L’esprit d’escalier

…to be staring down the end of a Friday, knowing that there is no Battlestar Galactica tonight?

Reading Jacob’s final recap (even though he hated the finale), missing it already.

The Hugo Nominees are up!

They’ll be announced at this year’s WorldCon, Anticipation, in August.  The Anticipation site has links to some of the nominated works, here.

But for those of you who want to read the list omgrightnow and dun wanna clicky, here ’tis:

Best Novel

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
• Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
• Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

Best Novella

• “The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
• “The Political Prisoner” by Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008)
• “The Tear” by Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
• “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2)
• “Truth” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)

Best Novelette

• “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s Jan 2008)
• “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
• “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
• “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
• “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)

Best Short Story

• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
• “Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe Oct 2008)
• “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two)
• “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
• “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s Feb 2008)

Best Related Book

• Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press)
• Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art by Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books)
• The Vorkosigan Companion: The Universe of Lois McMaster Bujold by Lillian Stewart Carl & John Helfers, eds. (Baen)
• What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Beccon Publications)
• Your Hate Mail Will be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008 by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)

Best Graphic Story

• The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle Written by Jim Butcher, art by Ardian Syaf (Del Rey/Dabel Brothers Publishing)
• Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
• Fables: War and Pieces Written by Bill Willingham, pencilled by Mark Buckingham, art by Steve Leialoha and Andrew Pepoy, color by Lee Loughridge, letters by Todd Klein (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Schlock Mercenary: The Body Politic Story and art by Howard Tayler (The Tayler Corporation)
• Serenity: Better Days Written by Joss Whedon & Brett Matthews, art by Will Conrad, color by Michelle Madsen, cover by Jo Chen (Dark Horse Comics)
• Y: The Last Man, Volume 10: Whys and Wherefores Written/created by Brian K. Vaughan, penciled/created by Pia Guerra, inked by Jose Marzan, Jr. (DC/Vertigo Comics)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• The Dark Knight Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, story; Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, screenplay; based on characters created by Bob Kane; Christopher Nolan, director (Warner Brothers)
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army Guillermo del Toro & Mike Mignola, story; Guillermo del Toro, screenplay; based on the comic by Mike Mignola; Guillermo del Toro, director (Dark Horse, Universal)
• Iron Man Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, screenplay; based on characters created by Stan Lee & Don Heck & Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby; Jon Favreau, director (Paramount, Marvel Studios)
• METAtropolis by John Scalzi, ed. Written by: Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder (Audible Inc)
• WALL-E Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter, story; Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, screenplay; Andrew Stanton, director (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

• “The Constant” (Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
• Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
• “Revelations” (Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
• “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
• “Turn Left” (Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)

Best Editor, Short Form

• Ellen Datlow
• Stanley Schmidt
• Jonathan Strahan
• Gordon Van Gelder
• Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

• Lou Anders
• Ginjer Buchanan
• David G. Hartwell
• Beth Meacham
• Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Best Professional Artist

• Daniel Dos Santos
• Bob Eggleton
• Donato Giancola
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine

• Clarkesworld Magazine edited by Neil Clarke, Nick Mamatas & Sean Wallace
• Interzone edited by Andy Cox
• Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
• The New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kris Dikeman, David G. Hartwell, & Kevin J. Maroney
• Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fanzine

• Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
• Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
• Challenger edited by Guy H. Lillian III
• The Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia
• Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima
• File 770 edited by Mike Glyer

Best Fan Writer

• Chris Garcia
• John Hertz
• Dave Langford
• Cheryl Morgan
• Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist

• Alan F. Beck
• Brad W. Foster
• Sue Mason
• Taral Wayne
• Frank Wu

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

• Aliette de Bodard*
• David Anthony Durham*
• Felix Gilman
• Tony Pi*
• Gord Sellar*

*(Second year of eligibility)

This might be a good time to re-plug Joe Hill’s Love Your Indie Month contest — go pick up one of the books or magazines nominated for a Hugo from your local indie, send him the receipt, and have your name entered into a drawing for awesome swag.

And, man, check out the nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form — Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Horrible, and two Doctor Who story arcs.  How do voters even begin to choose?

Anyone with any favorites in the categories?  Share ‘em!

The month’s half over, but that by no means makes it a wash.  Joe Hill has declared March Love Your Indie Month, and for that I <3 him mightily.

So hie thee to your local independent bookstore and pick up that book you’ve been eyeing for the past few months, or that one that your friend recommended to you last week that sounded sort of keen.  Or if you don’t have anything in mind, well, hey, what better way to spend an hour than wandering the stacks of a bookstore, looking for something that catches your fancy?

AND because he’s apparently six kinds of bottled awesome, he’s running a Love Your Indie contest.  Shop at an indie bookstore between now and the 31st, email him the receipt and your shipping address, and your name will be placed in a drawing to win something shiny from Mr. Hill himself or from Subterranean Press, who are also awesome and who have also decided to play along.

Don’t know where there’s an indie near you?  Never fear!  Go plug in your zip code at Indie Bound and they’ll find one for you.  If there still aren’t any nearby, most stores participating in Indie Bound have websites you can order through.  And if you’re having trouble choosing one, I’m sure one of us here can offer up some suggestions and recommend one of their own local favorites.  Also, small indie publishers count for this contest as well, so if you see something at Subterranean (or another indie publisher)  that you like, that counts, too.

For myself, I sense a trip to Pandemonium in my near future…

I went away for a few days.  You may or may not have missed me.

I spent a little under a week in Aruba, most of the time with a book in my hand.  It was glorious — sitting on the beach, waves crashing nearby, sun shining down, turning page after page.  Or, when I decided I’d been baking enough for the day, moving to a shadier spot, on the balcony of our room, or closer to the bar/pool area, claiming a lounge chair where the daystar’s rays couldn’t scorch me.

When packing the slew of books, I had some tough decisions to make.  See, the stack o’things to be read is ever-growing.  It’s hard to select just a few of those to come with me on a trip, since I have no idea what I’ll be in the mood for after finishing one book and getting ready to move on to another.

For example, I seem to be on a fantasy kick, but the subgenres’ll get me every time.  I’ve read a lot of … what are the kids calling it these days?  Scoundrel-lit?  Thief-lit?  Rogue-lit?  Call it what you will, I’ve found myself spending time with very many wonderful bastards these last few months — Scott Lynch’s and Joe Abercrombie’s in particular.

But I wouldn’t want to fill my carry-on with that sort of thing, only to find myself on the beach, closing the covers of one bastard novel and suddenly not ready for another just yet.  OR finding that one of the books I’d brought with me in that vein was so good that I can’t even read anything remotely like it for my next book.   That’s happened before, too.  The last book that left me stunned and stung was A Feast for Crows. I don’t think I went anywhere near fantasy for a month after that.  The one before it, I believe was The Historian. No vampire novels for a bit.  Before that, probably The Time-Traveler’s Wife — which left me so shaken and breathless that three days passed before I could seriously start another book.

Also, there needed to be a mix of how challenging the books were.  You can read all heavy novels, sure.  There are times I’ve gone long stretches doing only that, or the opposite, reading a sequence of books that didn’t require very much thought at all.  But again, why stick myself with all works of great denseness and complexity, to find myself wanting something light and no bookstores to be found?

And what about old vs. new?  While the to-be-read pile isn’t dwindling, there are always new shinies in stores omgrightnow.

So, with that in mind, I selected four books to come with, and added a fifth at the last moment.  Adding the fifth was actually a very smart move, it turned out.

The list:

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Iron Angel by Alan Campbell

The Warrior-Prophet by R. Scott Bakker

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The first three I bought in one fell swoop the Monday before we left.  I’d wandered the sf/f shelves, scanning the authors and titles, thinking “Nope, nope, nope, dunwanna, nope…” most of the way. It was one of those trips where I knew there were books there I wanted to read, authors I’ve been meaning to try, but nothing called to me.   Seemed I was working from the end of the alphabet backwards, though, and as I was starting to despair, I hit the Cs and saw Iron Angel. I can’t explain my draw to it.  Weird thing for angels as characters, I suppose, that I’ve never been able to really trace.  I read the back; it seemed interesting.  The cover art was neat.  The first sentence passed muster.  Then there was the blurb — nice things said by Scott Lynch, of the Gentlemen Bastard series.

Thus, it seeded the pile.

I found nothing in horror, and drifted over to the YA section, to see what might be there.  Life As We Knew It had come highly recommended from coworkers and booksellers alike.  Added to the pile immediately.  Then Uglies. I’ve been hearing plenty of good things about it for a long while now.  The author was on a few panels I attended at Worldcon 2004, and I liked him.  Good, okay, three books, take me home.

At home, The Warrior-Prophet was never in question.  It’s one of those books I need long stretches to dedicate to reading it, and here were six days of long stretches.  Just as we were leaving, I feared that those four might not be enough, or that I might suddenly decide I wasn’t in the mood for one of them.  So, The Name of the Wind was rescued from the top of the pile.  I stood a long while in front of my bookshelves, trying to figure out if anything else wanted to come with, if anything demanded a reread, or if a last minute genre craving might strike.  Nothing else jumped out, though, so five it was.

For the most part, I think I made some pretty good choices.  In the order they were read, here’s what I thought:

Life As We Knew It

The premise: an asteroid knocks the moon out of its orbit, pushing it closer to the Earth.  The aftermath unfolds in the pages of a high school girl’s diary.

I was drawn in pretty quickly, since the event happens just a few days after the book opens.  There are tsunamis (the book is set in rural Pennsylvania, out of the water’s reach), volcanoes, food and gas shortages, and a very long winter.  Overall, it was a good book.  My problem with it, as a matter of fact, had nothing to do with the writing or even, really, the story.  I’d say Pfeffer pretty well captured what a sixteen-year-old would be going through when her world’s coming to an end.  I’d absolutely recommend it to someone looking for a good YA book.

So what’s my gripe?  Not enough.  Not in the sense of wanting to know more about those particular characters — the Evans’ story was very complete.  I wanted to know what was going on in the rest of the world — what other natural disasters were occuring? How were people dealing with them?  There was food and gas and electricity in some places; you know this by the end of the book.  How did they get back on their feet?  How would they be rebuilding?  There’s a companion novel, The Dead and the Gone, that might address some of this.  It’s set in New York City, so the characters might be a little more connected to worldwide events than the first book’s narrator was.

Again, this is nothing at all to do with the books and everything to do with my fascination with What Happens When the World Ends.  It’s why I love The Stand so much, why I always end up rereading it.  The brief-lived Jericho handled it well.  Battlestar Galactica. Swan Song.

Would it work in a YA novel?  Sure it would.  But it wasn’t an element that made it into this one on the scale I’d've liked.  We did get a glimpse into some of it, the frantic rush to stock up on food and supplies in the days following, the way no one around town talked about how much food/fuel/clothing they had stored, the idea of who was Family and who was Not.  It’s there, on a small scale.  It simply left me curious as to the larger.

Then came The Warrior-Prophet. I’d read the first book, The Darkness That Comes Before, a while back.  Easy enough to slip back into the world and travel with Achamian, Esmenet, Kellhus and the Holy War on the journey to Shimeh.  I won’t say too much, for fear of spoiling, but I’ll be picking up the third book soon.

After that, I didn’t so much need a break from the heavy as I wanted to give The Warrior-Prophet time to fade a bit before moving on to more sweeping fantasy.  (Though, yes, you could say the Bakker isn’t fantasy in the same subgenre as the Rothfuss or the Campbell, but I still needed something to cleanse the palate, if you will.)

So, Uglies. Setup: when you turn sixteen, you get an operation that makes you pretty.  Your face becomes symmetrical, your eyes widened, lips made full, everything that biology says makes people look at you and want to protect you, be nice to you, like you.  The main character is almost sixteen, awaiting her operation, when she meets a girl who has decided not to go through with it.

Verdict: pretty good.  I’ll most likely be picking up the sequel, Pretties. The worldbuilding’s neat, the characters believable.  My only real gripe is that, early on, the message about what we consider beautiful and why was a little heavy-handed.  But again, a good, quick read for young adults.

And then it was almost time to go home.  I was going to start in on Iron Angel, but I’d missed one important bit on the back of the book:  it’s a follow-up.  So, looks like I need to go off in search of Scar Night before I can read this one.

Which meant it was time for The Name of the Wind. I bought it after someone, somewhere, linked to one of his blog entries.  From there, I checked out the rest of the site, including an excerpt from his debut novel.  I was sold from the first few lines and picked up the book that afternoon.

Then got distracted by other things.

So, I started it while we were waiting for the ride to the airport, and after a day of flying, I’m about halfway through.  I’m reserving judgment still.  The writing is excellent; the story has me hooked.  There’s one element to the tale-telling I’m not sure how to take just yet, though, so until I’ve finished, the jury’s staying out.  But so far, very good stuff.  From what I’ve read so far, I can see why his fans would be clamoring for him to hurry up and finish the next book.

Now I’m home, out of the sun, back to responsibility in the morning and the to-be-read pile growing once more.

Help me add to it!  What’s on your to-be-read pile?

Someone on the Feathermoon forums has decided to prove how cool he/she is, proudly proclaiming how he/she slams customers coming in to buy books in the Twilight series.  I’ve stared at the thread off and on, debating whether or not to get into a forum snarkfest a day and a half before I go away for a week.  However, it’s not worth the headache to me, especially since I’d bet the people who read my post would miss the point and think I was defending the books, not the customers.

Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m not a fan of the Twilight series.  I’ve been subjecting people to sparkly vampire diatribes since before the first book was even officially released.

However, I have to say as a bookseller, if Shiika were my employee, I’d fire him/her.

Here, read the asshattery:

I liked taking the time to secretly open boxes of the third novel and gloss over anything that looked remotely important. When friends who I called in on those late night releases of books three and four traveled around town with spoilers I hand picked myself, announcing to crowds of those fans, I was ecstatic!

and

Spending weeks weeks before the release of the final novel, telling people that Edward kills Bella in the final chapter, and hearing their gasps and wails of disbelief and anger was unendurably exciting. When co-workers threatened me with physical violence if I kept spreading my perfectly rational and well founded hatred of these books, I was at my height!

and in another response

I make it a point to call the books ‘Sparkly Emo Vampire Saga’ to the customer’s faces. And not smile.

His* coworkers condone this?  I’m betting they’re not managers or supervisors, because I don’t know how anyone would allow that childish behavior to continue without some kind of warning.

Calling in your friends to spoil books for the customers, making fun of people when they come in asking for it?  I dunno, I guess that… makes you cool?  Better than they are?  Oh, no, wait.  It just makes you a jerk.

You don’t have to like the books your customers read.  You should, as a bookseller, respect that there are people who read things that aren’t to your taste.  Save your snide comments until they’re gone, and keep ‘em to the break room, please, so you’re not making other customers feel uncomfortable (or worried that you’ll be making fun of them after they leave, even if they’re not purchasing Twilight books.)

Don’t get me wrong — there are plenty of books out there that are targets of my derision.  I’ve snarked my way through sixteen years of bookselling.  But never once have I directed that snark at a customer.  If I ever overheard employees at a bookstore mocking customers aloud, I’d leave.  But not until I’d given the manager an earful.  And if it turned out the manager was participating, I’d just go further up the chain.  It’s unacceptable behavior.  Bookselling is a customer service position.  It’s not an “only be nice to the people buying books you like” position.

I’m kind of wondering why Shiika there works in a bookstore, if he doesn’t get that.  Though I suppose I should recognize that there are some people who don’t work in bookstores because they love books, but simply because hey, it’s a paycheck.

*the avatar is a female, but I’m going to stop the his/her bit for now and invoke the There Are No Girls on the Internet rule for ease of posting.

Amazon’s announced that, going forward, the publishers will decide whether or not the text-to-speech feature is available for their titles.

I really do think this is the best solution.  Amazon is correct; text-to-speech doesn’t create a derivative work.  It is legal.  But I think they’re doing the right thing by leaving the decision of whether it’s made available or not up to the people holding the rights to the books.

Their full statement, for the click-shy:

Kindle 2’s experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks business through our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business.

Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rights holders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver’s seat.

Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rights holders can decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.

Customers tell us that with Kindle, they read more, and buy more books. We are passionate about bringing the benefits of modern technology to long-form reading.

Random House is offering some sf/fantasy titles for free over here.

I will probably be snagging one myself.  I’ve read Red Mars, and have a hard copy of The Assassin’s Apprentice at home that I keep meaning to read.  Suggestions from among the remaining three?

If you’re looking for a good read off of that list and have a craving for spectacular sf, you can’t go wrong with Red Mars. Be warned:  you’re going to want to go on to read Green Mars and Blue Mars afterwards.  Clear your calendars!

Cory Doctorow, on why the sales force matters.

My favorite part of the article, where I nodded vigorously and whispered “yes.”

(good bookselling is fractal: the sales rep knows what the clerk will like, and the clerk knows what the reader will like)

When I see the posts on various boards about how someone plans to Overthrow! Big! Publishing! and Revolutionize the Industry!, the questions that often receive the most ill-thought-out answers are these:  How will bookstores outside of your hometown know about your books?  Why will they want to pick up your titles over the ones coming out from publishers they currently deal with?  Who will  advocate for your books, outside of yourself and  your immediate family/circle of friends?

Go give it a read.  Once again, Cory Doctorow has won the internet again.  (I wonder where he keeps them all.)