bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Amazon: Tad Williams and Christopher Paolini have been in conversation on Amazon this week. This is mainly news to me because Paolini is no longer the self-published 16-year-old first-time writer who penned Eragon and is now an actual grown up. This makes me feel old. I loved this conversation because it’s two SFF writers eking out each others’ opinions on Fantasy writing and what it means to them. Here’s a snippet of Paolini’s thoughts on why SFF resonates so keenly with readers today and why it will continue to as long as humans don’t spontaneously mutate:
‘Fantasy is the oldest form of literature; the very first stories that humans told while crouched around campfires were stories about gods and monsters and tragic mistakes and heroic feats. Even now, those topics still resonate with us on a primal level, which is one reason I think fantasy will remain popular with readers as long as humans are still human.’

Del Ray: Every Friday Del Ray Spectra post 50 pages of one of their titles up on their home site, Suvudu. This week it’s the turn of Terry Brooks’ Urban Fantasy Running With The Demon, which is a departure from his usual elves and swords Fantasy (warning: ‘elves and swords Fantasy’ does not accurately represent of all of Brooks’ work to date). Anyway, I’m not sure how much credence could possibly come from a geek who uses this word, but this is amazingly cool of Del Ray to give these tasters, and on a Friday too (the perfect day for tasters). They started this on 15th October and the excerpt for every title they’ve done this for is still available. They also welcome comments and requests for specific titles so it’s well worth an interactive look, especially if you’ve been considering purchasing Star Wars fiction as it’s good to be sure it’s worthwhile.

The Black Library: A straight-to-DVD film of Warhammer 40k is being released on Monday 29th November, the aptly named Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 movie. The first film stemming from over twenty years of material, SFX magazine have given it 2.5 stars for being a ‘difficult film to love’.

Voyager: back from their holidays and encouraging readers to bookmark their author Peter V. Brett’s blog and showcasing some truly lovely, minimalist reissuing of Megan Lindholm’s backlist using Jackie Morris’ beautiful artwork to match alter-ego Robin Hobb’s covers. Since returning from holiday, Assistant Editor Amy McCulloch has sent me a Hobb book to review for their blog, The Dragon Keeper, Book One of The Rain Wild Chronicles. This is despite the fact that the reviews so far that I’ve put up here have been negative in parts (and lacking in parts), indicating that they put their readers first above their own wellbeing. At first glance, on a purely visual level, Morris’ artwork alone is enticing, although the metallic covers bizarrely put me in mind of the silver pogs I used to collect at primary school (seriously, what are pogs?).

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Orbit UK: completely bypassing the awkward ‘where’s my book?’ author queries, Orbit are releasing the eBook version of Paolo Bacigalupi’s award-winning debut novel The Windup Girl before the paperback in the UK. Print runs be damned. This title has won an astounding five major international SF awards this year, including Hugo, Nebula and Locus. In the words of Bella Pagan at Orbit, read a free extract HERE. It’s set in the near future of Thailand and the world’s food stuffs are depleting. What will America do? PB out 2nd December, for the hardcopy romantics still out there.

Black Library: their eBook Fridays have proved hugely successful – the first three they’ve put up, First & Only, Nightbringer and the first issue of Hammer & Bolter have been downloaded over 25,000 times. Sheesh. The best thing about it? They’re all still available. Have a look-see at the latest, Trollslayer, the first in the acclaimed Gotrek and Felix series. There’s also an audio book of their most popular title, Horus Rising. It’s probably no coincidence that they’ve launched their digital section this week with pre-ordering available. A lesson for other specialist publishers out there.

Solaris: Dark Fantasy writer, Gail Z. Martin’s blog is currently going with the Halloween theme as she’s detailing her Days of the Dead Tour. Go-to for free excerpts and a list of her guest blogs as she’s gone guest-post mad. Author of The Chronicles of the Necromancer, Martin is a lesson in exhaustive self-promotion. I need to read her.

Gollancz: is going competition MAD on their Facebook page. I’ve been entering but have so far remained prize-less. You can’t join their page, but you can coyly express your ‘like’ of them. Current competition is a Halloween one – two books in Suzanne McLeod’s Spellcrackers series, and some sweets apparently. As is Gollancz’s way, they’re using the billboard promotional method for their book covers and McLeod is no exception – her site spellcrackers.com is proudly perched between the title and her name on the front of the book. I am coming around to the idea that Gollancz are cheekily bold, rather than quite mad.

weekly round-up (mini first attempt)

This round-up admittedly makes it look as if it's been all quiet on the SFF front. Please note: more than three note-worthy things have occurred in the world of SFF in the last seven days.

It’s eBook Friday down at the Black Library

HarperCollins’ Voyager are inviting readers to review their new SFF titles, and there might be a free book for you (do it now). I’m definitely going to give this a go (and fail, but hey, free book right?).

Orbit author Brent Weeks in interview with Aidan Moher, fiction-blogger extraordinaire. And also, Hachette Livre (overlords of Little, Brown, the publisher umbrella over Orbit & Co.) have gone for the page turning gadget (insert technical words) thing. Which is like the Amazon one, only faster, clearer, and just as likely to make you want to give them your money.

how many books can you fit on the head of a pin?

I know this is supposed to be a Bad Thing but I love judging a book by its cover. In this increasingly digital age (as we keep being told), covers might be the last bastion against against the mounting need to cram all the books into a teeny little living space. Or, to put it another way, it's the greatest and most exciting challenge a publisher now has to face: how to market a book without a cover.

If done well, a cover can be a great marketing tool. Blurbs, carefully wrought designs, author quotes, and, if you're lucky, a lovely big picture to gawp at and reference in case you forget what the main protagonist looks like.

It can also be a dead giveaway that you're reading a fantasy about a big dragon who enjoys shouting things like 'puny mortals!' and burning villages to the ground (thanks, Hobb).

But publishers are sly. They know that some of us like our Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in anonymous jackets that could easily pass for semi-intelligent thrillers or modern romances (shudder). Many want covers and jackets that will blur beneath the common commuters' eye and don't invite judgement on the reader. This is also a great marketing tool if you want to spread the net a little wider and target the fabled Mass Market. One point to eBooks then. You can't judge a book by its eReader (although, interestingly, it is possible to judge a person).

But what will this do to the content? And will happen to the content that the SFF 'fan' has been loyally consuming for all these years? Those of us who have been here from the start, since before being a geek became cool? Who still aren't cool? When SFF publishers begin to commission with everyone in mind, will these genres suffer, and be resigned to the subbasement of SFF in place of the new favourite kids, Urban and Dark Fantasy? Suddenly everything might become about vampires and catering to fragile tweenage hearts.

Or will it? There are still license-based imprints out there like Games Workshop's Black Library, or midlist imprints like Solaris, who are doubtful to ever snub Warhammer in favour of another Urban Fantasy about a kick-ass girl fighting sexy demons.

Anyway, really a cover shouldn't matter, or the format either. A book is made up of its content. But I still want to be able to judge a book by its appearance (on screen or off). I want to know that publishers are working hard, keeping on their toes, to make their content look appealing. To publish content they can make look appealing. And I want to know how they're doing it, and I want to be there when they do so that I can make my choice.

Join me. Revel in it. Judge.