Saturday, January 29, 2011

My publisher, Tradewind, tells me that an ebook is in the works. They've never done ebooks before, but obviously this is the year for ebooks, so they're planning to bring someone on.

In the meantime, it's treeware from Amazon!

Labels: distribution

9:42 AM

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Thursday, January 27, 2011

I have wound up with a Kindle. Hunter got one for Christmas from his grandparents, I guess on the theory that maybe he would read books if they were on a screen. But he isn't really a book person. So now I have a Kindle.

As a guy whose family of four has five laptops (one for everybody, and a Macbook Air for travel), the Kindle already seems backwards as a device. No color? Tiny screen? It's easier to read a book on than my iPhone; but my heart yearns for an iPad. On an iPad, I could see two pages at once.

But it is a handy little fellow. I like that I can get something on it immediately. I will likely take it on trips.

What bugs me most is the pricing. Most of the time i buy used books, I get them for seven or eight bucks after shipping. A Kindle book costs ten bucks or more. And there's no real reason for that. Most of the cost of a book is making the book and then distributing the book. A Kindle costs essentially nothing to make and distribute. Amazon is making tons of profit on Kindle books.

It's been the same as the pricing on music. Why does an album cost almost as much on iTunes as on CD?

I guess I feel about the Kindle that this is the 1.0 of something whose 5.0 will be pretty good.

What I'd really love is to figure out how to distribute my review copies by Kindle, to reviewers who have one. Anyone know how I can do that?

Labels: technology

10:01 AM

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Monday, January 24, 2011

I see that you can also order THE CIRCLE CAST from Amazon.com now. Thank you, UK bookstores!

Labels: buying TCC

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Anne Michaud interviewed me for the Young Adult Fantasy Guide about THE CIRCLE CAST and why I've always been drawn to the King Arthur story.

It's always seemed to me that there was a secret story behind the King Arthur legend — the canonical legend as we think of it now. I always thought it was interesting that King Arthur never had any children, but no one ever says anything about that. After all, the main job of a queen is to provide an heir. Guinevere never does provide an heir, with disastrous consequences. But no one ever complains about it. Why?

Well, maybe they know Arthur's not sleeping with her. And so to say anything about it would be to embarrass the King, and everyone loves him so they don't say a peep.

Why won't Arthur sleep with Guinevere? ...

Check the rest of it out here.

9:40 AM

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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

I read the first book in Charles Stross's MERCHANT PRINCES saga, THE FAMILY TRADE. It's about an ordinary gal who works in a hi-tech magazine until -- surprise -- her mum's family medallion whisks her away to another universe, where she is the heir to a vast fortune. Catch: it's a medieval society, and her fortune is made on the backs of the peasants. Oh, and heroin smuggling between the universes.

I'm a big fan of Chuck Stross's science fiction -- SINGULARITY SKY, ACCELERANDO. But this one left me cold. Why?

For one thing, the conceit is heavily purloined from Narnia: the hero is a boring person here, but a crucial person Over (or Under) There. Neil

Gaiman found a way to take the curse off it in NEVERWHERE: his restless, mundane hero makes the mistake of helping a runaway girl from Under There, and soon starts to become a nonentity Over Here. Stross goes another way: his heroine simply makes a series of logical decisions that she is in more danger Over Here and therefore ought to scamper Over There. You hardly want to be transported to a land of magic and wonder because it is the most sensible thing to do.

I wonder if the problem is the great yawning divide between SF and F. Star Wars is Fantasy; the Force is magic. Star Trek is Science Fiction: the science is balderdash but it is still science. When Star Wars tried to explain Annakin Skywalker's talent for the Force -- he had a high midichlorian count? -- it felt like a betrayal of the genre. Stross has created a fantasy premise - magic locket transports those of the Blood -- but then approaches the story rationally, like an SF author. What sort of things would you do if you could walk between the worlds? Open a courier service, natch. You can Fedex things in this world that would take a long tme to travel in that world. You can smuggle huge quantities of drugs, slowly but surely, across the Other World.

Who cares?

This, I think, was my big problem. I felt there was no real emotional issue. Nothing that could only be solved by the heart; nothing without whose solving the heart would remain forever restless.

Dorothy wants to get home.

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE was about kids who were unimportant in this world feeling terribly important in this world. (Oh, and it's an allegory for the last days of Jesus Christ. Sorry.)

I did not know what the main character wanted. Or rather, she wanted too many sensible things. She wants safety. She wants a guy. She wants to liberate the peasants.

Yes, yes, I know.

Give me a heroine who wants one thing. One Big Irrational Thing. Juliet wants Romeo more than life itself. Medea wants revenge. Elizabeth Bennet wants to keep her Pride. (I think. Or is it her Prejudice? I can't remember.)

Guess what Morgan wants?

Labels: reading books

10:10 AM

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Anne Michaud posted a very cool review of THE CIRCLE CAST on the YA FANTASY GUIDE. Pull quote:

It's tough to see such a young Morgan going through this ordeal, but she becomes a warrior, a magician, making every Girl Power adept proud, one of our own. By the end of the book, Morgan's story is relatable - I know, even without any bathrooms or perfume – and we care for her, we understand the hard choices she makes, she feels like a friend. Epstein makes her come alive on the page, and with some great poetic prose, at times. One can hope for a sequel…

I give this book 4 Druids, kudos to the writer for turning such a distant story into a great read.

W00t!

Labels: reviews

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