers and, just maybe, a diamond in the rough that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. Contain yourselves long enough to pen that bestseller/Angry Robot desk ornament.

book review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Published by Angry Robots in the UK and Jacana in South Africa, Zoo City is only the second novel from South African writer, Lauren Beukes (following Moxyland), although her work reads with the ease and lyricism of a seasoned pro, which, in all fairness, she is. Beukes has a journalism and scriptwriting background and she isn’t afraid to use these hard-earned skills in her novel writing, which shines through both in wording and style. Beukes is the writer equivalent of a method actor: a method writer. Her research is both academic and physical and she’s been to healers’ markets, visited churches that once housed over three thousand refugees has been thrown out of night clubs, all in the name of fiction. Her methods pay off.

Ex-drug addict Zinzi December is a woman with a past, but that’s obvious from the Sloth on her back. FL (former life) she was a journalist, but now she lives in the South African slums of Zoo City, where most of the residents have been ‘animalled’. She’s become a Mashavi, which refers to both her animal familiar, Sloth, and her magical ability, which for her is to find lost things. Like others in this alternative present, her animal was thrust upon her by the shadowy Undertow, which came for her after her brother was killed by a bullet meant for her. Whether it’s a guilty conscience that has started to manifest physically, a godly punishment or, like the daemons in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (something hinted at in the book), part of their soul, being animalled in a society already suffering from other xenophobic attitudes is not conductive to an easy life.

Still paying off drug debts she racked up in her FL, Zinzi is involved with Internet scams as well as using her ability to find lost things – for a price – when she’s implemented in the murder of one of her clients. In need of the money after the police take her payment for that job, she’s forced to break her ‘no missing persons’ rule to find a lost pop princess and becomes embroiled in more murders and shady goings-on in the music world.

Even with the first person narrative, Zinzi – with her fabulous insults and severe personal issues - is a difficult person to get to know, but by the end you feel that you at least understand her for all of her foibles. This is a story that feels personal, and painful. From Zinzi’s touchingly fragile relationship with Benoît, another Mashavi, to the very real history of the country that still haunts them, although it’s Fantasy the magic is more mythological and is not what drives the story. It’s primarily focussed on the broken people desperate to pick up the pieces just to get by from day-to-day and to rebuild some sort of life, and it’s about living with regret, in this case literally with the physical presence of their animals. The fear of being animalled and the inability to get away from your animal if it happens to you adds an element of claustrophobia to the simmering crucible of a society already in troubled times. Although similar to the daemons in Pullman’s universe, the idea of being unable to hide an aspect of yourself – the monkey on your back - is compelling enough, along with the fast-paced plot, that the novel never falls into the trap of being all concept and no substance.

Beukes paints a bleak picture of Johannesburg and human nature in general; it’s a crumbling city where the ridiculously opulent areas are side-by-side with the dirt-poor, like gold teeth in a rotting mouth. I usually enjoy books more that are lighter in tone, but this bleakness doesn’t overwhelm the novel because the theme of redemption is present throughout, driving the characters forward, however unconsciously.

With Zoo City, Beukes shows what can still be done with the Urban Fantasy genre: it’s a wonderful, gritty, unique gem of a novel, filled with witty dialogue and sentences that zing off the page, and, much like her troubled main character Zinzi, is edgy without being alienating and vulnerable without being soft.

8/10

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Angry Robot Books: during the days running up to Christmas, advent, if you will, Angry Robot have been gifting readers through their digital advent calendar with anything from writer Dan Abnett’s secret family bread sauce recipe (awww) to Christmas horror short, The Holiday Man by J Robert King. I think this is a great idea – it’s for the fans, it whets appetites for authors, it brings a sort of warm glowy feeling often associated with Christmas and being given free things, and it fosters a community spirit amongst its readers, also known, rather fuzzily, as ‘brand loyalty’.

self-publishing: a success story: this weekend it was reported that self-published Fantasy author Brian S. Pratt has been earning thousands of dollars from the 17 eBooks he’s publishing on eBook platform for ‘independent writers’, Smashwords. I hesitate to say ‘perhaps this is the way forward’ because I’m an old-fashioned snob at heart when it comes to publishing. Still, authors have complete pricing control over their work, the eBooks are available in all formats and they’ve published over 25,000 authors since they opened for business back in May 2008. Perhaps this IS the way ... no sorry, I just can’t.

Penguin USA: Penguin Daw author Gini Koch has been guest posting on The Author’s Desk blog this week and has some interesting theories about why readers might be put off by Science Fiction (because it’s viewed as ‘hard or scary or boring’). Koch’s titles are the Sci Fi equivalent of the Paranormal Romance. The Alien Series, beginning with her debut novel Touched by an Alien (a title not as misleading as the TV series about angels), centres on marketing manager Katherine ‘Kitty’ Katt who kills a man after he turns into a monster. She’s whisked away by secret agents who reveal to her that this man was mutated by an alien parasite, and that they too are aliens from Alpha Centauri. But, more importantly, they’re sexy aliens. One such agent, Jeff Martini (another case of the Ford Prefect misjudged moniker?), begins stalking Kitty, which she, of course, finds sexy and alluring. It was one of Booklist’s Top Ten adult Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2010, so there is obviously something to all this sexy alien malarkey. Interestingly, Koch writes in one guest post about how the majority of her readers are not Sci Fi fans originally. Perhaps this ‘non-threatening science fiction’ as Koch dubs it would be my perfect way in to the genre, although it’s more soft-focused than soft.

Orbit: more festive frolics from publishers. I love a good visualisation. Orbit have put together a lovely visual graphic to examine the difference between the Christmas elf, and the Fantasy elf. Enjoy! They’re also giving away ‘Christmas loot’ regularly in the run up to Christmas, although more excitingly, they’ve changed their logo to reflect the season. Maybe this is only exciting to me.

best book trailers

Book trailers (to wit: trailers for books) have fascinated me for a while now. I can completely see their value, if done well. But they’re a bit of a challenge, like perfume adverts. The audience can’t do the obvious thing and actually smell the product, so the advert is most likely to contain a woman rolling around erotically, slowly removing what little clothes she has on while a testosterone-deep voiceover rasps, ‘Erogenous, the new fragrance for women.’ The marketing team (or author) has to think of a way to convey what the book is about without resorting to simply reading out the blurb over a flashing image of the book slowly removing its jacket. The other issue, particularly with genre publishers, is that there are small teams and smaller budgets to contend with, but that doesn’t stop them from trying this marketing endeavour. Some of the following trailers work. Others not so much.

Michelle Zink’s Prophecy of the Sisters – Atom



This uses a mixture of the blurb and photography, with slightly repetitive music. It’s pretty good and I particularly like the mysterious glimpse of the island, but it misses out on describing the actual plot and as far as I can see it’s about a good sister, an evil sister, and only one of them can prevail, which understandably breeds some mistrust between the siblings.

Aliette de Bodard’s Harbinger of the Storm – Angry Robot Books



This is by the author rather than the publisher and it’s an inventive mix of animation, photography and film. It also gives a good sense of the plot.

Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three – Orbit Books



Built by the Quake2World project, this is a videogame-esque trailer that is simply a teaser for the book, so no blurb, simply the words ‘Can you survive the ship?’ The blood on the floor is a nice touch, and it’s Event Horizon meets Alien by the looks of things, but that’s only a guess, although guessing is what we are being invited to do.

Trent Jamieson’s Death Most Definite – Orbit Books



This is the first book trailer by the author for this title. I’m not kidding, I actually clicked on it several times, utterly confused, before it finally, er, clicked. It’s a book trailer. Get it?

And here is the second:



This is by far my favourite trailer I’ve seen so far. It’s atmospheric, intruiging and beautifully done. The graphic-novel pictures coupled with the black birds breaking up each image is just phenomenal and really makes me want to read this book and find out more about the author behind the trailer.


Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars – Hodder and Stoughton

And this is what happens when you have a big budget. For Stephen King’s collection of four short stories in Full Dark, No Stars Hodder and Stoughton have teamed up with Future Shorts and created four unique, completely different trailers, that they say are to give the ‘flavour’ of each story, rather than portray the exact details. Disturbing views of bloodied bed sheets, shady roadside deals and calm night time murders abound in what are essentially short films. Intriguing, dark and twisted, the completely silent (apart from a slow, drawling version of ‘Stand by your man’)A Good Marriage trailer is my favourite.