Children’s author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment/Arts | New Hitchhiker’s author announced.
Of all the daft ideas! Bastardising Hitchhiker’s for a movie I can understand but adding a book that was never written by the Douglas Adams and quite frankly isn’t needed I can’t. I’m genuinely disgusted. Leave it alone.
OF Blog of the Fallen: Yet another post on reviewing epistemology
Reviewing a book is an inexact science. In many ways, reviews are idiosyncratic and they reflect the reviewer’s personality and his/her take on reading. While some might argue that reviews are a take ‘em or leave ‘em affair, many have commented on what they call a “bad” review. When I say a “bad” review, I am not talking about whether or not a book was well-written or not, but rather whether or not the work being reviewed ever really was “reviewed.”
This blog post raises a few interesting questions and it addresses things I do and don’t do in my own reviews. My reviews fall into what this post calls the ABCs (”A) Plot Summary, B) Liked it/Disliked it, C) Short Wrap-up, with nary a citation for those opinions.”). Well I hope I’m a bit more expansive about point C but they pretty much fit this pattern.
I try hard to avoid spoilers because most of the books I read have an element of speculation and intrigue and they are strong part of the enjoyment of the book and I don’t want to flag those in the readers mind more than I have to. The whole Fool Moon is full of potential spoilers so it’s hard to say much about the plot further than what is on the blurb of the book.
And I don’t know if I want to analyse and dissect something unless I’m being negative and need to explain what I had issues with. Reading for me is mostly indulgent and has nothing to do with me wanting to be literary, though I can and often do have literary thoughts. I just don’t think that the types of books I’m interested in need that level of examination. And the books that do have to work on first reading and stand on their own initial merits.
Do reviewers need to be more critical? Should we be justifying ourselves more? Explaining more? What do you think?
In my previous post on ‘ebook displays’ (for won’t of a better term) I forgot to mention the important bit. You buy a real book and you can read it anywhere you like. Not so with an ebook. There is the dreaded DRM (digital rights management) to battle with. I know an ipod has it when you buy music from itunes but I can’t see me changing from itunes at any point soon and I’m more inclined to rip a CD from Tesco’s than download an MP3. Plus my mum was adding music to her Nano the day it arrived even though they only had the computer. That alone makes the ipod/itunes combo a good deal. And they’ve kept the prices low.
The same can’t be said for an ebook. You can’t rip a book the same as a CD so you’re left with the download only option and you have a variety of formats to choose from. The Irex Iliad (and the Cybook Gen3 how did I miss this?) use Mobipocket for their DRM books. Sony Reader is exclusive to Sony Connect. Amazon Kindle is exclusive to Amazon.com (even though it owns Mobipocket!). Not one of them (as far as I can tell) supports Adobe or Microsoft ebook formats (the main ones on WHSmith’s eBookshop).
On top of that I’ve just looked at some prices. It’s just me I’m sure and might be why I’m not a big downloader from itunes (I only get the occasional single) is that if I’m going to spend £8.99 on a CD I’d rather have something for my money rather than a file on my computer and if I’m going to spend £18.99 (£11.00 on Amazon) on the latest William Gibson (which is selling as an ebook for $25.95) I want a nice big hardback.
From the Academi Newsletter:
The following letter recently appeared in the Western Mail .
SIR – The National Library of Wales is currently digitising 90 Welsh periodicals and magazines. This project, Welsh Journals Online, aims to provide “free, online, searchable access” to complete runs of such titles as Barddas and Poetry Wales.
Set up by librarians and academics, the project does not seem to have consulted creative and professional writers or the bodies that represent them.
The project is receiving more than £840,000 in public funding. The Library, though, has not allocated any money for the people who wrote the articles, reviews, stories and poems that make up the magazines. Instead, it hopes that rights holders will allow their material to be used for free.
Writing is work. Professional writers are paid both for their work and for its re-use. In not making provision for the payment of copyright holders, the project is seriously flawed. Until this matter is addressed, writers who want to keep Welsh writing on a professional basis will not allow the National Library of Wales to digitise their work. They include:
| Sam Adams John Barnie Desmond Barry Gillian Clarke Anne Cluysenaar Tony Curtis Stevie Davies Maria Donovan Menna Elfyn Christine Evans Catherine Fisher Matthew Francis Philip Gross Paul Groves Graham Hartill Paul Henry Jeremy Hooker Mike Jenkins Nigel Jenkins Cyril Jones Stephen Knight Gwyneth Lewis Malcolm Lewis Hilary Llywellyn-Williams Gareth Miles Jan Morris Tony Conran Lynne Rees Deborah Kay Davies Richard Marggraf Turley Graham Mort Llwyd Owen |
Patrick McGuinness Christopher Meredith Catherine Merriman Robert Minhinnick Fiona Owen Richard Poole Clare Potter Oliver Reynolds Wil Owen Roberts Owen Sheers Meic Stephens Ifor Thomas Jeni Williams Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch Kevin Mills Duncan Bush Owen Martell Delyth George Harri Pritchard Jones Bethan Gwanas Tiffany Atkinson Angharad Price Sion Eirian Angharad Devonald David Woolley John Goodby Tony Brown Pascale Petit Norman Schwenk Meg Lewis Ioan M. Williams |
To add your name to this list in support of payment for writers, please email Oliver Reynolds: oreynolds@hotmail.co.uk
I had a funny-five-minute-moment today. Whilst watching daytime TV I managed to come across a show called ‘Loose Women’, which is quite a good chatshow, not that I’m an avid fan I hasten to add. Anyway Michael Winner (currently famous for selling car insurance but formally the director of some of the Deathwish films) was plugging his new book Fat Pig Diet. This is the second time I’ve heard about it so i thought I’ll try and track down a copy.
It started at Borders who knew there was four instock somewhere but not sure where. So I was out of luck there. Seeing as I wasn’t in the mood to be beaten so easily I tried my local Asda, which has quite a good selection of bestsellers and high profile books. No sign . Nor was there any sign of a copy in my not so local but very very large Tesco though I did manage to find a very nice coat. Traveling back 7 miles the other way I made a trip into not quite local but not that far away WHSmith who amazingly had a copy in the New shelves.
I know what you’re thinking why didn’t I just give up and order on Amazon (who as an aside have opened their Prime service in the UK allowing you to free one day delivery all year on any item for just £49)? Well it’s nice sometimes to be able to get a bit of instant gratification even if it’s not so instant1
I was quite prepared to go into my not local at all Waterstones and Borders and incur the ludicrous parking charges to get it. It wasn’t the book itself it was the principle of finding a copy of the damned thing.
I am a little behind with my reading pile, which should be no surprise really considering all the marvellous books that there and my reading rate of six books a month. So I might not get through this lot but I’m up for a challenge though it might not be in this exact order.
From last month’s reading pile I have The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. I have a feeling that this is going to stay on the shelf though I really should read this before going to see Stardust, which is itself based on a novel by Neil Gaiman, which itself is based on a comic collaboration between Gaiman and Charles Vess. The Ladies of Grace Adieu is a collection of short stories and I’m hoping that it’ll let me into her style gently before tackling the opus that is Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Might have to read this is in sips.
I’ve previously mentioned Dead Men’s Boots here and I’ve had to wait a month for it to come near the top of the reading pile and I can’t wait any longer. So this is most likely the next review that is going to appear. The third in a the series featuring the exorcist Felix Castor. Mike Carey appears on camera here. You can find a review of the second book here but you really need to start with The Devil You Know. Thanks to Orbit.
Speaking of exorcists. I do have a soft spot for them. It all started when I spotted The Wine of Angels, which kicks off the Merrily Watkins Mysteries series. Merrily Watkins is a Deliverance Minister (exorcist) and parish priest for the town of Ledwardine as well as a single mother. The other thing that draws me into this series is it’s set a few miles from where I grew up on the English/Welsh border. The horror here is more human in nature even though there are supernatual elements. Phil Rickman has created a cast of strong characters and relationships that are the heart of this series. I’ve got The Ghost of a Smile and Remains of an Altar lined up and the ninth book (The Fabric of Sin) has just come out in Hardback.
Two books from Independent Publishers and both firmly English. Firstly, The Pools by debut writer Bethan Roberts and I think what interested me was ‘Middle England, mid-1980s. The kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A fifteen year old boy called Robert has been killed, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled’. Thanks to Serpent’s Tail.
The second is Gents reissued by The Friday Project. The blurb:
Ezekiel Murphy has been out of work for some time so starts up his new job as a toilet attendant with great optimism and enthusiasm. When his fellow workers have to explain to him why he will sometimes see two men leaving the same cubicle he is both shocked and bemused. And when the council clamp down on cottaging in the area they all support the campaign with gusto. However, one month later, with takings down alarmingly the three attendants find their jobs on the line, forcing a radical and quite surprising rethink.
Gents is a genuinely life-affirming novel which addresses the serious issues of race, sexuality and tolerance with skill and humour. Originally published in 1997, it deserves to be viewed as a modern classic.
The Electric Church I’ve also mentioned before. It’s had a lot of reviews already - here, here and here . If I’m honest I’m a little apprehensive as I’m not sure the hype can live up to the book. The blurb:
The fastest growing religion is The Electric Church, and their army of Monks and assassins slowly convert the populus. Unknown to them, this is actually a death sentence. When hit man Avery Cates is tapped for “conversion” he must find a way to slip under the Church’s all-encompassing radar.
There are a couple of others The Waking, also mentioned here. I’ve got the sequel to the wonderful Already Dead, No Dominion, which I’m also excited about. There is more but I’ve run out of time with this post.
More soon.
Now you’d think that all publicity is good publicity right? But what if the publicity department and other associates seem to have the worst email system in the world? So somewhere were between the sending and replying something happens so that no communication takes place?
This is one publisher in particular. All the others be it big or small that I’ve had dealings with are great in their own way.
