Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 101

TT: World Famous in New Zealand

ALAN: You asked me how my experience of becoming a reviewer compared with other people’s. So I asked around.

Jan Butterworth is world famous in New Zealand as a reviewer. You can read her reviews here.

Jan Butterworth

She says:

“I was offered a chance to review books when the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ) set up a programme with Hachette New Zealand many years ago. I don’t enjoy writing, but the chance to acquire free books was irresistible, so I put my hand up.”

JANE: Free books from publishers seem to be a powerful motive to start reviewing.  Now that I think about it, I’ve seen our local SF club use the same tactic to get people to write book reviews for its newsletter.

ALAN: I think it must be the starting point for almost everybody. The lure of free books is impossible to resist.

JANE: Above you say that Jan is famous as a reviewer in New Zealand, so she must have gotten over not liking to write.

ALAN: Absolutely! She really got bitten by the bug.  She says:

“After a few years of reviewing only fantasy, I decided to branch out to reviewing all genres, reflecting my reading tastes.  I set up a blog, loaded it with reviews I’d written to show my work, then started contacting publishers to beg for free books – I mean offer my services as a reviewer.  The main NZ publishing houses were receptive and offered helpful advice to gain more hits on my blog.   I’ve since built up a network of helpful contacts of book publicists and have a few reviewers I source books for in exchange for their reviews of them.”

JANE: That shows impressive initiative.  How does she approach reviewing a book? Are her techniques anything like yours?

ALAN: I think so.  Let me let her explain how she goes about it in her own words.

“I read the book, then generally summarise the plot (WITHOUT spoilers) and say what I thought about it.  If I have something negative to say, I try to sandwich it between two positive things, or, failing that, emphasize it is my opinion only and other readers will have different tastes.  Being honest seems to be appreciated by publishers and I’ve had some lovely comments from my blog readers.”

JANE:  It’s interesting that she emphasizes within her reviews that she is expressing an opinion. I think that’s very wise.

Tastes certainly do vary.  I know people who will read anything that has a sniff of vampires, while the same thing drives me away to the point that I need to be coaxed to try the book – even if it was written by an author I otherwise like or respect.

ALAN: I have similar feelings about military space opera.

JANE: Another thing that varies from reader to reader is how much a strong quality of a writer,(say,interesting characters) will compensate for a weak point (say, formulaic plotting).  The reviews I like best are those that are specific, rather than relying on generalizations like “excellent” or “terrible.”  Those don’t tell you anything.

ALAN: Yes indeed. It’s all too easy to say that you like or dislike a book. As we’ve said before, the challenge for a reviewer is to say exactly why those feelings are evoked. But even if the reviewers are not very specific, their opinions can still be valuable.

When I lived in Wellington, I belonged to a book discussion group and there was one person in the group whose tastes were very well defined, and which were diametrically opposed to my own. If he raved about a book, it was a virtual guarantee that I would hate it. And vice versa, of course. Once you understand that, a review that says a book is “terrible” can make the book sound very attractive indeed…

But sometimes there are toads.

JANE: Toads?

ALAN: Once when we were contemplating a pile of books that looked distinctly unattractive, someone said, “OK – whose turn is it to eat the live toad?”

Ever since then, among ourselves, we’ve referred to the more appalling wastes of paper and ink as toads. Sometimes they are live toads, sometimes they are dead toads. But they are always distinctly unpleasant to eat.

Some of the toads are self-published. But a surprisingly large number of toads come from professional publishers as well. It doesn’t matter who reviews a toad. Nobody can ever find any shred of merit in it.

JANE: So how do you review a toad?

ALAN: These days, I simply ignore them. I have better uses for my time. Jan has a slightly more professional approach.

“If a book is a dead toad I don’t finish it and state why. If I’m lucky I pass it off to another reviewer. Really rancid toads get a negative review and then are added to a pile in my office. I’ll do something with it someday, not sure what though.”

JANE: Writing that negative review, even if she doesn’t use it, probably helps her purge her mind of all the things she’d like to say but is too polite to share with the public.

But that’s a lot of writing for nothing.  I’ve been meaning to ask, how long is an average review?  Earlier, you mentioned a need to write tight.

ALAN: One advantage that both Jan and I have is that we publish our reviews on our own web sites. So we have no constraints on space, and our reviews can be as long as we feel they need to be.

However, in the past, I have written reviews for professional (printed) publications and they, of course, have very firm limits on the number of words they will allow you to use. Saying something deep and meaningful about a book in 200 words (or less!) can sometimes be quite a challenge. The famous advice to “kill your darlings” applies in spades, and much biting comment often has to be sacrificed. Which is probably just as well…

JANE: So given that both you and Jan are world famous (though only in New Zealand), will I find lots of your reviews if I search for you on google?

ALAN: You’ll certainly find references to Jan – though the first few links to a dog walking service in Massachusetts are nothing to do with her.

But, if you search for me, I’m afraid you will be overwhelmed with references to a completely different Alan Robson who really is world famous (in England, at least). He’s an English DJ, radio presenter, author and occasional reviewer. Amusingly, I’ve sometimes found books that I’ve written listed on his bibliography (though, to be fair, not on bibliographies prepared by him). And once, quite out of the blue, I received an email asking me if I’d be willing to review a book and talk about it on my radio show. So we’ve both been mistaken for each other. Hopefully he finds the confusion as entertaining as I do.

JANE: I’m sure he does…

I’m curious if any of our readers have ventured into reviewing in any systematic fashion.  Or, if not, why they avoid doing so, especially since it’s so much easier these days to get your opinions seen.  Any takers?

Paul Dellinger: Double Ace

I’ve known Paul Dellinger for well over twenty years.  We share a strange and arcane relationship – we’re pen pals.  Yes, that’s right.  We write each other real letters pretty much every week.  When e-mail became more common, we made a conscious decision to continue with snail mail, but now we tend to e-mail during the week as well.

Paul’s Short Fiction Collection

Recently, Paul has published two books:  Secret Invasion and Fuzzy (co-written with Tom Angleberger).  From my privileged position, I know that both novels have interesting backstories, so I decided to interview Paul and make him share information about not only the novels, but his long and interesting career as a professional writer.

JANE: So, Paul, I always start interviews with the same question.

In my experience, writers fall into two general categories: those who have been writing stories since before they could actually write and those who came to writing somewhat later.

Which sort are you?

PAUL: I guess I’m in the first category. In grade school, I would draw comic-book-style stories using stick figures. Eventually I managed to draw actual people, although never well enough for real comic books, but I churned out a considerable number of (probably derivative) stories in spiral art notebooks (color by Crayola) until, and perhaps even after, I began writing prose, some of that even being for my own amusement. It wasn’t until after high school, after college, and during an Army stint that I thought about submitting anything for publication.

JANE: Have you ever done anything in the illustrated story line?

PAUL: No, not professionally, just for my own amusement. Well, I did do some topical cartoons for our college newspaper, making light of some aspects of campus life. I sometimes did that via “humorous” columns in that paper.

JANE: So you did live up to the childhood dream.  That’s cool!

What was your first fiction publication?  How soon after did the next one follow?

PAUL: My first was a short story, “Rat Race,” in the Jan., 1962, issue of Cele Goldsmith’s Fantastic, while I was in the Army. A journalism instructor at the Army Information School told me about the existence of a book called Writer’s Market, which had (as you’ve already guessed) markets. I handwrote the story in a spiral notebook, typed it up after hours at the West Point Information Office, and it sold. The next one? Not until ten years later!

JANE:  Wow…  And I thought my about two year gap was tough!

You were a professional reporter for about forty years, if I remember correctly.  How did having a job that involved writing on a daily basis impact your ability to writer fiction?

PAUL: In some ways, it was actually detrimental. After spending all day and sometimes night covering events and turning them into news or feature stories, the last thing I felt like doing at night was more typing. (And it was typing early on, not keyboarding. I go all the way back to typewriters.)

But it did help with being able to meet deadlines, and having experience stringing words together in readable fashion. Somehow it took me longer, though, to write fiction than to write factual stuff.

JANE: I also find non-fiction comes faster for me than fiction.

If I remember correctly, most of your published fiction has been short stories.  Some of these are collected in Mr. Lazarus and Other Stories.  Many of your stories are influenced by two of your other great interests – old SF movies and old film Westerns.  Can you tell my readers a little about what they’d find in the collection?  Who is Mr. Lazarus anyhow?

PAUL: I’m not sure who Mr. Lazarus is myself. I came up with the concept of him in the second magazine story I had published, as someone who turned up to convince its protagonist that there was actually a vampire in his vicinity. I brought him back some years later in a similar capacity for a werewolf story, which was set at West Point. All of us who were stationed there joked that, one day, we’d write a “See Here, Private Hargrove” book about some of the stuff we went through in the Army; this was as close as I ever came to actually doing it. And then, when it seemed to fit the story, I brought Mr. Lazarus back a few times after that.

I once had a vague plan of pinning down exactly who/what he was in a book where someone is trying to track him down, and interviews different people who have encountered him. The interviews would be the short stories about him, which would work, since they are all in the first person. But I haven’t gotten around to that yet. I may need a few more “interview” stories to fill out a book-length, first.

JANE: I’d definitely read it! I liked the Mr. Lazarus stories quite a lot.

PAUL: As for what’s in the collection: the Mr. Lazarus fantasies, some science fiction of various kinds, and only three stories where my childhood every-weekend-viewing of a western movie had any influence: one about a character who could have inspired the Lone Ranger (“Anglefire”), one in which H. P. Lovecraft meets silent movies (“Dark Riders of the Silver Screen”), and one where some DNA from a popular movie horse has been cloned in a future where actual horses no longer exist (“Horsepower”).

JANE: You’re also a playwright, both for stage (Rat Race) and radio (The Adventures of Hap Hazard).  How did these projects come about?

PAUL: “Rat Race” was an expansion of that first short story I had accepted. Barter Theater, aka The State Theater of Virginia, was offering would-be playwrights a chance to submit scripts in the summer of 1970. I stayed up into the wee small hours of many nights and early mornings converting the story into a play, adding characters and so forth. One night when I got home from a newspaper assignment, my wife told me the theater director had called. When I called back, it turned out the Barter people were interested in performing it. That turned out to be quite an experience, especially as I got to observe some of the rehearsals before it got on stage.

JANE: You took to the “stage,” so to speak, for “The Adventures of Hap Hazard.”  How did that work?

PAUL: “Hap” was a fun thing I did with my friend, Craig Allison, who worked at a local radio station WYVE and has a talent for doing a variety of different voices. We did three “Haps” of about 10 minutes each week for more than a year.

We got it down to a routine. I’d write a two-page single-spaced script, we’d run through it, then we’d record it with us, mostly Craig, doing the voices of the various characters. The first half would set up the plot by STENCH (The Society for Terrorism, Extortion, Nastiness, Crime and Horror; the James Bond movies were featuring SPECTRE at the time). Then there would be a commercial, and the rest of the show would get our heroes out of whatever the cliffhanger had been.

Originally, we had a third radio staffer playing the recurring villain and, when he moved on, we had to figure out a way for his voice to change to one of ours (we had him mangled in one of his own traps).

JANE: That sounds like loads of fun.  I got sincerely carried away with my questions, so we didn’t even get to your two recently published novels.  How about you let me keep bugging you next week?

PAUL: Love to! Thanks.

FF: Post-Con Reading

Bubonicon was fun, but it cut into my reading time.

Kel Thinks “Fuzzy” is a Great Title

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Wolf Hunting by Jane Lindskold.  Reading a series backwards has a weird appeal.  It’s a fascinating way to see just how characters grow.

Monstress by Majorie Liu and Sana Takeda.  Comic book.  Issues 1-6.  Gorgeous illustrations and a story that became stronger as it progressed.

Fuzzy by Tom Angleberger and Paul Dellinger.  Middle grade fiction.  A robot is sent to middle school for reasons that actually work in the context of the story.  I’d expected good middle school (because Mr. Angleberger is very good at that).  However, I found myself enjoying as SF as well.

In Progress:

Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Audiobook.  Sometimes an audiobook is a great way to re-experience an old favorite because of the re-immersive element.

Wolf Captured by Jane Lindskold.  The backwards series reading experience continues.

Also:

Had a glitch with our download of Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal, the audiobook, so I’m going to need to start this over when it’s available again.

TT: Inflammatory Question

JANE: So, based on what you said last week, there are absolutely no qualifications for becoming a reviewer other than a willingness to read books and then set down some opinions about them.  Would you say that’s a fair assessment?

Hot SF Reviewers and Critics

ALAN: That’s a pretty good summary of the process. However, I have noticed that, while a lot of people have strong opinions about the books they have read, very few seem to be able to explain exactly why they hold those opinions.

It seems to be quite easy to say “I liked / disliked this book”, but correspondingly quite hard to give reasons. For many people, reading seems to be an instinctive or emotional process, rather than a rational one. And that’s no bad thing – a story is supposed to be approached on an emotional level. The people who go one step further, from the emotional into the analytical, are the ones who end up as reviewers.

JANE: That’s interesting.  Given that I’ve been an English professor, I have no problem approaching a work on both a rational and an emotional level.

How did you learn to do this?

ALAN: In my case I read a lot of reviews, criticisms and analyses. In England, I used to work at a university and the senior common room had a subscription to the Times Literary Supplement. I devoured it avidly. It had lots of (sometimes quite bitchy) reviews in it.

SF itself has had a lot very insightful critics – Kingsley Amis, Damon Knight, James Blish, Algis Budrys, John Clute… The list goes on.

JANE: But there’s a big difference between a critic and a reviewer.  A critic certainly can become a reviewer, but what’s tough for an author who is being reviewed is how many reviewers are viewed as critics, even though they have nothing to offer but their personal opinions.

Sorry.   I warned you I was going to be inflammatory but, when I became a professional writer, I started looking at the whole reviewing process in a different way.  There’s a lot of power in the hands of people with very little qualification to wield it.

ALAN: Yes, I agree. There is a big difference between a reviewer and a critic. A reviewer tends to express personal opinions (the emotional approach I mentioned above), often with little justification for them, whereas a critic tends to be more searching, more interested in structural flaws and strengths, in character development and setting and the ability to invoke a mood. Also the critic tends to look beneath the surface in search of what the work might really be about, over and above the window dressing of the plot. The work’s relationship to other examples in the field might be called into play. I try to write more towards the critical end of the spectrum, though I’m not sure if I always succeed…

The mainstream novelist and reviewer John Updike published a brilliant collection of critical essays called Picked-Up Pieces in which he developed six rules for writing reviews. I have always found these invaluable when it came to writing my own reviews (though I do tend to ignore the rule that says you should quote extensively from the piece under review).

JANE: Can you share these six rules?  I’d love to hear them.

ALAN: They are a bit long to state formally. You can find a discussion of them here.

But in summary:

Try to understand the author’s intent.
Quote from the work being examined so as to give a flavour of the prose.
Confirm your description of the book with a quotation from it.
Go easy on the plot summary and don’t give spoilers.
If you judge the book deficient, cite a more successful example. Try and make sure that the deficiency is not with you rather than with the book.
Do not review books you are predisposed to like or dislike. Review the book, not the author.

JANE: That’s interesting – especially the bit about books you are “predisposed” to like or dislike.  Sometimes, when I’m not sure about an author whose work is new to me, I pretend the book was written by someone whose work I like, just to see if that would change my mind.

ALAN: Unlike me, you have had extensive formal training in analysing texts. Your PhD thesis was about the novels of D. H. Lawrence, and you have also written a literary biography of Roger Zelazny. How useful has your academic career been when it comes to expressing your opinions about the books you read?

JANE: Actually, I’ve found my lit crit background very useful when reviewing books.

Often, I’m very aware of flaws: derivative plot elements, heavy-handed coincidence, clichéd characters, whatever.  However, I’ll test my rational awareness of these against how I felt about the book overall.  If my awareness of the flaw(s) didn’t overwhelm my overall enjoyment of the book , then I’ll give a thumbs up.  If, however, the flaw kept haunting me to the exclusion of all else, then my assessment would be a thumbs down.

ALAN: Can you clarify that with a specific example?

JANE: Sure!  A good example of this is my reaction to the works of Tim Powers, who we discussed back in 2011, here and here.

I enjoyed many of Power’s earlier novels, but my Lit Crit Brain was also aware of where he’d failed to carry through with some element or other.  Eventually, I realized that I admired Power’s willingness to take on almost impossibly ambitious stories, even if something might ooze through and get away from him.  Eventually, I realized I’d rather read a flawed Tim Powers’ novel than many other ostensibly unflawed but less ambitious works.

ALAN: I see what you mean. But doesn’t that level of critical awareness sometimes get in the way of the story?

JANE: Maybe.  I’ve been told I can be ruthless.  I remember going out to lunch one time with two very well-known SF/F folks, one of whom writes a high profile review column.  They were raving about a new work by an author who was burningly popular at the time.

I started pointing out the weak elements, how they were compensated for by flash rather than substance.  Eventually, the reviewer looked at me a bit stunned and said, “Wow!  You’re a tough one.”

ALAN: I’ve sometimes been accused of being a bit hard on some books as well.

JANE: But you are only one reviewer among many. How does your experience of becoming a reviewer compare with other people’s?

ALAN: Let me ask some reviewers I know and we can come back to this next time.

Behind the Schedule

Overall, last weekend’s Bubonicon was a great deal of fun.  I had a chance to catch up with some people I only see at conventions.  I made a few new acquaintances who just might become friends over time.  I even had a couple of very interesting meetings.

Chatting with Folks at the Tea

I was on four panels, all of which went well.  My reading of the short story “Choice of Weapons” was well-received and generated some very interesting questions.  I signed books ranging from some yellowed copies of my early Avon Book titles to my most recent efforts – the “Artemis Awakening” novels, my short story collection Curiosities, and my non-fiction Wanderings on Writing.

Signing books brings me to my one uncomfortable encounter at the convention.  Following my first panel, a man came rushing up to the speaker’s dais and thrust a small stack of books at me.  “Can you sign these?” he said.  I replied that, in fact, I couldn’t.  The man looked astonished.  “You can’t?”  “No,” I said.  “I need to go feed my husband.”

Then again, on Saturday following a panel, the same man materialized with the same small stack of books.  “Can you sign these?”  “No, I’m sorry.  I can’t.  I have a prior engagement.”  When the man looked shocked, I went on, “That’s what the Mass Signing is for.  I’d be able to sign them then.”  The man never showed up, and I will forever wonder if he decided I was so rude he wouldn’t bother.

Now, unlike some authors, I don’t mind signing books outside of the usual schedule.  In fact, I did a great deal of impromptu signing throughout the convention.  However, at those times, I didn’t have another commitment.  This brings me around to today’s look behind the schedule – or, as I could have titled it: “What You May See as Open Time Just Might Not Be So.”

This year my Bubonicon schedule was relatively full.  On Friday, I was on the first panel of the convention at 4:00 pm.  This ended at 5:00, leaving Jim and myself just an hour or so to get dinner before both the Opening Ceremonies (which, unlike at many conventions, are a big deal at Bubonicon) and my second panel of the evening.  If we hadn’t eaten when we did, I would not have been able to remain coherent through my second panel!

My Saturday schedule did not officially begin until my reading at 1:30 pm.  However, we arrived at the convention early.  Once there, I met up with Josh Gentry, editor of Snackreads, to discuss a possible expansion of his webzine.  We talked until right before my reading.

After my reading, I then had about a twenty-minute break, during which I discussed “Choice of Weapons” with some of those who had attended and also signed a few books.  I then went on to a panel, directly after which I had arranged to meet with Steve (S.M.) Stirling and his wife Jan for an early dinner.

I went directly from dinner with the Stirlings to the Mass Signing.  After the signing, I had an informal meeting with Jeremy Brett from Texas A&M regarding the possibility of my putting my papers in their repository someday – Mr. Brett was very persuasive – as well as engaging in some more general chat.  Eventually, Jim and I went home, where we medicated elderly cats and fixed a broken pond pump.  And collapsed!

Sunday I was once again on the first panel of the convention.  (I don’t mind early panels and the concom knows this; what I don’t handle well are late panels!)  After that, I attended my first and only event of the convention – the excellent interview of co-Guests of Honor Rachel Caine and David Gerrold by Toastmaster Joe Lansdale.

From there, Jim and I went out to our car, collected our contributions to the Afternoon Tea, went and helped set up, and then worked the Tea (delightful as it is, it’s still work) for the next two hours.  After this, we helped with clean-up, and then had a few minutes to quietly sit down and chat with folks before the Closing Ceremony.

I never saw the entire Dealer’s Room or Art Show.  Why?  Because if a fan wanted to chat, I stopped and did so.  After all, being there to talk with fans is part of my job, and I take it seriously – but my desire to engage with fans doesn’t mean I feel I must go without food or be late for previous commitments.

Back in 2011, I wrote a Tangent about some aspects of convention etiquette.  It doesn’t seem like a bad idea to repeat a few of those points here, especially those related to talking with an author outside of scheduled events.  If you’d like to read the full piece,which touches on a broader spectrum of the experience, you can find it here.

Otherwise, here’s the bit that pertains to today’s Wander with a few additions.

A lot of well-meaning fans often insert themselves into what are private conversations.  When this happens, the author is at a loss.  On the one hand, it’s a compliment that someone likes your work enough to want to stop and chat.  On the other, you were just taking to a friend.  Maybe you were saying something that wasn’t meant for general consumption.

I hate being rude to a fan, but what to do when the fan is rude, especially when the rudeness persists over an entire weekend?  I’ll admit that I have asked for a moment to finish what I’m about before turning my attention to the newcomer.  If that makes me rude…  Well, I don’t know what the solution is.

Fact is, it’s hard facing the expectations placed on an author at a convention.  I walked down a corridor early one morning and overheard the following statement: “I was just in the elevator with Lois McMaster Bujold.  She didn’t even look at me.  She’s so rude!  I’m never going to read one of her books.”

I wanted to shake the speaker.  She judged a writer based on an elevator ride?  An elevator ride where the writer did nothing worse than not look at her?  Wow!  It’s enough to make me afraid to walk over the threshold of my hotel room into public areas!

Okay.  Not really.  But I think you see what I mean.

So meet the author by all means.  Chat.  But remember to extend the courtesy you would to any other human being.  Wait for an opening.  If you want to chat, have something to say other than “I love your books,” because, reasonably, the only polite response the author can give you is “Thank you.”  Questions are good, because they open up the chance for conversation.

And please understand, just because the schedule says that the author doesn’t have another event immediately after, this doesn’t mean the author is free.  Moreover, accosting him or her on the speaker’s dais directly after a panel is just about the worst time to do so because the author is trying to clear out so the next event can start.

If you absolutely must talk with an author right after a panel, wait outside the room.  Even then, remember, he or she may not be available right then.  That’s why most conventions schedule signings, whether group or individual.  If you can’t make the signing, then ask the author if there is a convenient time when he or she might sign your books.

I know a number of regular convention attendees read these Wanderings.  Perhaps you might have a few tips to offer or interesting anecdotes to share about your own experiences.

FF: Pre-Bubonicon Reading

Bubonicon starts this afternoon.  I hope to see some of you there!  I’m on four panels and will be doing a reading – probably my short story “A Choice of Weapons” from the forthcoming Guns anthology, edited by Gerald and Loretta Hausman.  And, of course, I’ll be at the Afternoon Tea.  We’re only doing two sessions this year, so make sure you sign up in advance!

Does It Have Cats?

One other bit of Lindskold-related trivia: Jim and I will have two items in the art show.  I’ve decided to put the original, one-of-a-kind manuscript of “Forever Secret” up for sale.  It’s nicely shadowboxed and signed.  The other item, a Bubonicon Rocketship, ties into the conventions “Robots, Rockets, and Rayguns” theme.

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Andy Buckram’s Tin Men by Carol Ryrie Brink.  Who would ever have thought that the author made famous by her historical novel Caddie Woodlawn also wrote SF?  I’m reading part for fun, but also as preparation for being on a “robots” panel at Bubonicon.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.  Audiobook.  Interesting setting.

Secret Invasion by Paul Dellinger.  Aliens among us… including at an SF con!  A lot of fun.

In Progress:

Wolf Hunting by Jane Lindskold.  Reading a series backwards has a weird appeal.  It’s a fascinating way to see just how characters grow.

Monstress by Majorie Liu and Sana Takeda.  Comic book.  Gorgeous illustrations.  Plot seems to be combination war story and mystery.

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Audiobook.  I’ve been meaning to try something of hers since last Bubonicon.  Just started.

Also:

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.  I’ve been reading this before bed.  I’ve also been having weirder than normal dreams…

TT: Alan Robson, Reviewer

JANE: As I mentioned a few weeks ago, you’re also a book reviewer.  In fact, although I met you during a trip to New Zealand in 1995, in a very real sense, I got to know you through your “wot I red” columns.

How did you become a reviewer?

Cute Penguin with Socks

ALAN: Now thereby hangs a tale. Way back when I lived in England, in the early 1970s, I started a science fiction group because I thought it might be a good way to meet girls. It turned out to be a surprisingly successful ploy. But that’s another story…

JANE: Girls.  SF.  Meeting thereof…  Sounds like something the characters in Jo Walton’s Among Others might think was a good idea.  Go on.

ALAN: The group published a fanzine, because that’s what such groups do. I wrote to all the British publishers, announcing the publication and suggesting that if they sent me books, I could publish reviews of them in the ‘zine. Again, this proved to be a surprisingly successful ploy, and free books poured in. What could be better than that?

So I started writing reviews, and so did my friends. There were far too many books for one person to cope with (and, frankly, far too many of them were rubbish – it was very depressing).

Eventually the fanzine ceased publication because producing it was far too much work. Ceasing to publish a fanzine is also something that SF groups traditionally do.  But I did the right thing and I wrote to the publishers informing them that the ‘zine would no longer be appearing. However, it made no difference whatsoever. The publishers ignored my letters and the books kept piling up.

JANE: Somehow I have no trouble believing this.  Inertia is a powerful force.

ALAN: And publishers are not renowned for the efficiency of their administrative processes…

The years passed and I suspect that gradually the publishers began to notice that the reviews were no longer appearing. The flood of books eventually died to a trickle. Only Penguin, bless their little cotton socks, didn’t appear to notice that anything had changed and every time they published or re-printed a book they sent me a copy. Their most often re-printed author was John Wyndham. They never allowed any of his books to fall out of print and by the time I left England to come to New Zealand in 1981, I think they must have sent me at least eight copies of The Day of the Triffids.

JANE: Thus the illustration for this piece, courtesy of my friend, Cale Mims.

ALAN: I sometimes wonder if the people who now live in my old house in England are still receiving parcels of books from Penguin.

JANE: Quite possibly.  See above on the power of inertia.  Actually, I can see the seed of a story in this: someone moves into the house, boxes of books arrive; he becomes an SF fan.  Wait! Maybe it’s a she and she hunts up the former owner.  They begin to correspond…

But, getting out of my weird brain, your life as a reviewer didn’t end when you left England for New Zealand.  What happened next?

ALAN: When I arrived in New Zealand, I didn’t know a single person. However, SF groups flourished in all the major cities, so it wasn’t long before I had a social life again. I wrote intermittent articles and reviews for several local fanzines and eventually these metamorphosed into a regular column which nowadays is called wot I red on my hols (early columns had various other titles as I experimented with different approaches) – the odd spelling is a little joke about how school children might spell the phrase, and of course it’s exactly the sort of dull topic that an English teacher might assign for an essay at the start of a new term.

JANE: Well, if it had been an assignment given to me, I would have been relieved.  Most of my holidays were spent reading.  Much easier if I could just get to the important stuff.

ALAN: Me too. But a huge number of my school friends had never voluntarily opened the covers of a book in their lives. Such an essay would have been utterly beyond their capabilities (though I suspect one or two could have lied very creatively…)

JANE: I’ve read (or “red”) the column – I still do, in fact.  But many of our readers probably haven’t availed themselves of the option, even though you offer it for free download here.

Can you tell a bit more about it?

ALAN: The column is a kind of a diary. It takes the form of anecdotes about what has happened to me since the last column, interspersed with reviews of the books that I’ve been reading during that time. It’s an odd structure, but it seems to work and I have my fans.

The column has been published at monthly intervals since 1994. In all that time I’ve only missed one month. There was no column for April 2005 because in March 2005 I was busy getting married and writing a column was the last thing on my mind. But apart from that, month in and month out, there has always been a wot I red column to read. That’s a lot of reviews, and I’m rather proud of the accumulated body of work.

JANE: Well, now that we’re learned how you became a reviewer, I’ve got a tough question for you.  In fact, it’s so tough and so potentially inflammatory, that I’ll save it for next time.

ALAN: Why is it that I have suddenly been overwhelmed by a terrible feeling of existential dread?

JANE: (Lots of evil cackling…)

Being Honest

This week’s Wander is going to be about…  Nothing.

This isn’t because I haven’t been doing anything.  It’s the reverse.  I’ve been doing a great deal, but most of what I’ve been doing – while completely fascinating to me, and definitely connected to writing – has not taken a form that I care to discuss.

Scribbles

So, I’m going to be completely honest.  I could tell you I wrote ten pages in one day.  I could tell you that those ten pages were the end result of about ten days of nearly constant brainstorming, dead ends, obsession, false starts and the like.  I could tell you that in the end, what got me over the hump was turning off the computer, taking out a heap of scrap paper and a fountain pen of dubious functionality, and scribbling until all the varied bits and pieces began to fall into shape.

Would that be of interest?

I really don’t know.  But it would be honest.

I’ve noticed a trend of writers posting on-line how many words they wrote in a given day.  I’m not sure where this came from.  Maybe it’s an outgrowth of the NaNoWriMo mentality that presents production in and of itself as meritorious.

Well, if the end result of that production is something of quality, then I firmly agree.  However, if it’s merely moving fingers across the keyboard so one can see the little number counter at the corner go up and up and up…

Let’s just say I have my doubts.

Odd thing though.  Recently, I was talking with a relatively young writer who wondered if her goal should be to write a large amount of material (say, two hundred pages) or to limit herself to a still ambitious length (fifty pages), then focus on going over it.  My advice to her was to limit the length, focus on the editing and polishing, because one learns so much in the process of making the words communicate the story that’s in your brain.

But then, just a few days later, I was talking with a friend of mine – a published writer who has completed several novel-length manuscripts, as well as numerous short stories.  She’s good.  No doubt.  But any project takes her forever because she can’t let go of a sentence until it’s just right.  Her word count in a week usually measures in the hundreds, not thousands of words.  I’m always trying to get her to let go and just write, worry about the polishing later.

And me?  It’s about how the inside of my head feels.  How the Muse is feeling.  Right now she’s saying “Go write.  Don’t worry about what or where it’s going.  Just write.  There’s something there, waiting to find its way out.”

So, folks, that’s what I’m going to do.

I’ll also be preparing for Bubonicon, New Mexico’s SF convention.  I’m on four panels and giving a reading.  I’m also helping out with the Afternoon Tea.  And, for the first time, Jim and I are putting a couple of multi-media projects in the Art Show.

But I think it’s time for the scrap paper and semi-functional fountain pen.  The Muse is calling and I shall come…

FF: TV Appearance! Convention Prep!

Here’s some breaking news. On Wednesday, August 24, at 8:00 a.m., Jessica Coyle and I will be appearing on KRQE This Morning on KASA-2.  We’ll be talking up Bubonicon, New Mexico’s absolutely wonderful Science Fiction convention.  No idea exactly when we’ll go on (we’re not the entire show), but it should be fun.  If you can get the channel, grab your coffee and join us.

Kel Wants Jane to Sit Down and Read!

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink.  Came across this used and couldn’t resist trying again.  Possibly the oddest “castaway” book ever.

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie.  Audiobook.  Although Dame Agatha is best-known for her murder mysteries, she liked writing thrillers, too.  This one is set at a prestigious girl’s school.

Wolf’s Blood by Jane Lindskold.  Wow!  That’s a really long book.  I will admit to enjoying it, though.

In Progress:

Andy Buckram’s Tin Men by Carol Ryrie Brink.  Who would ever have thought that the author made famous by her historical novel Caddie Woodlawn also wrote SF?  I’m reading part for fun, but also as preparation for being on a “robots” panel at Bubonicon.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.  Audiobook.  Interesting setting.

Also:

Wolf Hunting by Jane Lindskold.  Reading a series backwards has a weird appeal.  It’s a fascinating way to see just how characters grow.

TT: Series — The Conclusion?

JANE: Welcome to Part 4 of the Jane and Alan Tangent Trilogy about series…

ALAN: That’s the trouble with trilogies. Sometimes they just grow and grow.

JANE: Yep, and then they become tetralogies.  If there’s a word for it, we must not be the only people to do this.  So, where were we?

ALAN: As I recall, you were telling me about the unexpected sequel to Changer.

Three Lindskold Series

JANE: Right!  When I was asked if I would like to write a sequel to Changer, I was excited, but also a bit overwhelmed because I’d never written a series before.

I asked the editor if she had any strong feelings about what made a good or bad sequels – especially in a case like this, where the first story didn’t leave a lot of loose ends.  She said that she preferred sequels that didn’t simply reintroduce the same problem all over again.  I thought she had a point, so Changer’s Daughter introduces many new situations, while expanding the reader’s exposure to the athanor’s culture and introducing new complexities.

ALAN: That was one of the things I found attractive about it. The clash of cultures between Nigerian and Western folklore and mythology was unexpected and quite fascinating.

JANE: Thank you…  I really enjoy venturing into African mythology.  It’s as rich and much more varied than the more familiar European material.

Given that the publisher actually requested the second book, I’ve always been mystified that it then did its best make certain the sequel would not find the intended audience.

First Avon refused my initial choice of title (Changer’s Daughter).  My then-editor and I went through a vast list of possible titles.  The title higher-ups eventually agreed to was one title that in no way would signal that there was continuity.  Given that up until that point in my career I had only written stand-alone novels, there was no reason that readers would think that Legends Walking had anything to do with Changer.

Legends Walking was also given it a completely different package (style of cover art, cover typeface etc).  To this day, I still run into people who ask me for a sequel to Changer and, when I tell them there is one, they say “There’s a sequel!  I never knew that!”  It’s exquisitely frustrating and why, when I re-released both Changer and Legends Walking as e-books and print on demand, I gave Legends Walking back its original title.

ALAN: Speaking purely as a reader, I don’t find this at all surprising. Publishers marketing decisions constantly astonish me. In my more cynical moments I sometimes wonder if perhaps there is an international conspiracy of publishers whose goal is to sell as few books as they possibly can.

The New Zealand writer Phillip Mann, who we spoke about in one of our tangents, wrote a four book series under the general title of A Land Fit for Heroes. The first two volumes have the lettering of the title in the same font and in the same place on the spine. The third volume has the same font but the lettering is in a different place. The fourth volume has a completely different font and layout and looks nothing like the others. The books have pride of place on my shelves, but I hate looking at them because, considered as a set, they appear ugly and unbalanced.

But before I get carried away into apoplectic anger at the stupidity of that design, perhaps you can tell me more about how your Artemis series has developed.

JANE:  If I may back up slightly, there’s a key element to series that that professional writers are all too aware of, but most readers don’t seem to gather…  Except in a few situations, the author is not in control of how a series will develop.

Especially these days, contracts for more than one or two books are rare.  Even when an author does get a multi-book in a series contract, the author cannot be assured that the publisher will remain enthusiastic about the series.  If the initial book doesn’t do brilliantly, later books may be given no support by the publisher.  This, of course, means readers don’t find them, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the days of old, a series would have time to garner followers.  However, these days it’s much harder to convince publishers of the need for continuing a series beyond maybe two books if it doesn’t “break out.”  I hate to say this but, in cases where a series is given additional volumes even when sales figures were not fantastic, almost always the publisher had signed for more than a couple of books and is now obligated.

ALAN: Perhaps that’s because there are so many more books being published these days than was once the case. Turnover is very rapid and the books simply don’t have the time to establish themselves, except for the very lucky few.

JANE: Maybe so, but I suspect it has a lot more to do with how many publishing houses are no longer independent, but need to answer to some multinational conglomerate owner.

Anyhow, this is what happened with the “Artemis Awakening” series.  Great reviews.  Lots of interest in “what next” on the part of both readers and reviewers.   But this wasn’t enough for the publisher.   Someone in the higher echelons of Tor Books sunk the ship before it could really set sail.

Whether there will be a third book remains up in the air, possibly indefinitely.  I would really like to write this book because, in addition to truncating the series, Tor also chose to set a very low word limit on the novels themselves.  This meant I had to juggle plot elements, sometimes being put in the position of having to provide foundations without being able to develop how those foundations supported the larger story.  I also had to write with less closure book to book than is my preference.

ALAN: There you go! I knew that the international publishing conspiracy to sell as few books as possible really does exist. And now you’ve just confirmed it.

JANE: I’m glad I’ve made you happy!

And before you ask… Yes, there are series that go on and on and on…  In fact, many a bestselling author finds him or herself in the opposite situation to the one I found myself in with “Artemis Awakening.”  Rather than having a series truncated before it can go anywhere, he or she finds that his or her career is now constricted by one property or, at best, two.  For a creative person, this can be stifling.   Sometimes the publisher will humor the author by releasing something outside of the series universe, but that’s a sop to Cerberus.  They rarely give the new work as much support.

ALAN: That must be both stultifying and frustrating.

You are also writing the Stephanie Harrington series in collaboration with David Weber. Does having a collaborator make any difference to the way you approach the series?

JANE: Very much so.  In the case of Stephanie, we’re somewhat limited in that these stories are prequels.  Therefore, certain events are already fixed within Honorverse history.   When you add into the equation that these novels were part of Baen Books experimenting with the YA market, we’re limited in that Stephanie’s age provides constraints.  At one point, Weber and I talked about transitioning Stephanie from YA to adult, and that may still happen.  Someday.  When he’s not so busy.

ALAN: That’s a problem with collaborating, isn’t it? Sometimes events overtake one or more of the collaborators and things have to lie fallow for a time. We’ve found that on our Tangents as well.

JANE: Indeed we have!

ALAN: And that probably brings us to the end of this trilogy.  Err…  I mean tetralogy… Thingy.

Don’t miss next week’s thrilling installment of “Jane and Alan Do a Completely Different Tangent!”