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Gimmick non-fiction

August 2, 2010 //
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I’m fond of a certain type of usually-humour writing which I catagorise as ‘gimmick non-fiction’, or maybe a little more generously, ‘quest memoirs’ — where someone, usually a young(ish) man, sets out on some oddball undertaking often involving physical discomfort, some travel, and/or embarrassment and other social difficulties, and often for a period of a year.

The undisputed master of this type of thing Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Authors, Book reviews

Happy links for readers and writers (Perth edition)

January 10, 2010 //
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I can’t believe this has whipped around again already: the Perth Writers Festival 2010 is on the long weekend at the end of February. The full programme comes out at the end of January.

Perth-based Indiebooks Online is donating portions of its sales over the next two weeks (starting, however, last week) to victims of the Toodyay fires. What, people, did we exhaust our fire-victim-sympathy already? Spare some love for the WA people who lost just as much as those in the inferno over east.

Shopping for books in Australia and want price comparisons? Try booko. This is nifty as anything.

Ursula Le Guin has resigned from the Authors Guild because of Google.

And some hackers have broken Kindle so that you can read your ebooks on any device that takes open mobi format. Disclaimer: it’s illegal to break DRM in many countries. I don’t think anyone’s going to come knocking on your door to check your PC for hacking software (unless they tracked you down for actually uploading your DRM-broken books to pirate sites, which would be wrong of you), but you never know.

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Categories Authors, Reading fiction, Writing news

Letting Amazon pick my books…

January 3, 2010 //
1

One of my reading resolutions was to get over my aversion to be marketed to, and instead actively help Amazon market to me, in the hope of improving my book selections. I started by rating my favourite books over the last few years of reading, and then checked to see what Amazon had for me in the way of recommendations…

Amazon: How about a maths book?

Me: What? Try again.

Amazon: Hmm. Here, have lots and lots and lots of murder-mysteries.

Me: Okay, I said I liked Dorothy L Sayers, but that’s because–

Amazon: All right, Agatha Christie.

Me: I’ve read Agatha Christie. I like Sayers because of the writing and the characters, not the murders–

Amazon: Elizabeth George. People say she writes like Sayers.

Me: Look, let’s switch to some fantasy recommendations, okay?
Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Authors, Reading fiction

My reading resolutions

December 31, 2009 //
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It’s the time of year to make resolutions. 2009 was the year I made a conscious decision that I would stop reading books I wasn’t enjoying, because of the opportunity cost of then not being able to read books I would enjoy more.

Despite this, I still ended up persevering through books I shouldn’t have, and my to-be-read list only grew while I merrily ignored it in favour of picking up new and interesting-sounding titles.

So this coming year, 2010, I’m going to be more systematic and disciplined with my reading. Here’s how.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Authors, Book reviews, Reading fiction

My favourite books of the year

December 18, 2009 //
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As with last year, these are my favourite books of my personal reading year, regardless of publication date.

First, far and away, is The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. I adored this book way back in January and nothing came close to knocking it off its first-place perch all year.

Then there was The Glass Book of the Dream-Eaters, which I was apparently the only person in the world to like, Carter Beats the Devil. And the adorable City of Thieves and the flawed but intriguing Forest of Hands & Teeth.

I also liked Anathem and The Graveyard Book by a pair of Neal/Neils, and Lamb by Christopher Moore. And I discovered David Weber.

Michael Chabon provided me a good run this year, with The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Summerland and Gentlemen of the Road. Chabon has such a sweetly sly sense of humour.

In non-fiction, there was Peter Carey’s narrative non-fiction 30 Days in Sydney, Enough by John Naish, and Birth: A History by Tina Cassidy. Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare was surprisingly solid (hey, his English language books are a bit iffy on the research). And Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial provided a damn good introduction to how the scientific method and clinical trials work while demolishing alternative medicine. Michael Chabon gets another mention for his essay collection Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands. Lastly, The Devil’s Picnic was an enjoyable exploration of forbidden substances from runny cheese to absinthe and From Baghdad with Love had a cute puppy in it.

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Categories Authors, Book reviews

Robert Rankin

June 16, 2009 //
1

Robert Rankin is an author in the same vein as Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Jasper Fforde (the Friday Next series), ie he is a British fantasy humourist. He seems to be lower-key than those other guys (not sure why I can’t think of any female British fantasy humourists off-hand), and indeed, while I feel I must seek out each new Pratchett, I don’t feel obliged to seek out Rankin – but I’m always happy to pick up one of his books.

He tends towards the very fast, absurdist style of humour – if you find British humour a little iffy in general, you probably won’t like Rankin. He’s written in a number of ‘worlds’. Of the trilogy (though this is a trilogy as defined by Adams) I’ve read, the books are set in the real world, where strange things are inevitably happening, usually in the town of Brentford and often involving a talking vegetable named Barry. There are a couple of other series, but characters and many running gags tend to cross over. He also, like Pratchett, enjoys the footnoting.

I would say that while Pratchett is getting less thigh-slapping funny (but more wise) with time and many books, Rankin is actually getting slicker with the jokes and the layering on of set-ups and plots.

If you like British comedy, give Rankin a go. Fast and easy reads, lots of laughs, lots to pick up on if you pay attention, but no actual need to pay attention if you’re not in the mood.

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Categories Authors

Favourites of the year

December 9, 2008 //
3

Today is review day, but since it’s the list time of year and I’m off on holiday for a few weeks, I thought I’d list my favourite fiction and non-fiction reads for this year (my personal reading year, not publication year).

Firstly, there was a cluster of world war books. These were character-driven stories of the people (soldiers and civilians) affected by the two world wars, rather than frontline battle stories. Starting with The Book Thief and ending with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, in between I read Pat Barker’s truly wonderful Booker-winningRegeneration trilogy, Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, the heart-breaking A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry, and Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes (though Charlotte Grey didn’t do it for me).

Favourite genre books this year were the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, Never Let me Go by British-Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro, The Confusion by Neal Stephenson, and Making Money by Terry Pratchett.

Favourite general reads included the light French-village comedy, The Matchmaker of Perigord by Julia Stuart, the classic Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (to say nothing of the dog), and Ishiguro’s gently mournful but touching Remains of the Day. Plus a whole bunch of Jenny Crusie’s backlist.

I had an excellent year for non-fiction: A Friend Like Henry, the story of an autistic boy brought out of his shell through the determination of his mother and the love of his dog; Oliver Sacks’s chemical-focused memoir, Uncle Tungsten; The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, the story of the development of detective myths and fiction in the context of a Victorian-era middleclass murder-mystery; Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca, who explores Gypsy culture and history in Eastern Europe; Friends Like These by the UK master of such stunt ‘boy projects’ (as his now-ex calls them), Danny Wallace; and The Ballard of the Whiskey Robber: a true story of bank heists, ice hockey, Transylvanian pelt smuggling, moonlighting detectives and broken hearts, a funny and tragic account of the Hungarian ‘Robin Hood’ (though he only passed his loot on to the poor through the means of gambling, whoring and drinking…) by Julian Rubinstein.

No posting for a few weeks. Have a good holiday period, everyone, and see you in the new year.

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Categories Authors, Book reviews

Stanza for the iPhone or iPod Touch: affordable ebook reader

October 30, 2008 //
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I’m a big supporter of the somewhat shaky ebook revolution (as you might expect, given my books are primarily electronic, with the printed version available as an afterthought). However, up until now I did not own any ebook reader device.

One, they’re not widely available in Australia (we’re not getting the Kindle any time soon, that’s for sure; neither is Libya, where I currently live), and two, they’re phenomenally expensive for something that does just the one thing. I know this is something that has put off many people (the other major factor being the entirely understandable attachment to tactile books).

Apple to the rescue! Or more accurately, Lexcycle to the rescue, with their wonderful Stanza application for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. One free download from the iTunes store to my partner’s ever-versatile Touch, and all of a sudden, we have an ebook reader that can handle pdfs and all the ebook ‘standards’ (when there’s five or six formats, you can’t really claim a standard).

Two caveats: one, you need wi-fi internet to transfer books over to the iPhone/Touch, and two, if you buy a lot of books through major ebook vendor Fictionwise, you may find you have protection issues – DRM problems – and will have to use their own ebook reader for iPhone or iPod Touch (find it in the iTunes store).

(Self-plug alert! My own book, After the Dragon is available in multi-format from Fictionwise and its associated sites (like ebookwise) and you won’t have any DRM issues.)

The other major factor slowing uptake of ebooks (aside from the love of the print version, expense of the reader, and the hassles with formats and DRM – I speak as an author here when I say, for the love of god, drop the protection, it just interferes with honest folks’ ease of use; pirates were never going to pay for the product in the first place)…where was I (damn these long-winded bracketed asides)? Oh yes, the other major barrier is the cost of ebooks themselves, which is usually the same or or not much less than the cost of the printed book.

The biggest cost of producing a book is in printing, distribution and delivery (you’d think paying the writer would be a major cost but no). For the price of a paperback book, at least half of that goes to the bookstore (real-life or online store); of the rest, a fair proportion is the cost of printing the book and storing it or getting it to the store’s warehouse so they can sell it to you. Ebooks take those costs away (‘distributing’ it – hosting it on a online bookstore’s website – still costs significantly).

Now, publishers point out the labour costs associated with producing an ebook in up to eight (eight! Tell me again there’s a ‘standard’) different formats. To which I say: that’s an upfront one-off cost for the title, same as preparing the print file (also, if your labour costs are that high when producing different versions of an electronic file, you need to look into automation procedures, my friend), whereas printing and distribution costs are per copy of a printed book, not per title.

Yes, ebooks aren’t free to produce, but once produced, they have minimal additional cost – except for the advertising and distribution, and maybe publishers need to be honest and admit that instead of crying pity on labour costs (after all, the most labour comes from the author, and yet they’re not seeing any additional royalties from ebooks; I’m talking about major publishers, I have a fair deal with my own small publisher).

And let’s not leave the distributors out of my sweeping condemnation: since online bookstores have reduced physical warehousing, leasing and stocking costs, they could probably re-think their pricing structure to give ebooks a fair chance.

It’s time ebook prices started reflecting the savings, especially if the fledgling industry is to follow the music industry into the bright shiny age of bits.

(Self-plug alert! After the Dragon is available for $4 or less from Fictionwise, Books for a Buck or Amazon Kindle – my money’s where my mouth is on this issue: ebooks should be substantially cheaper than printed books).

I don’t think ebooks are going to beat out print books: I think they should be an easy way of reading a book and then deciding if it’s worth getting the print version (there’s plenty of books I’ve read for free out of the library and then bought my own copy; the same process works with ebooks). They’re convenient, especially for travellers and holiday-makers; they’re good for the environment (iffy argument; the ereader is pretty damaging to produce in the first place – but then that’s why a multi-function device like the iPhone is great); they don’t take up physical space; they’re economical (or should be); they can be borrowed from public libraries (maybe not yet in Australia) or paid online libraries…

…and they can be read on your iPhone or iPod Touch with Stanza.

Added Nov 23 2008: Books on Board have now added instructions for buying their Stanza-compatible books directly in the iPhone or iPod Touch (but you’ll still need a wi-fi connection to be able to get to the website).

Added Sep 16 2009. This is a very popular entry. If you want to know the best way to read a book on Stanza, click here.

***shameless self-promotion***

My books are cheap, DRM-free, and not limited to any region. Check them out if you like character-driven fantasy fiction, or if you’re moving overseas and want some organisational help, or if you just want a cheap and easy way to try out Stanza or another ebook reader.


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Categories Authors, Book reviews, The philosophy of writing

Nation by Terry Pratchett

September 23, 2008 //
3

I haven’t had a chance to read this yet, but I’m being lazy with my reviews this week, and linking to The Guardian‘s review, here. Sounds excellent.

My real reason for posting on it this week is because of the recent talk given by pTerry at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, in which he discusses both Nation and the book he is currently writing. It’s interesting for beginner writers to hear professional writers talk about writing: talking about, for example, really enjoying writing a scene (that’s right! All editing advice to the contrary, a scene can be good even if you had fun writing it…you don’t have to kill all your darlings) and talking about their characters as if these fictional creations had an independent life.

The link’s here, and it’s good listening for fans, for writers, and for anyone interested, really (Nation is not a Discworld book and should appeal to a broad audience, both children and adults).

Nation will be published in Australia on 1 October. Interested? Buy the hardback from Fishpond.com.au for less than paperback price!

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Categories Authors, Book reviews, The writing life

Congratulations to Connie Willis

September 8, 2008 //
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Who I have previously lauded as one of my favourite authors, and who has just won yet another Hugo for her novella All Seated on the Ground. You can read the full text here, as provided by the original publisher, Asimov’s.

I note she is STILL working on All-Clear, as has been the case for several years now. Connie, don’t make me put you on the Martin and Lynch pile.

Congratulations, too, to the team (particularly writer Moffet and the actress who plays Sally) at Doctor Who for winning for Blink…but really, was there ever any doubt that that particular episode, which barely even has the Doctor in it, was going to win? The angels have the phone box!

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Categories Authors
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