Tag: books

Mailvox: the line between F and SF

An SFWA author writes concerning the upcoming SFWA election:

 I voted for you and my ballot’s going out tomorrow in the mail. I thought your opening statements were hilarious! Outlandish, too….  But anyway I liked most of your ideas for SFWA.

The idea of establishing two Nebula awards — one for SF and one for F is really over the top. They overlap. Just as a good story also overlaps with dark elements. (Which we politely do  not refer to as “horror” but it is.) This is the main reason I’m writing you –I’d like to know just how you would possibly chop SF & F in half –when novels and stories contain elements of both. “Hard” sf isn’t the only definition of Science Fiction. “Hard SF” implies that there is some explicit element of science explained within the story or novel (which Landis and Haldeman do well) but it’s not the only element and anything we imagine becomes fantasy.

This was my response:  In answer to your question, those nominating a novel for a Nebula Award would be expected to indicate that they considered the nominated work to be either F or SF as part of the nomination process.  A novel that received both SF and F nominations would have both types of nominations counted but would be put up for the award in the category that received the most nominations, assuming that it received enough combined nominations to qualify.  If the author happened to disagree with the categorization and the difference between the two categories was between one and three nominations, then the category would be switched at the author’s request.

Obviously, if everyone nominates something that is clearly Fantasy and the author prefers it to compete in the Science Fiction category because he believes he is the second coming of Isaac Asimov or because he thinks it will be easier to beat out Star Trek 562: Spock Takes a Nap than the most recent rewrite of a Brontë novel published by Tor Books, there would be no reason to accommodate that.

But if a book could be reasonably considered to be either science fiction or fantasy, to such an extent that it is unclear to the readers, there is no reason not to permit the author to determine which category the book most properly belongs.

SF/F Corruption: Part II

I had intended to continue on the SFWA theme with which I began the Corruption in Science Fiction series, but a pair of articles concerning the legitimacy of the bestseller lists caught my attention after being featured on Slashdot over the weekend:

The other day, I received an unexpected phone call from Jeff Trachtenberg, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. He said he wanted to talk about my bestselling book, Leapfrogging. At first, I was thrilled. Any first-time author would jump at the chance to speak with such a high-profile publication. But it turned out Trachtenberg didn’t want to discuss what was in my book. He was interested in how it had made it onto his paper’s bestseller list. As he accurately noted, Leapfrogging had, well, leapt onto the Journal’s list at #3 the first week it debuted, and then promptly disappeared the following Friday.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so thrilled anymore. I was just about to sit down to dinner with my family and now I was being put on the spot to discuss my role in perhaps one of the most controversial practices in the book publishing industry. I was tempted to make an excuse and plead the 5th. But I wound up talking to Trachtenberg several times over the next few days….

Trachtenberg asked me about my experience with a company called ResultSource,
the firm I had hired to help me hit the bestseller list from day one.
Trachtenberg said he had contacted all of the major New York publishers,
but no one would speak to him about the firm or the role of so-called
“bestseller campaigns” in helping authors reach the coveted status. No
comment. Dead silence.

I can’t say I was eager to be the first person to go on the record
about the topic. But then I realized something – Trachtenberg’s
surprising phone call was an opportunity to live up to what I urge my
readers to do in my book Leapfrogging.  I’ve seen the phenomenon of corporate silence repeatedly in my
career. There’s a big, smelly, ten thousand pound elephant in the
conference room. Everybody knows it’s there, but no one’s willing to
take the risk and point it out. As Trachtenberg was discovering,
bestseller campaigns are the unacknowledged pachyderm of the book
business.

There’s good reason why most industry insiders would prefer that the
wider book-buying public didn’t learn about these campaigns. Put
bluntly, they allow people with enough money, contacts, and know-how to
buy their way onto bestseller lists. And they benefit all the key
players of the book world. Publishers profit on them. Authors gain
credibility from bestseller status, which can launch consulting or
speaking careers and give a big boost to keynote presentation fees. And
the marketing firms that run the campaigns don’t do so bad either.

This sort of thing is hardly a new practice; the Scientologists kept L. Ron Hubbard’s books on the bestseller lists for years this way.  Nor is it a surprise to know that there is some hinky business going on behind the scenes at the New York Times; there usually is, and the NYT has gone to great lengths to keep hidden the method it uses to determine its bestsellers.  But it is a little surprising to see that all of the major New York publishers appear to be involved in this practice, at least to the extent that they are unwilling to openly deny that they utilize such tactics in order to market their books.

Now, upon reading this, my thoughts immediately went to a particular publisher of science fiction and fantasy, which just happens to be a publisher that appears to place an inordinate energy of effort into winning awards.  It also loves bestseller lists; here is Tor congratulating itself on its many bestseller listings in 2010 and 2011.

Tor was particularly pleased by its 2011 showing, in which its “30 New York Times bestselling books this year” annihilated their “2010 release list of 20 bestsellers”.  Interestingly enough, however, the Publishers Weekly list of the 115 bestselling fiction novels for 2011 shows precisely one Tor book on its list: The Omen Machine. Terry Goodkind. Tor (108,809).

After reading this, it also occurred to me that despite McRapey’s tale of the starship ensigns who were expendable hitting #15 on the New York Times bestseller list, Redshirts not only didn’t show up in PW’s list of science fiction bestsellers for last year, it’s only #6 on Tor’s own list of its top sellers, behind the immortal Imager’s Battalion by L. E. Modesitt, presently ranked 19,446 on Amazon a month after its release.  And despite being “a New York Times bestseller”, according to Publisher’s Weekly, Redshirts didn’t even make the top ten in the science fiction category in 2012, coming in behind at least three other Tor novels and a novel published in 1965.

Science Fiction

1. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Tor. 100,387
2. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Broadway. 50,593
3. Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. Lucas Books. 31,543
4. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Del Rey. 27,220
5. Star Wars: Apocalypse by Troy Denning. Lucas Books. 26,140
6. Dune by Frank Herbert. Ace. 25,532
7. A Rising Thunder by David Weber. Baen Books. 25,348
8. HALO: The Thursday War by Karen Traviss. Tor. 24,936
9. HALO: Glasslands by Karen Traviss. Tor. 24,932
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Ballantine. 24,120

That doesn’t denigrate McRapey’s achievement in selling so many copies of a derivative and mediocre novel, but merely points to the varying degrees of what is claimed to be a “bestseller”.  (One can, indeed, one should have contempt for McRapey as an SF author, but he is without question the finest self-marketer and stunt writer in SF/F today, even if he hasn’t reached the mainstream heights of AJ Jacobs.)  On a tangential note, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the sickly state of science fiction to see how many of its current and confirmed bestsellers are either works derived from games and movies or original works first published between 30 and 50 years ago.  Regardless, the fact is that most of Tor’s “New York Times bestsellers” observably fit what we are informed is the profile of the fake bestseller.  They appear on the list for a single week, only to vanish the following week, never to make another appearance there again.

Here is another observable anomaly.  According to John Scalzi himself, Redshirts sold 26,604 copies in 2012.  That’s very good by today’s standards, especially for a hardcover, but it falls considerably short of the 100,047 copies of Neal Stephenson’s Reamde sold, which novel PW reports as being the 115th-bestselling book of 2011.  And yet, Reamde spent only one more week in the top portion of the NYT bestseller list than Redshirts, (ranking 4 and 12 vs 15) despite selling nearly four times more copies.  Is the latter ranking credible, especially in light of what we now know about major publishers gaming the bestseller lists?  And how did Tor/Forge manage to produce “30 New York Times bestselling books” when only one was listed among the top-selling 115 books published that year?

Keep in mind that The War in Heaven sold 35,000 copies and I never thought that it was anything remotely close to a bestseller.  (It probably could have sold more, thanks to the brilliant Rowena cover, but that was the print run, which sold out.  I’m still convinced that what killed that series was Pocket’s foolish decision to do their own imitation Left Behind cover for Shadow rather than leaving it up to Rowena and me.  I still have the sketch somewhere; it was going to be an awesome painting of Mariel and Melusine in combat.) 

None of this conclusively proves that Tor Books is engaging in the questionable marketing tactics mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article, but it certainly raises some serious questions about the legitimacy of its claimed “bestsellers”, just as there are serious questions about the literary legitimacy of its infrequently reviewed, modestly-selling Nebula-nominated novels, such as, for example, its two 2012 nominees: Ironskin (64 reviews, 3.5 rating, #35,470 in Books) and Glamour in Glass (18 reviews, 4.3 rating, #409,451 in Books).

Because, after all, nothing says “science fiction” like tedious derivatives of Jane Eyre and Jane Austen.

Mailvox: still relevant

While I tend to largely forget about past books in favor of a) the most recent one, and, b) those I’m currently writing, it’s nice to occasionally be reminded that people are still reading the older ones.  SA writes of his recent encounter with TIA:

Nietzsche’s famous response to his critics was, “Swallow your poison; for you need it badly.” There are realizations that begin by tasting a bit like poison, but end up being just the medicine we need. Vox Day’s book is like that — atheists will instinctively hate it at first, not just because of its content but also because of its ironic writing style. “Poison pen” it may sometimes be; but it’s exactly the sort of “poison” they really need. As anyone who can think philosophically, or even anyone with an ounce of common sense knows, atheism is inherently irrational, since it depends on claiming certainty about a matter it obviously could never know for certain.

Day calls the atheist bluff. Teeing off on some of the chief proponents of irrational atheism today — Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Onfray in particular — the author debunks their empty rhetoric with the simplest of weapons: facts. Particularly good is the author’s treatment of the old canard “religion causes wars,” for which he provides so much counter-evidence that the reader is left wondering why anyone ever thinks such a thing is true. He simply takes the atheists at their word, and tests their claims against the available evidence.

In a way, it’s unfortunate that Day resorts so often to the ironic tone, because opponents will be all too quick to jump on that stylistic feature and claim the author is a mere stylist without substance. That charge would be untrue, and a more calm tone might prevent that, showcasing the evidence rather than the rhetorical flourishes. However, flamboyancy and irony of tone have never stopped atheists from loving Nietzsche or uncritically embracing the random rhetoric of mere stylists like Harris or Dawkins, so their objections might be a trifle hypocritical.

On the good side, Day’s book is immensely readable, and at times is simply laugh-out-loud entertaining. You can dash through it in a night, and indeed, it’s hard to stop reading once you start. The central argument is not a scholarly approach so much as a popularly-accessible one; but that does not diminish the ultimate seriousness of the arguments advanced therein. Anyone who is already a theist, or anyone who is still seriously thinking about the atheism-theism debate can find in this book a helpful resource for casual debate. But the atheist “faithful” who have already closed their minds to the evidence may simply find it teeth-grindingly irritating.

It probably won’t escape anyone’s attention that the New Atheism is done, having mutated into helpless silence in the face of Islam on the one hand and A+ feminism on the other.  It’s remarkable to see that women can even ruin atheism; it’s a tactic that we theists should have utilized long ago.  After all, the sort of mind that is prone to atheism in the first place is going to be particular susceptible to cries of “sexism” and “racism”, and there are few groups more male and white than a gathering of atheists.

SA’s point that rhetorical flourishes can detract from the dialectic arguments is an accurate one, but the problem is that they are necessary for the majority who are not capable of following the dialectic arguments.  What TIA exposes, in crossing the rhetorical divide, is that there is very little but rhetoric in most of the New Atheist arguments, which is why a dispassionate dialectical critique would have been an error and left its atheist readers unmoved.  The venom and the spite with which so many atheist reviewers have responded to TIA over the years is proof of its effectiveness in that regard.

It’s also good to see SA single out what has probably been the primary accomplishment of TIA, which was the conclusive debunking of the “religion causes war” line.  We’ve seen less and less of that ever since TIA came out, and the historical evidence has even begun to creep into scientific journals such as Nature.  While I have no doubt that the Left will do everything it can to be sure I am never credited with having successfully demolished that line of attack against religion in general and Christianity in particular, (it’s amusing to see all the references to a $300 encyclopedia that it is perfectly clear no one has even seen, let alone read), I’m very pleased to see that mendacious, but rhetorically effective argument increasingly absent from the atheism-religion discourse.

And SA’s email is a useful reminder that as long as atheists attempt to rely upon the arguments it criticizes, TIA will remain relevant.

A new blog and some book reviews

Zero Sum inaugurates his new blog with a review of A THRONE OF BONES:

This book is monumental. The sheer size of the hardback version is simply staggering. On the cover, there is an intricate array of bronzed scrollwork surrounding a skull. Its quality, finish, and attention to detail are readily apparent. It sits on my bookshelf and carries a commanding presence that is only rivaled by Webster in mass, and very few in quality. Each chapter has a header using the skull and some artwork, it’s a nice touch.

But you don’t buy the book for its cover, so onto the details. The book uses multiple points of view throughout the book highlighting and interlocking web of storylines…. The book to me was initially very complex, between the characters, terrain, alliances, politics and military strategy.

I should probably mention that the second print run of the hardcover does not feature the skull from the cover as a chapter heading, but replaces it with new artwork by the cover artist featuring a pair of wyverns with their tails intertwined.  The dustjacket is also now gloss rather than matte, and the errata from the first run has been corrected.

Didact’s Reach reviewed the novel and actually found it superior to Martin’s series.  I wouldn’t go that far myself, but it’s certainly encouraging to know that it at least merits the comparison.

I’ve read every one of the books in A Song of Ice and Fire, and this beats the pants off all of them. Even A Storm of Swords. Seriously. It’s that good.

This book works because it doesn’t pretend to be more than it is- an epic historical fantasy novel. The utterly depressing and frankly pointless moral nihilism of ASOIAF is nowhere to be found; in its place is a powerful and uplifting vision of faith and republican virtue, challenged as it is on every side by civil war, dark magic, and loss of faith. The frankly ludicrous “realistic” sex scenes in ASOIAF are thankfully nowhere to be found here; in fact, the sex is kept largely out of sight, which I think is a good thing, as it reduces the number of distractions significantly. It doesn’t try to do anything other than tell a truly epic story. And if you’re an avid reader of historical fiction and non-fiction, of the Ross Leckie/Robert Harris variety, then you’re in for a real treat.

ATOB is set in the same intriguing fictional world of Selenoth as SE, a world that fuses the best traditions of the ancient Roman Republic with many of the ideas of the Christian Church as embodied by the Holy Roman Empire. The world is both strange and familiar, and as a literary device, I have to say, this is damned effective. I’ve read my share of Roman history too, so I really appreciated the little details that Vox put into the book. For instance, the scene in which Valerius Corvus observes the “coronation” (if that is the correct word) of the new Holy Father is exactly what I would expect from the martial and spiritual traditions of a Roman Republic, where god-kings were cast aside in favour of Republican rule, combined with the clear separation of Church and State that is a founding principle of Christian theology. The battle scenes are particularly effective displays of Vox’s thorough command of military history; he switches almost effortlessly between individual perspectives of the horror of battle to large-scale tactical views of the conflicts, without losing coherence or purpose.

This thread at r/Fantasy is more than a little amusing.  I’m really enjoying “A Throne of Bones.” Best not to read about the author first. It’s a delight to see the always-open minds of the fantasy-reading rabbits at work. I particularly enjoyed this remark: “I just googled the guy and I already hate him.” But I quite appreciate reluctant praise from those who dislike or even despise me, as it is arguably the most meaningful.

Allusions of Grandeur also reviewed the book, but you may want to think twice about reading the review as it does contain a spoiler or two despite the reviewer’s apparent desire to avoid them.

A Throne of Bones is a long, remarkably dense work of fiction.  That it is well-written and compelling helps to hide this fact, especially when you read this in the Kindle format, for once you start reading, it is very difficult to stop.  As such, the sheer entertainment value coupled with Vox’s need to constantly propel the plot forward at a rather fast clip (much like what you would expect from the TV show 24), makes this book seem shorter than it is.

I will not attempt to summarize the plot, as a) I don’t want to reveal spoilers and b) doing so would almost be a novel unto itself.  Nonetheless, the plot of this book revolves primarily around war, and most of the subplots revolve around this as well.

What makes this book both an entertaining and fascinating read is that Vox draws on his rather tremendous depth of knowledge and literary theory to create a world that is quite imaginative and “realistic,” which is in turn populated with characters that are interesting, sympathetic, and multi-dimensional…. a good portion of the plot conflicts are moral conflicts, which make the
conflicts meaningful.  The characters are not random actors that exist
simply as plot devices.  Rather, they are characters with their own
beliefs, motivations and moral codes.  Whether you agree with any given
character’s motivations or not, you cannot deny that any given
character’s motivations are what make the story so compelling.  In fact,
the constant moral conflict found with Marcus Valerius is what makes
him such a compelling character.  Watching him struggle with him
adjusting his theological studies to the real world of war causes you to
sympathize with him.

And what do you do with witches?

“The thesis of The World Until Yesterday is that we in
industrialized societies have much to learn from people who make (or
recently made) their living by hunting-and-gathering or small-scale
farming.”
– National Public Radio on Jared Diamond’s latest ode to the primitive life in Papua New Guinea

“A young mother was tossed screaming on to a pyre of tyres and burned alive after being accused of killing a neighbour’s six-year-old son with sorcery.  Kepari Leniata, 20, ‘confessed’ after she was dragged from her hut, stripped naked and tortured with white-hot iron rods.  She was then dragged to a local rubbish dump, doused in petrol and, with hands and feet bound, thrown on a fire of burning tyres. As the mother-of-two screamed in agony, more petrol-soaked tyres were thrown on top of her….  The tragedy unfolded after Miss Leniata’s young neighbour fell sick on Tuesday morning. He complained of pains in the stomach and chest and was taken to Mt Hagen hospital where he died a few hours later. Relatives of the boy were suspicious that witchcraft was involved in the death and learned that two women had gone into hiding in the jungle.  After they were tracked down, the pair admitted they practised sorcery but had nothing to do with the boy’s death. Miss Leniata, they said, was the person responsible.”
– Mail Online

Clearly we have a lot to learn from such a simple and noble way of life. I don’t know about you, but I find it more than a little amusing that the poster boy for modern pop science is advocating a Rousseauean idealization of a state of nature that happens to include the great historical secular bugaboo, witch-burnings.  As I have repeatedly pointed out, far from being progressive, secular post-Christianity is more regressive than 7th century Islam.  It’s ultimately a return to the mores of precivilized paganism.

Saruman: the misunderstood hero

Adrian Simmons presents an interesting and unusual take on The Lord of the Rings:

The more you know about Sarumon, the more sympathetic to his situation you become. He is the first picked to go, and the first to arrive in Middle-earth. He journeys to the east with Aratar and Pollombo, and those two don’t return (not much is said about the blue wizards, but honestly I get the feeling they kind of flake out altogether — a very real danger with volunteers who get to bring their friends along).

But Sarumon’s always second fiddle. Right from the start Varda makes it clear that he’s not in charge, and later when the White Council is formed, Galadriel doesn’t want him in control of that august body either. And he learns that that weenie Gandalf (who comes to Middle-earth one hundred years later) gets one of the three rings of power the day he freaking lands. Ugh! The humiliation! You’d retreat to the fastness of your ancient tower, too.

Sarumon’s activities are not well defined, but there are hints that he tangles with ring wraiths, and he is in the thick of it when the White Council goes to Dol Guldur to deal with the Necromancer. After Dol Guldur, he withdraws a bit, but even then he is still working on the Sauron problem, and his solution is as awful as it is cunning. You have to keep in mind, he’s come to Middle-earth, he fights the good fight (for over a thousand years), stress causes his hair to turn from black to white, he gets the keys to Orthanc, and he discovers the palantir. And after Dol Guldur is where the Big Plan starts.

And here is the tragedy of it all, as Sauron and Sarumon were co-workers back in the day, they have a remarkably similar ‘corporate culture’, and a pretty similar worldview — and this is why the wise don’t really want Sarumon in charge — because his answer to Sauron will be to become Sauron, Ring or no.

Sauron, of course, knows all this, and that’s why it is so easy for him, via the palantir, to pluck at Sarumon’s pride and ensure that, like the gung-ho fireman, he overestimates his own abilities and underestimates the situation, and his teammates have to burn valuable time and resources bailing him out.

And since Sarumon can’t force Men or Elves to fight his Big War, he comes up with the idea of the half-orcs/Urik-hai. The injunction by the gods? Doesn’t say shit about orcs, does it? Hell no it doesn’t! So, really, it was only a matter of time before Saruman realized that he could raise an army of his own orcs to take on Sauron’s. Give him another hundred years and he won’t need the damn Men or the Elves. It really has a whole Stalin vs. Hitler vibe, doesn’t it?

I guess it just goes to show that no one likes a “letter of the law” guy.  Wizard or no.  Read the rest at The Black Gate.

A MAGIC BROKEN free on Amazon

I also posted this notice on Helen’s Page, which is rapidly turning out to be a rather useful online bulletin board for the liberty-minded.

The novella A MAGIC BROKEN is free for Amazon Kindle users today and tomorrow.

It has 78 reviews, including this 5-star one:

“This is a short book, and I understand it is intended to introduce
some characters and setting for Vox Day’s upcoming book “A Throne of
Bones.” I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once it gets going, it is hard to put
down. I highly recommend it, especially if you are weary of the typical
book in the fantasy genre that goes on and on and on and never comes to a
conclusion. You won’t be disappointed in your purchase, and you will be
excited to read the next book.”

A better class of fake review

One has to respect that at least Zoidy went to the trouble of buying the Kindle version before writing his fake review.

Boring! Very much a Warhammer novel (with the license), January 25, 2013

By Zoidy, Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a terrible book. Slow, tiresome, boring!

It’s pointlessly
wasteful with pages upon pages of characters writing letters that say
nothing! Of characters that spend ungodly amounts of time internalising
about simple issues like whether to put their cloak on to go outside!
What’s the weather like?! Who might see them outside?! Will they catch a
chill…and on and on! This is horrible writing.

Also, thanks to the Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40k worlds for providing pretty much most of what this author has written.

Note to the next fake reviewer: it’s more convincing if you actually read the book.  And noticing the absence of any brand logos or laser guns would also help.  Of course, actually reading the book sort of defeats the purpose of the fake review, doesn’t it?  If Zoidy thinks A Throne of Bones has pages of pages of letters – about 12 out of 854 – I’d hate to imagine what he’d conclude of Pat Wrede’s Sorcery and Cecilia, which I am given to understand is a Vampire Diaries-licensed novel.

I should be absolutely fascinated to learn what elements of the Warhammer 40k universe are present in the novel.  I don’t know whether to be flattered or appalled that people are actually willing to pay money in order to publicly trash my work.  But it occurs to me that this may open up whole new horizons in the honorable profession of getting paid to not write….

Jared Diamond and the Grass Hut Imperative

At least there is one left-liberal who is honest about his heartfelt desire to return to the Great Grass Hut Matriarchy:

….The World Until Yesterday, a vanity project marketed as anthropology. In this book, Diamond draws from his extensive field research in New Guinea to share his views on the shortcomings of contemporary American society. Primitive approaches to social problems, he thinks, would better serve our society. For example, he argues for: dedicating more resources to mediation as an alternative to civil lawsuits, establishing “conventional monopolies” to smooth out trade fluctuations, deemphasizing competition and the desire for excellence among children, on-demand nursing for infants, spending more time talking to our children, devising new living conditions for the elderly, accepting that the gulf between rich and poor in the United States provides an explanation of the popularity of religion in our country, preserving language diversity, and ending obesity.

At its core, the book is based on a fundamental contradiction. Diamond explains that the customs of primitive societies are not applicable to the characteristics of our society; then he proceeds to use those customs as the basis for recommendations for improving everything in our society from parenting to diet.

Apparently it’s not enough that we’re basing our trade policy upon early 19th century illogic, our monetary system upon early 20th century fraud, our economic system upon Depression-era nonsense, and our immigration policy upon a play written by a Jewish immigrant to Britain in 1908, Diamond wants us to go all the way back to cannibalism, huts, and throwing rocks at one another.

What I don’t understand is why?  I mean, they don’t actually ever go and live in Papua New Guinea or Deepest, Darkest Africa themselves, so why do they think that the primitive lifestyles that they favor should be imported and imposed upon the West?