D.B. Jackson's Blog, page 71

A Publicity Idea and a Request for Help

So I'm looking at having postcards made with the Thieftaker jacket art on the front and information about the book (ISBN number, jacket blurbs — stuff like that) on the back.  I want to have stuff to give away at conventions, book signings, and other events.

But I also have an idea for t-shirts that would have that same jacket art on the back and on the front a small insignia for the "Boston Thieftakers' Guild, Est. 1765."  This guild never existed, of course, but I think that the idea of it might be kind of cool.  But I need a second opinion.  Or rather, I need a bunch of them.  Would any of you be interested in a Thieftaker shirt like the one I've described (understanding, of course, that I would have to price it reasonably)?

Please leave a comment and let me know.  Thanks!

Researching New Thieftaker Books

One of the things that often strikes friends and family as strange about my work is the distance in time between "what I'm working on" and "what I have coming out."  We are still six months away from the July release of Thieftaker, book I in the Thieftaker Chronicles, and yet this week I have started researching books 3 and 4 in the series.

Books III and IV are not yet under contract, though I hope to take care of that sometime this spring.  (As an aside, I'll note that book II, Thieves' Quarry, is under contract and is, in fact, already written and with my editor.  I expect I'll be working on revisions to the book later this year.)  And so I am starting to work up proposals for the third and fourth volumes.  And because the Thieftaker books are all historical fantasy, that means research — reading books, finding those little facts that will bring my setting to life, and looking for ways to weave magic and intrigue into actual historical events.

That's what I've started working on this week, and just two days in I'm already having tons of fun.  As a professional historian, I didn't really enjoy research that much.  Maybe it was because I knew that the research would lead to writing monographs and articles filled with arcane arguments and lots of footnotes.  Some people, including several friends, enjoy writing history — I admire them and their work.  But it was never right for me. Doing research for novels, on the other hand — thinking of ways to insert Ethan Kaille, my lead character, into the action — has been a blast.

I won't tell you too much about what I'm thinking right now, in part because my plotting of the third and fourth Thieftaker books remains very, very, VERY sketchy.  But I will tell you that I'm researching the Boston Massacre and the trial of Captain Thomas Preston and the British soldiers who fired into a mob of Bostonians on the night of March 5, 1770.  These events should provide ample material for a couple of entertaining books.

A Parent's SAT Angst

My daughter is in the dining room right now, sitting down to take a practice SAT.  She'll be at it for four hours.

I still remember taking the SAT.  I remember my scores, even though it's been over thirty years since they mattered to me at all.  It was a nerve-wracking event in an emotionally fraught time.  As a teenager, I didn't think too much about the logic of it. I wanted to go to college.  Kids who wanted to go to college took the SAT.  Therefore, I took the SAT.  It was like our own little associative property of college applications.

But now, watching my kid go through this, I find myself questioning the rationale behind it.  If anything, the SAT is harder now than it was when I was a teenager.  As most people know, the Educational Testing Service added an essay to the process some time back.  It has also put in fill-in questions to supplement the more familiar multiple choice questions.  But even those questions that follow the traditional a-b-c-d-e format seem more difficult now than they did a few decades ago.  I write for a living and have for fifteen years, and yet I find some of the grammar/syntax questions difficult, and some of the "correct" answers bewildering.

But the relative ease or difficulty of the exam is really beside the point.  My kid is intelligent, and I'm sure she'll score well on the SAT.  But what if she doesn't?  What if it turns out that she doesn't test well, or she has a bad day?  Yes, I know she can take the test again, but if I was in her position, I wouldn't want to go through this a second time.  This number will follow her throughout the admissions process; for many admissions committees it will define her.  And yet, it says almost nothing about her.  It certainly can't convey all her marvelous qualities:  her electric personality, her wit, her keen and nimble intelligence.

I know that there is nothing truly revelatory about this post.  I'm not the first parent to worry about his kid's future or comment on the arbitrary nature of the college admissions process.  But she's my oldest and this is my first time dealing with these issues.  For the record, she is taking it like a champ.  Me, not so much…

Appearances for 2012!

I have just updated the D.B. Jackson website with a listing of my appearances for this year.  Right now the list is a bit thin.  I'll be at Marcon (Columbus, Ohio) in April, ConCarolinas (Charlotte, NC) in June, and World Fantasy Convention (Toronto, Ontario) in November.  But I hope and expect to add to the list as the year goes on.  I expect to be attending additional conventions and I will also be scheduling book signings and talks around the July release of Thieftaker, the first book in the Thieftaker Chronicles.

I am looking forward to all of these events, and, I hope, to meeting as many of you as possible.  So check out the listing and stop by a con or signing to say hello!

"…To Ourselves and Our Posterity…"

Over the past two weeks, my younger daughter has had an interesting assignment in her middle school humanities class.  The teacher had the kids reading not only the U. S. Constitution, but also all twenty-six amendments to the Constitution.  The kids were then supposed to summarize the meaning of each amendment, and indicate whether the amendment was intended to protect a right, extend a right, or solve a problem.

Since I am the resident historian in the household, my daughter came to me for help when she tried to decipher some of the more complicated amendments.  I think she learned a lot from the assignment.  I found myself marveling anew at the beauty of the Constitution, not just as a legal document but also as a historical one.

I don't want this to devolve into a political debate.  But I will say up front that I am capable of being as critical of our government as anyone.  I am not, nor have I ever been, what my parents would have called "an America-right-or-wrong patriot."  My politics tend to the left.  The deep left.  I know how deeply flawed our nation's policies, foreign and domestic, can be.  That said, I absolutely do consider myself a patriot.  I think it is impossible to overstate the beauty of our system of government — perhaps not the actual government as it exists today, but the blueprint itself.  The Constitution is an elegant and deceptively simple document. The men who conceived it were navigating uncharted waters and yet manage to create something that was both innovative and flexible. Yes, these men were flawed in some of their own thinking; they could not see past the limited race and gender sensitivity of their time.  And yet they penned a document that allowed us as a people to evolve and adapt and redress past wrongs.

Yes, some of the wording is a little iffy; the Yoda-esque phrasing of the Second Amendment remains at the heart of one of the nation's most contentious social issues.  Still, what amazes me is how relevant the document remains despite the staggering changes this nation and this world have witnessed in the last 225 years.  If James Madison were to step into our time, he would be utterly bewildered by our gadgets, our communications system, our transportation technologies.  He might well be dismayed by some of what he would see in Washington — the campaign money, the lobbyists, the mediocre minds sitting in some seats on both sides of the Congressional aisle.  As a former slave-owner, he would no doubt be rendered speechless upon learning that an African-American man is President.  But once inside the House or Senate chamber, he would have no trouble at all recognizing the government that he helped shape.  That strikes me as remarkable.

And were he to read through the amendments passed during the last two centuries, he might begin to piece together elements of our tumultuous history.  Reading the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, with their references to slavery and race, rebellion and insurrection, he might well realize that the bitter debate over slavery had finally culminated in a bloody internecine conflict.  Reading the Prohibition amendments (numbers Eighteen and Twenty-one) he might be able to picture a nation deeply torn by questions of morality.  Reading amendments Seventeen (direct election of Senators), Nineteen (women's suffrage), and Twenty-four (elimination of the pole tax) he would see that Americans in the Twentieth Century were striving in their own way to make this country a truer democracy.  And perhaps, reading the long, convoluted language of the Twenty-fifth amendment (Presidential succession, passed in 1967), he would understand that the nation had been through a searing tragedy — the death of a young President — that shook our confidence, and forced us to consider dark possibilities that hadn't occurred to earlier generations.

It has become a cliche to call the Constitution a living, breathing document, but that doesn't make it any less true.  It is meant to adapt, to reflect changes in our thinking and the maturation of our ideals.  But it also reflects who we are and where we have been.  I'm grateful to my daughter's teacher for giving her students — as well as their parents — the opportunity to study and appreciate it.

THIEFTAKER Galley Proofs

This week I am proofreading the galley proofs — the typeset text — of Thieftaker, book I in the Thieftaker Chronicles (due out from Tor Books in July of this year).  This is the author's final step in the production process for any book and, to be perfectly honest, it's not exactly my favorite thing to do.  I mean, I enjoy reading my books after I finish a first draft, even though I've read through every page again and again during the writing of the book.  I even enjoy reading the book after I've revised it, and again after I've been through edits with my editor.  By the time I'm reading it for copyedits, I'm a little tired of it.  And reading it for proofs . . . well, let's just say that the thrill is usually gone by then.

But this time around reading the galleys is a little special, and it's not because this book is SO good that I can enjoy reading it for the fifth or sixth or tenth time.  To be perfectly honest, the reading itself is feeling just a bit tedious.  But Tor has done such a wonderful job with the production of this book that I am thrilled by what I'm seeing.  The book feels as much like a 18th century volume as any book could.  Little touches, like chapter numbering that looks like it was written with quill and ink, small touches around the page numbers, artistic touches on the title page and in the other front matter.  The book is stunning to look at, and I am thrilled.

Every book is type set in its own way.  Some books don't really lend themselves to anything special.  Because Thieftaker is a historical novel, there were a few things Tor could do, and the Tor production department went out of their way to do all of them.  I'm more grateful to them than I can say.

The Last Days of a Photography Giant?

In case you missed it, a one-time giant of Wall Street reached a dubious milestone the other day.  Eastman Kodak of Rochester, N.Y., once the gold standard of photography companies and a component of the Dow Jones Industrial average, has fallen on hard times.  The per share price of Kodak stock has fallen below $1.00, meaning that it could be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and the company announced this past week that it is preparing for a possible declaration of bankruptcy.

In the age of pocket-sized digital cameras and digital SLRs that boast of being able to withstand 150,000 "actuations" (once known as pictures…) I probably don't have to elaborate on the cause of Kodak's woes.  The company, which is 131 years old and once employed over 145,000 people across the globe, owned the photography world for much of its history, producing film brands — Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Tri-X black and white — that were revered and coveted by professional photographers and amateurs alike.  Kodak still owns over 1,000 patents and will always be recognized as the 20th century's foremost innovator in consumer photography products.

But the company proved remarkably inept when it came to making the adjustments necessary to survive in photography's digital age.  Yes, Kodak had entries in the compact digital camera market — rivals to the Canon Powershots and Sony Cybershots, the Fujifilm Finepix and Nikon Coolpix.  But Kodak always seemed to trail the pack in quality and concept.  And it continued to produce and develop film.  It was almost as if the company couldn't decide where it belonged; did it dive into the digital age, or did it remain the film leader and corner that traditional market, which still has some appeal for professionals shooting larger format cameras?  It tried to do both and managed to succeed at neither. Even as the other digital manufacturers buried them in the new market, Fujifilm made its Velvia and Provia films indispensable to a new generation of film photographers.

As a long-time amateur photographer, I once was devoted to Kodak products.  I would only shoot Ektachrome and would only allow Kodak to develop my slides.  They were the best, and I wanted the best for my photos.  And though I turned away from Kodak years ago, buying Fuji Velvia for my film camera and preferring Canon cameras for my digital images, I am sad to see company failing.  It is a bit like watching a once great athlete struggle with his or her sport at the end of a hall-of-fame career.

Like all forms of hard competition, the market is unforgiving and uncompromising.  Wall Street doesn't care that Kodak used to be the best, nor should it.  But I have to admit that I find it sad to contemplate a world without those bright yellow boxes of film, without "Kodak Moments," a world in which no one under a certain age understands what Paul Simon means when he begs "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away."

My Reading for 2012

One of my goals for this New Year, both professionally and personally, is to get more reading done, hopefully at the expense of my lazing-around-in-front-of-the-television and/or doing-nothing-of-importance-on-the-web time. It's not that I spend hours watching TV — I really don't. And compared to my teenagers, I spend barely any time at all on social media. But I do think that I could squeeze in an extra hour or so of reading each day, and over the course of the year, that could really add up.

I have already started my first book of the year — I'm reading Paolo Bacigalupi's Hugo and Nebula-award winning novel, The Windup Girl, and I'm loving it. Intense, poetic, different from anything I've read before.  What's not to love?

What else do I have in mind to read this year?  Well, I've started a list . . .

First there are a few classics that I've never read and really need to:

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

And then there are some more modern titles that I've been meaning to read for some time:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carre

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Charming Billy, Alice McDermott

And finally, there are several novels in fantasy and sf that I have been wanting to read, many of them by friends:

Cold Magic, by Kate Elliott

Of Blood and Honey, by Stina Leicht

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan

Greywalker, by Kat Richardson

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Demon-Trapper's Daughter, by Jana Oliver

Sailing to Sarantium, by Guy Gavriel Kay

Earthquake Weather, by Tim Powers

What about you?  What's on your To-Be-Read pile for 2012?

The 1760s a "Golden Age"? I Don't Think So

Last night I watched Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, an homage to 1920s Paris, and to that "Golden Age" when the City of Light's streets were haunted by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso.  It is a wonderful movie — whimsical and funny, but also poignant and thought-provoking.

Part of what makes the movie so effective is the insight that one generation's Golden Age is another generation's reality.  An era we look back upon as a time of wonder and magic, may well have been a time of unbearable ennui and dissatisfaction for its contemporaries.

Let me say up front that despite setting my novels in the Colonial Era, I don't see  those heady years just before the American Revolution as any sort of Golden Age.  Would I like to go back to the 1760s for a while?  Absolutely.  I want to meet Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Paul Revere, to name just a few.  But this was an age of Smallpox and Yellow Fever epidemics; Boston was ravaged by fires and plagued by poor sanitation.  I have no illusions, and I do my best in the Thieftaker books not to glorify the period.

But then, if not the 1760s, when?  What is my Golden Age?  To be honest, I'm not sure.  Different periods come to mind.  As I say, I would enjoy visiting Boston in the 1760s, or Philadelphia in 1776.  I would like to  witness the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, to see Ruth and Gehrig play baseball in the 1930s, or watch Mays and Mantle and Aaron in their primes in the 1950s.  I would have loved to be out in the cold of Washington D.C.'s Mall to see JFK's inaugural address, and I would have given just about anything to see Hendrix and Joplin play at Woodstock.  But a Golden Age?  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that such a beast exists.  Every age has its heroes and heroines, it's sublime moments and glorious achievements.  And every age also has its villains and tragedies.  I think I'm content to stay here in the present, and see if I can't help my children create a golden future.

Ethan Kaille's Diary: January 1, 1765

In researching the life and times of Ethan Kaille, thieftaker and conjurer, whose many adventures in Colonial Boston are the subject matter for the upcoming Thieftaker books (beginning with Thieftaker, book I of the Thieftaker Chronicles) I have in the last day or two come across Ethan's day journal.  I believe this may be a treasure trove. I am hopeful that by reading his various entries, I will learn more of his inquiries into thefts and murders in the streets of Boston, and perhaps will even glean something of the strange magical powers he is purported to have wielded.  As this year progresses, I will share with you excerpts from the journal.  For today, though, I present his entry for January 1, 1765.  It is remarkable not for its mention of magic or crime, but rather for his dire and prophetic treatment of the day itself, which is so at odds with our own celebrations of the New Year.

Tuesday, 1 January 1765

The New Year begins as the old one ended, with squalls of snow blown across the city by a bitter wind.  I wake throughout the night to feed the meagre fire burning in the stove in Kannice's chamber, but the gale rattling the doors and windows of the Dowsing Rod seems to suck all the heat from her room.  We take what warmth we can from each other, huddled beneath her blankets, but soon we are driven downstairs to the tavern's great room where soon enough the fire in her hearth burns bright and warm, and the aromas of baked bread and steaming chowder offer a respite from winter's ire.

The new Christian calendar, adopted by the Empire some years ago, while I labored in the cane fields, still feels strange to me at this time of year.  Some in the colonies still view 25 March as the start of the Civil Year, and I confess that I will always count myself among them.  But for many, the adoption of January 1 as the start of the New Year provides a welcome excuse to carouse and avoid a day's work.  Even now, while Kannice and I and a few of her most devoted patrons gather before the hearth, coaxing heat and comfort from the blaze, revelers sing bawdy songs in the streets, too foolish, or perhaps too far gone with drink to feel the chill.

Regardless of when the year begins, it seems impossible to me that it can be 1765 already.  When I was a lad in Bristol, 1766 — the year I will reach the age of forty — seemed impossibly far away.  Now it looms on my immediate horizon.  And yet I sense that the intervening year, this 1765, will bring developments both great and terrible to Boston and to my life here.  Already, there is unrest growing in the corridors of power in the province of Massachusetts Bay, irrational responses to Parliament's legitimate exercise of its colonial authority.  I understand little of what I hear, and I agree with far less.  But I cannot help but think that the rabble now sowing discontent among the masses will find a way to intrude upon my peace and my livelihood.

Kannice bids me be of good cheer, and for her sake, I try.  But I am filled with foreboding.  Time will tell if I am merely imagining trouble where none exists, or if I shall prove prescient in the end.