David Anthony Durham's Blog, page 27
November 11, 2011
N. K. Thoughts
N.K. Jemisin has some further thoughts on the interview she and I did with Salon.com.
The original article is HERE.
Nora's blog post is HERE.
The original article is HERE.
Nora's blog post is HERE.
N.K. Jemisin has some further thoughts on the interview s...
N.K. Jemisin has some further thoughts on the interview she and I did with Salon.com.
The original article is HERE.
Nora's blog post is HERE.
The original article is HERE.
Nora's blog post is HERE.
The League Platforms?
A kind reader, Mark, just wrote alerting me to an article he said reminded him of the league platforms from the The War with the Mein. It's about a Silicon Valley billionaire - a Paypal creator and early Facebook backer - that is working to "create floating libertarian countries in international waters... The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place".
She's quotes a longer profile in Details magazine, saying the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."
Oh my. That does sound like a place the Sires might think up...
The brief article is HERE.
The longer Details article is HERE.
Should I laugh? Or be afraid...
She's quotes a longer profile in Details magazine, saying the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."
Oh my. That does sound like a place the Sires might think up...
The brief article is HERE.
The longer Details article is HERE.
Should I laugh? Or be afraid...
November 10, 2011
L'alliance Sacrée
L'alliance sacrée
pubs today in France!(That's The Sacred Band in American.)
I'm so very pleased - and thankful - to Le Pré aux Clercs for the wonderful way they've published and supported the books. It makes me hope the series is a long-term hit for them. (Not to mention for me.)
They've created a new website dedicated to the book. If you'd like to practice your French go take a look!
In The Salon
I'm very pleased to have been included in a Salon.com article by Laura Miller. She features N.K. Jemisin and myself in a discussion of our books, fantasy, and cultural identity. It was great talking with her, and terrific to be included with Nora!Take a look HERE.
November 9, 2011
Assassin Of What?
A while back I had a strange experience with a student. While reading her paper on some literary topic or another, I got the feeling that the words weren't hers. I took a few samples and googled them, and sure enough I found that she had copied them - probably from the same source it took me a minute to find. Not only that, she had taken whole paragraphs from lots of different sources. I kept finding them. An hour later... I was amazed at how much stuff she had cut and pasted - and from how many different sources she had stolen from. It must have taken hours to put it all together. She wasn't lazy! Why didn't she just write the thing herself?
When I confronted her on it, I got a different sort of surprise. I came away believing she was genuinely shocked to learn that cutting and pasting other people's ideas wasn't the same as writing similar ideas in her own words. She had spent all that time seeking out things she agreed with. When she found them she just kinda said, "Yeah, that's what I think!" and inserted them - without any attribution whatsoever. It was weird. It's like nobody had ever explained to her what writing an essay entailed.
I doubt that Q. R. Markham could even try to make the same claim in regards to his debut novel, Assassin of Secrets. Have you heard about this? The book was just published by Little Brown - a publisher I respect a lot - as part of a two-book deal. It entered the world with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and was set to hit foreign markets too. Heralded as some awesome reboot of the spy/espionage genre, a "dazzling, deftly controlled debut that moves through familiar territory with wry sophistication."- (Kirkus)
Sounds good, yes? Only problem is that it appears to be a cut and paste job of massive proportions. Here's the Guardian's version of how it's unraveled. And here's a blog post that has side by side examples of texts from Markham's book and from the various originals. Take a look.
I don't take any pleasure in posting about this. I just find it so strange, so hard to understand, so inevitably headed for exposure and life-changing failure. Weird. Very weird. People seem to be rushing to buy his book on Amazon right now, even as the publisher pulls it and tries to get copies back. Was Markham caught making an awful mistake? Or is this the revelation of a hoax perpetrated on the publishing industry? I would say "on readers" as well, accept that it seems like in this case it's readers that caught the fraud.
What do you make of it?
When I confronted her on it, I got a different sort of surprise. I came away believing she was genuinely shocked to learn that cutting and pasting other people's ideas wasn't the same as writing similar ideas in her own words. She had spent all that time seeking out things she agreed with. When she found them she just kinda said, "Yeah, that's what I think!" and inserted them - without any attribution whatsoever. It was weird. It's like nobody had ever explained to her what writing an essay entailed.
I doubt that Q. R. Markham could even try to make the same claim in regards to his debut novel, Assassin of Secrets. Have you heard about this? The book was just published by Little Brown - a publisher I respect a lot - as part of a two-book deal. It entered the world with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and was set to hit foreign markets too. Heralded as some awesome reboot of the spy/espionage genre, a "dazzling, deftly controlled debut that moves through familiar territory with wry sophistication."- (Kirkus)
Sounds good, yes? Only problem is that it appears to be a cut and paste job of massive proportions. Here's the Guardian's version of how it's unraveled. And here's a blog post that has side by side examples of texts from Markham's book and from the various originals. Take a look.
I don't take any pleasure in posting about this. I just find it so strange, so hard to understand, so inevitably headed for exposure and life-changing failure. Weird. Very weird. People seem to be rushing to buy his book on Amazon right now, even as the publisher pulls it and tries to get copies back. Was Markham caught making an awful mistake? Or is this the revelation of a hoax perpetrated on the publishing industry? I would say "on readers" as well, accept that it seems like in this case it's readers that caught the fraud.
What do you make of it?
November 7, 2011
Some pics from a trip we did up to Rattray Head on the No...
Some pics from a trip we did up to Rattray Head on the Northeast coast of Scotland a little while back. It's supposed to be the sunniest spot in Scotland, and during our stay there it lived up to that. We stayed in a hostel made from converted buildings from the lighthouse. Had the place to ourselves and exploded throughout it!
Saba was welcomed with a dog bed, biscuits and food dishes. He was much pleased. He was even more thrilled when he got a view of the sand dunes. Here he is positively hovering with joy...
Stretching his legs...
Us acting silly...
An old shipwreck...
And a bridge we crossed over on the way home...
Saba was welcomed with a dog bed, biscuits and food dishes. He was much pleased. He was even more thrilled when he got a view of the sand dunes. Here he is positively hovering with joy...
Stretching his legs... 
Us acting silly...
An old shipwreck...
And a bridge we crossed over on the way home...
November 6, 2011
Saba Portrait
Maya (age 12) has taken to doing realistic drawings in the evenings. She came up with this one the other day, a portrait of a sleeping Saba:
Pretty cool, huh?
Pretty cool, huh?
November 4, 2011
Pedacinho Literário
I've been watching with interest the reaction to the first volume of Acacia (Ventos do Norte) in Portuguese. From what I can gather, it's looking pretty good.Here's a lovely review at Pedacinho Literário. The author says lots of nice things about the book, and then concludes with a complaint I've heard a few other times. Apparently, folks aren't that happy that the book (The War With The Mein) was divided into two parts. They don't blame me, but they rightly point out that things are just starting to take off at the point at which the book ends! Hopefully, they'll stick with it when the second part comes out.
Does make me wonder... Will my trilogy become six books in Portuguese?...
November 2, 2011
I've Joined Him Again
Jon Armstrong has kindly posted a podcast interview he did with with me for his ongoing series If You're Just Joining Us. He gets me talking about Acacia, YA, writing rituals and Scotland.
If you'd like to have a listen you can do so HERE.
Jon's a great guy, and a wonderful writer himself. We first met when we were both in competition for the John W Campbell Award. We've kept in touch since.
If you'd like to have a listen you can do so HERE.
Jon's a great guy, and a wonderful writer himself. We first met when we were both in competition for the John W Campbell Award. We've kept in touch since.
