Tag: books

It should be fascinating to learn how the forward-thinkers at the SFWA, whose two most recent presidents have staunchly and repeatedly denied that there was any need for authors to be concerned about imminent changes in the publishing industry related to ebooks, deal with the news that the major publishers appear to be moving away from contractually obligating themselves to release print versions of the books they publish:

The idea that any standard deal from a major
publisher guarantees a print format release—which was previously a
foregone conclusion—is something agents no longer take for granted, with
some expressing concern that the big houses are starting to hedge on
print editions in contracts.

While e-book-only
agreements are nothing new—all large publishers have imprints that are
exclusively dedicated to digital titles—a handful of agents, all of whom
spoke to PW on the condition of anonymity, said they’re worried that
contracts from print-first imprints will increasingly come with clauses
indicating that the publisher makes no guarantee on format. The agents
say this is a new twist to the standard way of doing business….

One of the difficulties with reporting on changes
to book publishing contracts is that all new contracts, as Applebaum
rightly noted, are open to negotiation. However, there are standards of
doing business, and the agents speaking out said they feared that if
vague language about format begins to crop up on a regular basis, they
will need to start advocating for a format they were universally
guaranteed in the past.

Despite their dismay,
agents and other insiders who spoke to PW said they were not necessarily
surprised by the move, given the current marketplace. There is growing
pressure on publishers to release books quickly, and to do so in the
formats that will bring in the most revenue. Because so many book deals
are made well in advance of the titles’ release dates, publishers have
always had to gauge the future relevancy of topics and authors. Now
publishers also have to attempt to anticipate the future
bricks-and-mortar landscape when signing contracts. As some insiders
explained, it’s a very different situation when the question goes from,
“How many copies will Barnes & Noble take?” to “Will Barnes &
Noble be around?”

It’s hard to distinguish between great novels and great novelists. There are those who are great due to their ability to consistently deliver very good novels, but never write a truly great novel. And then there are those who wrote one great novel and never again approached such heights.  Regardless, in this list, I’m again applying the one book per author rule.

There are almost certainly books that belong on this list that are not there, but because this is my personal list, only novels that I have read are included.

1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
2. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
3. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4. The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu
5. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
6. The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse
7. If On a Winter’s Night A Traveler, Italo Calvino
8. Watership Down, Richard Adams
9. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
10. The Code of the Woosters, P.G. Wodehouse

I understand it is customary to put James Joyce first and I have read three of his books. Ulysses, in particular, is a grand achievement, but it fails in the primary purpose of the novel, which is to entertain. In my opinion, it is a work of great technical virtuosity rather than great literature; to give it pride of place here would be akin to declaring that an extended guitar solo was the greatest rock song.  In contrast, the literary pyrotechnics of Calvino do not substitute for the entertainment aspect, they have the effect of enhancing the reader’s pleasure.

The Tale of Genji is massively underrated in the West, both as entertainment and as a historic literary achievement. It is quite possibly the first true novel and it is the most alien fiction you can possibly read, given the temporal and cultural distance between the reader and the author, an imperial lady-in-waiting of the Heian court circa 995.

Umberto Eco is fantastic in English, and he’s even more spectacular in Italian. In fact, one of the reasons I learned Italian was so that I could read him in the original. (Always intended to read Hesse in German as well, but I never got to quite that level.) Perhaps my subscription to the conspiracy theory of history is one reason I rate Foucault’s Pendulum so highly, but I stand firmly by my high regard for Eco. Everything he writes is excellent, even the nostalgic, self-indulgent The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.

If there is a theme concerning what I consider greatness in literature, it is the novel’s depth of commentary on the human condition. I value substantive thoughts on this matter much more highly than mere technical prose mastery. Others may disagree, and some will no doubt find my preferences indicative of my own limitations, but of the books on the list, only Calvino, and to a lesser extent, Wodehouse, can be reasonably described as a true masters of style.

The inclusion of The Code of the Woosters is perhaps the most dubious proposition on the list. I’m including it because Wodehouse delved much more deeply into human psychology than a superficial glance at his light-hearted, endlessly amusing work would indicate, because it is one of the few Wodehouse novels that has some political bite to it, and because humor is far and away the most difficult kind of fiction to pull off. I admit, however, that one could reasonably cite Wodehouse as an example of the great novelist sans a truly great novel. But in my opinion, his only serious rival as the greatest humorous writer in history is Douglas Adams.

I can’t say that I’m too concerned about the news that the bushwhackers at the bookstores attempting to clean out the erotic filth have been cutting too wide a swath. It’s their right to sell what they want, to whom they want, and if the leading digital bookstores won’t carry self-published books, they’ll soon find themselves being replaced by new retailers who do. But what I don’t understand is why 50 Shades of Gray, or 120 Days of Sodom, for that matter, all considered acceptable simply because a publisher could be found who was willing to sell it.

The ebookstores are sweeping a wide broom in the process, with WH Smith even going so far as to shut down their website. They have replaced it with a holder page that explains that:

    Last week we were made aware that a number of unacceptable titles were appearing on our website through the Kobo website that has an automated feed to ours. This is an industry wide issue impacting retailers that sell self published eBooks due to the explosion of self publishing, which in the main is good as it gives new authors the opportunity to get their content published. However we are disgusted by these particular titles, find this unacceptable and we in no way whatsoever condone them.

Their statement ends with the conclusion that the website will be operational again “once all self published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available.” When that will be, they did not say.

Update: It appears that WH Smith wasn’t exaggerating when they said that all self-published ebooks were going to go; there are numerous reports that Kobo is removing most if not all of the self-pub titles in their UK ebookstore.

But if you think this is bad, just wait until the bookstores figure out that what passes for YA and Sci-Fi are mostly vampire and werewolf erotica.

Now, this is rather cool. Number two and Number three of the writers named as the Top 10 Living Authors to cary on Tom Clancy’s legacy of military technothriller happen to be our own Standout Authors Tom Kratman and Larry Corriea:

(3) In the world of Larry Correia,
there are werewolves, vampires, and monsters of every shape and size.
Why on Earth would Correia’s writing rank so high on a list about
spiritual successors to Tom Clancy? The reason is that in Correia’s
novels (especially the Monster Hunters series), there is an accuracy
demanded in everything that has a human element. The places are real.
The guns down to the make, model, and ammunition are real. If there ever
was a Zombie Apocalypse,
the novels of Larry Correia should be required reading as a field
guide. It is that type of accuracy in the real world leading to a
confrontation with a fantastic situation that are really the best part
of the Tom Clancy experience in novels. In Clancy’s work, there may not
necessarily be a renegade sub, but the information about the sub had
absolutely better be technically correct. In that aspect, Correia
absolutely gets the detail right.

(2) Tom Kratman was a
native of Massachusetts. Kratman served with the 101st Airborne
division in Panama. Kratman also served with the 5th Special Forces
group during the Iraq War. Kratman is also a lawyer
in addition to being a militaristic science fiction writer. Kratman
often writes in a type of futuristic universe of war based on real
principles. If Tom Kratman had written about the Space Marines in the
movie Aliens,
he would have probably written a training manual and put the actors
through basic training. Kratman will often use futuristic settings to
address issues of the day. The difference is that Kratman will often use
it to espouse conservative views such as in his Polseen War sidestories
of the Legacy of Aldenata series by John Ringo. Try to think of Tom
Kratman as kind of an anti-Gene Roddenberry. If Tom Clancy had been born
in about 200 years, he would be Tom Kratman.

  Big shoes? Perhaps. But the feet are pretty big too.