S&L Podcast - #327 - Real Housewives of the Aegean

[Veronica, Supreme Sword]

Why we think Amazon may have been cribbing off us, the reality TV connection to ancient Greece, and the raging 2X audiobook debate speeds along.

http://swordandlaser.com/home/2018/6/...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19595131
https://soundcloud.com/swordandlaser/...

[Joseph]

I remember Danny Dunn! Although looking at the list, I'm not sure which ones I actually read.

Other childhood favorites nobody has ever heard of:





(n.b. Both books long predated my actual childhood.)

Also: Harpies!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZVqF...

[John (Taloni)]

That second one looks great! "Freshly graduated and commissioned Planeteer Lt. Richard Ingalls Peter ("Rip") Foster is tasked with retrieving an asteroid made of pure thorium from the asteroid belt and bringing it to Earth for use as fissionable material. Rip must fight the "Connies" (Consolidation of Planetary Governments), sworn enemies of the Federation of Free Governments, for possession of the asteroid."

Ah, cheesy 50s juveniles....and it's on Amazon for free! The book was published under two titles with different illustrations. This book has both sets.

https://www.amazon.com/Rip-Foster-Rid...

[Joseph]

John (Taloni) wrote: "That second one looks great! "Freshly graduated and commissioned Planeteer Lt. Richard Ingalls Peter ("Rip") Foster is tasked with retrieving an asteroid made of pure thorium from the asteroid belt..."

Yep! Although in the Kindle edition I picked up a few years ago, the Chief's name was autocorrected from O'Brian to O'Brain.

[Caitlin]

I just finished catching up on the last three podcasts, and it looks like Tom and I were on the same wavelength! I didn't even know that he had talked about the tabloid aspect when I made my thread :)

[Silvana]

Scalzi's new book cover does kick ass. It made me wishing Ian McDonald also had a cover when he tweeted about him finished (!) the 3rd Luna book a few days ago.

Another China Mieville books you guys should consider to read is Embassytown. I'm reading The Scar in a few days and can't wait to return to the Bas Lag universe.

[Rob, Roberator]

Scalzi mentioned on twitter or his website that his covers are always done ahead of time.

I think he said the last time that wasn't true was for Redshirts and that was because he didn't have a book deal he just showed up with the completed book as asked them if they were interested.

So it sounds like Tor is big on have cover art ahead of the final draft of the book.

[Silvana]

Good to know, thanks Rob.

Having a cover is also good thing so the book info in Goodreads can have one.

[Iain]

Re: SFF book sales up. This also coincides with a generation brought up reading Harry Potter.

[Iain]

Rob wrote: "So it sounds like Tor is big on have cover art ahead of the final draft of the book."

Why not? They have probably had an early draft and its not like Scalzi is GM. The book is coming out on time.

Back in the day it probably took Josh Kirby as long to draw the cover as Pratchett took to write the books.

[Rob, Roberator]

Iain wrote: "Rob wrote: "So it sounds like Tor is big on have cover art ahead of the final draft of the book.."

It wasn't a complaint, just an observation.

On the podcast, Tom had seemed sort of surprised/envious that Scalzi already had a cover, but that was by intent. I wouldn't be surprised if other publishers do that as well for the biggest names.

Hell publishers seem to try to make it into news, kind of like a movie trailer. Websites get "exclusives" where they reveal the cover. I find it kind of comical, but it's probably good marketing.

The whole "judge a book by its cover" idiom exists for a reason. Hell I think we even had a thread on people buying books simply because the cover caught their eye.

[Caitlin]

I think people are more likely to share a picture of a new book cover than a sentence about a new book, so I agree with the good marketing comment.

[Trike]

I’m not surprised Scalzi’s book already has a cover. They just pulled a random sci-fi painting out of inventory and slapped a title on it. They’re all rather generic and could be about *any* book with the same general subject matter. There are probably 500 artists who have paintings online right now that could be used interchangeably for the next dozen books by Scalzi or GRRM or Leckie.

But the really good covers illustrate something from the story. Those covers take time and have to be based on the existing work.

Look at this cover for The Collapsing Empire:

That could be for any space opera.

What do these covers have to do with Leckie’s series? Those spaceships don’t even match the descriptions of anything in the books.


But this cover? That’s the USS Voyager, and no mistake.


And Ringworld? That can only be for that book.


The White Dragon by Michael Whelan? That can only be for McCaffrey’s novel.


This cover for Twilight at the Well of Soulsis literally an illustration of the Well World. You can’t use that for any other book.


The original cover for Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet actually showed the ship where we spend all our time. The revised cover could be any generic YA book.

[Rick]

Yeah, while I like Scalzi's covers as works of SF art, they are generic. I'd not seen the revised Long Way cover... that's crap.

[Silvana]

We need an award for SFF cover arts that are:

1. actually accurate/according to the book
2. kick ass
3. not generic

[Alan]

Silvana wrote: "We need an award for SFF cover arts that are:

1. actually accurate/according to the book
2. kick ass
3. not generic"

Agree strongly!

[Stephen]

One of the fun thing about being a Hugo voter is I now take a look at the covers of new releases just for the art work category. Here is my trick. I spot a cover I like, note the name of the artist then google the name. I end up at a site with the artist works and sometimes an option to buy original art or prints. Want to join in the fun of being a Hugo voter? Become a supporting member of WorldCon Dublin.
https://api.dublin2019.com/

[Mark]

If only I could draw...

[AndrewP]

LOL.. love that Pulp-O-Mizer program. I used that to poke fun at our marketing department at work.:)

I agree about covers. A book where there has been some though put into the cover is more likely to get my attention than one where it's just a generic space pic, sword hilt or shadowy figure in a cloak. One of the recent S&L pics even had a cover where Shutterstick was given credit for the cover. That's just an insult.

[William]

Silvana wrote: "Another China Mieville books you guys should consider to read is Embassytown. I'm reading The Scar in a few days and can't wait to return to the Bas Lag universe. ..."

I also came here to suggest Embassytown by China Miéville. Not only is it Tim and Tobiashis most obviously SF novel, but neither Tom nor Veronica have read it. 

Otherwise I'd suggest The City & the City because it's just been made into a TV series and is just an amazing piece of work (and on my favourites shelf).

As for obscure childhood favourites I really got into reading, at about the age of 7, with the now long vanished Tim and Tobias reading series. Having reread it as an adult I can confirm it involved broomsticks and magic prePotter and was a lot darker than the first few Potter books, in fact the old "World of Darkness" is probably the closest I can think of (how the heck did they get this into schools? I'm just so glad they did!).



I moved on to SF and got hooked on HM Hoover (Helen Mary Hoover) novels. These are seriously hard to track down and reread as an adult, but I managed to get my hands on This Time of Darkness which was probably the one that had the biggest effect on me as an impressionable 10/11 year old.

I was a bit scared to reread it because it was so important to me as a child. But after I reread it I discovered to my astonishment that it was exactly the way I remembered.