Greg Hamerton's Blog, page 7

What's so fantastic about The Blade Itself?

Snap review: 5 stars, a dark, gritty and wry fantasy based on the sword-and-sorcery and epic fantasy templates. There's no safe middle ground here: you'll either love the raw gleeful energy, or you'll find it too slapstick and cynical. Joe Abercrombie's prose is deadly: witty and violent, well plotted and brilliantly told.

Joe Abercrombie really packs it in. I was reluctant to begin a book with a blood-spattered cover lauded as 'delightfully twisted and evil'. I'm not a psycho. I don't fantasise about blood. But as a fantasy author, I want to know what's happening in the fantasy genre, and so I stuck my neck out and got it chopped right off by the blade itself. It's not what I was expecting. It's personal, brutish, and brilliant. I get the feeling that Abercrombie takes great pleasure in writing this way. If he doesn't like someone, they get smacked.

His characters scream "Character!" In a few lines of dialogue we meet some unforgettable rogues. Logen's viewpoint shines! To enter a city for the first time and see all of its strangeness through the eyes of a barbarian was so very funny. (I felt not unlike a South African arriving in London). The book is worth reading for this character alone. But Abercrombie himself is the lead character – he expresses himself so strongly that I found myself wanting to read on just because of the way he told his story.



He drops his capitals too. Instead of The Blade Itself the first cover was 'the blade itself by joe abercrombie'. Unfortunately later designs have put his name and titles in capitals, which doesn't truly reflect the style. His prose cuts you before you've seen the stroke coming; no words are wasted on flowery descriptions. If he's telling you something, it's relevant: if he's building someone up, he's poking fun at them. His story-telling is remarkably efficient.

By the half-way mark we have met a whole host of characters, each one unique and memorable and quite possibly important to the outcome of the story, which seems to be that a war that is brewing. Funny, I thought, no clear goal in sight, yet it's compelling reading. Due to his wry observations and confident style I was drawn into the story despite the lack of any primary character with whom I can sympathise. I can empathise with Logen Ninefingers but to be honest it's hard to really root for someone who has 'thrown a woman down a well because she attacked me for murdering her husband'. He's despicable, just like Inquisitor Glokta, whose murderous reasoning is appalling. I wouldn't shed a tear for him, but in his tap, tap … scrape I learn the rhythm of his pain, and strange as it may seem, I become drawn into his world, which just goes to show how good Abercrombie's writing is.

The architecture of the world, the cultures and the power struggles slowly emerge as the pages fly by, and the revelations are perfectly placed and nicely hidden within the fast-paced prose. There's a lot going on in the background, revolving around the wizard Bayaz, who is a truly outstanding wizard introduced with cunning and subtlety. Bayaz has terrifying power, and is the most fantastically arrogant self-centred bastard of a wizard there ever was, though he seems so reasonable. Or maybe he's actually good, I can't be sure, he disturbs me too much, so I'll have to read on, there is no way I'm putting this series down.

I went out and bought the whole series – it's an altogether fantastic read. Highly recommended.

Great ideas sell fantasy books (in under 10 seconds)

As a fantasy author, I'm always intrigued by what makes people buy a book. I observed my buying behaviour in the bookstore this week. Although I was keen to buy a new fantasy novel, I browsed the front-of-store promotion table and ended up buying a short non-fiction book.

That's when I realised a simple truth: as an author, you're selling an idea. It's not the flow of the prose, the colour of the characters, the world-building and dialogue, the placing of the comma and the fine details of grammar (which can be agonised about for days and days). It's simple. What is the book about? Is that an exciting idea? You can write it any way you wish.

The concept sells the book; the cover must support the style; the blurb must present the idea. Within ten seconds I've decided if I'll buy the book or not. I might analyse or rationalise for a while longer, but the buying decision was made intuitively, right in the beginning, because book buying is a snap decision.

This is borne out by the book I bought: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

The concept is simple and compelling: the book shows how making a snap judgement can be far more effective than a cautious decision. The cover design is a bit unfinished, but it didn't turn me off. It is colourful without being garish, creative and swirly without being too twee, so it supports the style: snappy, clever, quick thinking. The last review quote is cleverly placed.

'Should you buy this book? You already know the answer to that.'

Job done. I bought the book.

They say word-of-mouth drives book sales more than anything else, but I have yet to buy a book recommended to me – such a book is usually lent to me by my enthusiastic friend, so this doesn't result in a sale. I have different tastes to my friends, so when I buy, I make my own choices. For the same reason, I am not affected much by author- or review endorsements. When I make my buying decision, I make it on the concept, as displayed in the cover and blurb. I might dip into the text to sneak a peek, but unless it's awful prose I'll buy the book regardless.

A fantasy novel about ancient worlds, magic, dragons, love, adventure, terror and treachery is clearly not enough. There must be an interesting idea around which the story is built, and that idea sells the book. In The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson, the idea is a hero who doesn't believe in the fantasy world he lives in, because it is too good to be true. In Keeping it Real by Justina Robson, the idea is a collision of worlds enabled by the quantum bomb, which allows for an explosive blend of fantasy and scifi in a contemporary setting.

In my fantasy series The Tale of the Lifesong, a singer discovers a trancendental song but as soon as she uses it she is hunted for her power. The story explores an enlightening question: how much would you sacrifice to create life?

Should you buy this book? You'll know within ten seconds …

Second Sight is the newest fantasy novel on Kindle!

Amazon waved its magic wand, and my weighty fantasy novel became instantly weightless, inkless, paperless and available immediately to customers around the world. Yes, the Kindle version of Second Sight is now out, for only $7.99.

It joins The Riddler's Gift (the first novel in the Tale of the Lifesong fantasy series) which has doubled its ebook sales since the release of the Kindle in the UK. Small sales figures when compared to the printed version, but this is the new wave. From a fantasy author's perspective, ebooks are a shining light in a treacherous forest of dead trees, logistics monsters and bookstore dungeon masters.

Science fiction and fantasy are terrible genres to print: they are traditionally longer books and so they require bigger print runs to bring the unit costs down, they cost more to move around, they take up more shelf space, yet they sell for the standard fiction price. So the market pressure is to produce shorter fantasy; exactly what fantasy readers don't want.I love epic fantasy and I want my fantasy novels to be big. I intend to continue writing that way.

A story is a world: if it's worth telling, it's worth telling in full, so you can get totally lost in its ideas. Ebooks enable fantasy authors to write to any length, and by cutting out so much of the publishing cost, they can be priced cheaper than printed books. With Amazon's 70% royalty option, more of the money can get back to the authors, which means they can begin to make a living out of writing great fiction … and fantasy will flourish.

For that to happen, more people need to buy ereaders, many more. Amazon needs to reduce the cost of the Kindle even further to open the floodgates of demand. Publishers must drop the price of their ebook versions to stimulate buying and to prevent piracy. Yes there are development costs, but the potential market at a lower price point is massive.

Will Kindle (Amazon) beat the iPad (Apple)? Quick answer: yes, in the fiction market, because many many people already buy books on Amazon, and Apple has to build its own market against a brand that is established as being the cheapest and most convenient. Overall, I think the market will be divided: the iPad is great for textbooks, comics, newspapers, graphics, and exciting apps like virtual-reality overlays, mapping, astronomy, whatever. It's got the cool factor. But the idea of a basic book, something you carry around everywhere for a quick read remains a special treat. The Kindle is lightweight, easy to read and has a one month battery life. It's simple.

It's the future of the fantasy novel.

The first law of selling fantasy novels

I heard about the Joe Abercrombie's fantasy series, The First Law, on the internet, so I went to Amazon, because it was the closest retailer. I bought number one, The Blade Itself, as a used book for less than half price. Most people buy from the cheapest and most convenient source.

That's bad news for bookstores, that's bad news for Mr. A: they don't get a cent from that because it's a used copy. But I usually try new authors via discounted copies, because it limits my gamble … or maybe it's because I'm just cheap.

I thought it was an excellent fantasy novel, so I went looking for the second book, Before They Are Hanged. Being on holiday, away from the wonders of Amazon and short of cash, I began in the remainder store. I couldn't find it, but I found the third book, Last Argument of Kings, for less than half price. More bad news for Joe Abercrombie: he won't get royalties for remaindered books unless he has an abnormal publishing contract. I tell myself that at least I've supported part of the system that helps to keep Joe's publisher in business.  Which is just rubbish: Joe is still not being paid for his work.

So, being a fantasy author myself I resolved to Do The Right Thing, and buy a full priced copy from a Real Bookstore. After driving, parking, walking, browsing … here's the thing: it wasn't on the shelf. They had book one and three, but not two. They weren't planning on stocking book two because the series wasn't selling strongly enough in that particular store, and therein lies the fundamental problem for bookstores and authors with series fantasy. The stores will develop gaps in stock and you lose readers through those gaps. Sure, I could have got them to order it in, but I couldn't be bothered to go back to the store.

JoeAbercrombie.com pointed me back to the solution: Amazon, where I could buy the book for about half price including delivery (assuming I was in Amazon country, which is most of the market anyway). From that sale Mr A. can collect his royalty and the publisher makes a bit. It's plain to see that the bookstore doesn't have much future in this space unless it is exceptional at anticipating demand.

I love modern bookstores, I love all those new books crammed together, the impression of a marketplace of fresh ideas, combined with the helpful staff and their tireless efforts to create appealing book stacks. But they will never have the stock range, convenience or price advantage of Amazon. Their recommendations will never be as complete as the reviews available online. Authors, being the rogues of enlightened self-interest that they are, will point their readers to the most reliable supply system that still yields a royalty sale (and some affiliate commission too): Amazon.

We already see blockbuster bestsellers in supermarkets. I suspect that bookstores will have to downsize to survive, and will soon stock only expensive coffee-table books and children's colour books: books with high prices and therefore enough profit to support the cost of shelf space, things that sell based on their visual appeal and so need to be displayed. Most fiction, especially series fantasy? I don't think we will see it in the bookstores for much longer, and unless it's phenomenal it won't be in the supermarkets either; it will all end up on Amazon, and only on Amazon, because it is the cheapest and most convenient.

And so the mighty river grows.

Who won the fantasy fiction giveaway?

My new fantasy novel, Second Sight, is causing quite a stir on Goodreads. I ran a giveaway for a free book during September and received 980 entrants! If you haven't tried the Goodreads giveaways before, it's worth checking them out: the freshest fiction, free, and all you have to do is to rate the books. Sharanya Soori from Canada was the lucky winner of a signed copy.

At the same time, Dave-Brendon hosted a giveaway in South Africa for a free signed set of the two books in the Tale of the Lifesong fantasy series. It's great to meet such an proactive bookseller (Dave-Brendan runs the SFF section of the Exclusive Books store in Pretoria). If all booksellers were this enthusiastic about South African fantasy novels, we'd be able to redefine the fantasy genre in a few short years. The winner of the South African fantasy giveaway is: Sarah Bibi Setar!

I'd love to have everyone reading my books, but if I gave all of them away I wouldn't be able to afford to write any more. So there are no more free copies available, but if you order books from my website I can offer you some special deals.

Is young adult fiction a fantasy?

Although I am thirty-seven, I know what it is like to be a young adult. Not because I was one, but because I am one. Here's the thing – Richard Bach says it best: "Get this in mind early: We never grow up."

Although a bunch of things have happened, dreams have flashed by and led me up bright peaks and into dark valleys, I still see the 'world out there' in the same way, I see 'myself in here' the same way. I've learned some tools, made some mistakes, changed my plans and interests, for sure, but I am still very much the same 'me' I remember, looking out of the window of my soul, age 13.

That is, apparently, the age at which one begins to enter the 'young adult' category within fiction, which has been invented to avoid turning away readers by calling the books 'teenage fiction'. You've got to wonder, if booksellers know that you don't want to read 'teenage' books, should anyone be trying to write them? Because you see, you go from 'being a teenager' to 'being a young adult' in a flash of an eye, and part of that maturing process is through reading, considering how you'd respond to the challenges in the story, and defining your own character. So to become an adult, you need to read adult fiction, or rather, stories.

A large proportion of 'young adult fiction' is fantasy fiction: paranormal romance, supernatural thriller, magical series, myths and monsters. Why? Because it's exciting, and imaginative, and bursting with possibility. Anything can happen in a these vast new worlds, and this matches your optimism about what might become of you and your life. Great things await just around the corner, challenges have cosmic importance; you are vital and alive.

For some of us, that doesn't change … or we don't want it to … and so fantasy is our kind of fiction. We give our writers permission to bring back dreams and visions unaltered by the mundane reality that we seem to live in. Some writers can cleverly weave their tales into the fabric of our modern world, so we can share in the wonder of the possible worlds beyond, or gain some glimpse of the magic that lies beneath our fingers. This doesn't make fantasy 'young adult' reading; it's merely a category of story.

Categories may be helpful to know where to put the book in the bookstore, but they are also harmful if we use them to generalise. If you read one bad horror book and decide to avoid the genre, you'll miss all the mastery of Stephen King. If you judge fantasy on the basis of one pile of dungeonpulp you'll miss the wonder of Hobb, Donaldson, and a hundred others. Slapping 'young adult' on a book doesn't tell me anything, apart from the fact that it probably doesn't contain graphic sex, psychopathic gore or the glorification of drugs and violence. My novels are likely to always be suitable for young adults, just as they are suitable for old adults. The 'adult' elements are often better told through subtle storytelling anyway. Good stories speak to the soul.

Second Sight reviewed: 'Breath-taking'

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