L’esprit d’escalier

Don’t worry, I won’t spoil last night’s Lost in this post, but I will be alluding to things that have happened this season.  So, if you’re more than a month or two behind, you might want to click away.

Good?

Good.

Hokay.  So, a bunch of our favorite Losties are stuck back in 1977, hiding within the Dharma Initiative and trying not to be discovered.  It’s a neat plotline, and I’m enjoying it.

That said, I have a hard time buying Jack and Hurley’s (but especially Jack’s) inability to grasp what Miles and Daniel keep telling them:  you can die here. This is our present.

I don’t know, maybe it’s all the science fiction I’ve devoured over the years, but I have to say that if I found myself suddenly yoinked backwards in time I’d be damned careful with everything I did, and not just for fear of stepping on a butterfly.

Actually, Jack and crew don’t even have to worry about the whole Sound of Thunder thing.  So far, the rules of the Lostverse say you can tramp on all the butterflies you want — if you do it, that’s because they’re supposed to get flattened, not because you changed the timeline.  You were always supposed to be there, in that place and time to smushy smushy — even if you “belong” thirty years in the future.

What they do have to worry about, what Miles and Daniel get and they seem to deny, is that “dun sweat the flutterbies” also means “if you’re supposed to die here and now, guess what.  Buh-bye.”  Because time, for them, is linear.  They might have seen Richard Alpert and Ben Linus all grownsed up in good ol’ 2007, so sure, you probably can’t kill them (sorry, Sayid), but unless you’ve also jumped ahead during the Island’s version of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? and, say, saw yourself in 2015, there are no guarantees.

But every time Jack does something risky, he’s all “I CAN’T DIE LOL,” and I want to shake him.  I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it finally managed to worm its way into his skull last night, but good lord, it took, what, six episodes now?

I find it hard to believe that Jack can’t grasp the concept.  He’s a smart guy.  Hell, Hurley has at least some kind of understanding of it, latching onto the rules of the Back to the Future universe to explain things.

So is Jack in denial?  Is he just that thick?  Or is it that easy for me because I’ve read this stuff so many times, and seen it in so many movies and TV shows (hell, how many times in the last few seasons has the concept factored into Doctor Who?) — does the average viewer, for whom Lost is pretty much their first (only?) foray into sf, need a few extra episodes to catch on, and Jack acts as their everyman?

I’ll answer that last one, but I’d love to hear it if you have a differing opinion.  Suggesting that non-sf fans aren’t going to be able to grok the rules is silly.  Look at all the twists and turns this show has taken over four seasons.  If you can keep straight in your mind what’s present-day and what’s past,* you are definitely smart enough to wrap your mind around the rules of time-travel in the Lostverse.

Which means, my conclusion leans towards “Jack is just that thick,” or, possibly, Poor Writing.  I really, really liked last night’s episode, so I’m loathe to suggest that, but, hrm.  Looking at Season 5 over at Lostpedia, I can see that the last few episodes were all done by different writing teams.  Is it possible that each of them wanted their shot at writing the “Yes, we can die” dialogues, or that some of them felt it was important and others didn’t even touch upon it?  I don’t know nearly enough about screenwriting, especially for a project like Lost, to venture a decent guess.

Thoughts?

*or, in season 3, what’s present-day and what’s future

I know, I know, I promised it a while back.  Apologies!

Let’s start with a little backstory on how I found the book:  someone, somewhere, linked to a story on Patrick Rothfuss’ blog about saving a duck family.  I read the post and gleed, and from there clicked around his site.  He had an excerpt from The Name of the Wind up, and I read it.

And lo, I said to myself, “I must read this book.”

I bought it, and it sat at the top of my to-be-read pile.  And sat, and sat, and sat.  Not because I didn’t want to read it — quite the contrary!  Because I wanted to be able to sit down and read it without interruption.  Work-reading tends to take priority, and while we have some stellar things coming out, I don’t always have a lot of time to read from other lists.  I feel vaguely guilty when I take a break from our stuff.  Notable exceptions are, say, a new George RR Martin title, or other things equally as big on the “oh god if I don’t read this someone’ll spoil it for me” list.

So, The Name of the Wind sat on my pile for several months, until we stole away to Aruba.  Even then, I didn’t get to start it until the plane ride home (look, I brought a pile with me.)

But I read it! And it was good!

(I’m a lazy reviewer if I leave it at that, aren’t I?)

It’s a frame story, which is interesting — the majority of the book is Kvothe dictating his own adventures to a man named Chronicler, who wants to set down his tale.  The deal is, Chronicler has to give him three days to tell it, and has to set it down exactly as the legend-turned-innkeeper spins it.  The first day of the tale takes us up through his fifteenth year, or thereabouts.  Funny thing is, as much as I enjoyed reading about Kvothe’s childhood — the worldbuilding is excellent, and the rules of magic are complex — with every interlude that brought us back to the present, I found myself wanting to know what’s happening now. Kvothe’s present-day companions are great fun.  I’m intrigued by Bast, and very much hoping that his part in Kvothe’s past is recounted in the second book.

There were times in Kvothe’s narrative where the tale meandered a bit — late in the book, there’s an encounter with a draccus (big, dragon-like lizard) that felt like it went on for too long — even though I understand most of what felt long-winded to me was indeed setting up for something that would be important later on.  I wasn’t nearly as in love with Denna as Kvothe was.  She is the love-interest who seems to come and go from young Kvothe’s life like the wind he’s trying so hard to name, but I just couldn’t find it in me to be as enchanted by her as Kvothe was.  Reuben made a good point, though, when we were discussing it — this is his first love.  He’s only fifteen.  So what seems unappealing to us is of course a much bigger deal to him.

Still, I’m hoping if there’s more of Denna in the second book, that she’ll reveal some of her secrets and flesh out a bit.

Aside from Denna, though, the secondary characters reeled me in, from Kvothe’s companions at the University to the mysterious and deadly Chandrian, Rothfuss has a great eye for his supporting cast.  Especially Bast.  Have I mentioned him yet?

All in all, if you’re looking for good new fantasy to immerse yourself in while you’re waiting for the next Martin or Lynch or Abercrombie, give The Name of the Wind a try.

So last week was a posting vacuum.  I hope to be interesting for you this week.  Until then, go peek at some awesome (and very spot-on) Scalzisnark.

Le sigh.  If only this wasn’t an hour away.  More than that, when you factor in rush hour traffic.

Go read Lilith Saintcrow’s “Glitch, Monoculture, Profit (#amazonfail recap).”

It’s a great summary of the weekend, and raises some very relevant questions about the idea of ranking books in the first place.

And, the thing that made me cheer:

Two sites, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (a site I often read) and Dear Author (who I have quoted several times during this whole thing) have made the decision to become IndieBound affiliates instead of Amazon affiliates. As Dear Author explains:

Words without action have no meaning. While it is true, to some extent, that Amazon can sell whatever it likes consumers have those same unfettered choices in their book buying decisions. Yes, Amazon makes it incredibly easy to buy books at its site but at some point, consumers can and will get fed up enough to take their dollars elsewhere. Dear Author is going to start working with IndieBound even though Amazon Affiliate dollars is the only income that DA earns. I know that SmartBitches will be doing the same although it represents a pretty significant financial loss to them. (link)

After much thought I have decided to do the same. There will still be Amazon links to my books on my site, since I am here to serve readers (and several readers may still make the choice to patronize Amazon) and I am not going to go back and find every. Single. Link. Though the affiliate program at Amazon was never a consistent source of financial help for me (what, a latte a month if I was lucky?) I was still driving traffic to them. I’m making the choice instead to drive that traffic to IndieBound.

This is a pretty big decision for any author, and Ms. Saintcrow, the Smart Bitches and Dear Author all get a huge round of applause from me.

And, as a matter of fact, if you’re looking for something to read, her Dante Valentine series is all kinds of fun.

According to an article at the Seattle PI, the glitch that caused Amazon to derank over 57,000 titles over the weekend was caused by an employee in France filling out a field the wrong way.  Says Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener:

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

There’s another interview with an employee who asked for anonymity here that expands on the situation a bit more.  So, on its surface, it seems to be truly accidental, but the lovely Lilith Saintcrow still has some very valid questions about the deranking that’s been going on since February.

So, the story still goes on.  And yet again, I suggest we go out and support our independent bookstores.

Long day yesterday, still reeling a bit, so I’ll keep this short and let you clicky for yourself. Hopefully back into ranting away tomorrow.

It seems that over the weekend, Amazon decided to derank titles they classified as “adult,” which included GLBT themed books, some erotica, and even Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  Deranking them also took them out of their search engines unless you did some very specific title/author searches.  However, the Playboy collections and other (more “mainstream”?) adult titles still retained their rankings and searchability.

When author Mark R. Probst questioned his deranking, an initial response from Amazon customer service suggested it was intentional:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Amazon has since responded, sort of, suggesting it was a “glitch” in their software.  The claims seem a bit dubious, since this glitch has existed since at least February, but they don’t have much in the way of an official statement so far, or any explanation as to why this Member Services representative answered the way she did.

Links for clicky, to better educate thyselves:

• Neil Gaiman’s “Amazonfail Sunday”
• The LA Times article on the deranking
• Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and the Amazon Rank page
• #amazonfail on Twitter
• PNH at Making Light, urging cooler heads to prevail and offering some ideas on how the whole thing happened.
• A list of the books that have been deranked

I suspect there’ll be more as the day goes on, but Uncle Neil has it right: even if the “glitch” was unintentional and not meant to capture the titles it did, an apology wouldn’t be amiss.  (And I might add, a real apology, not a “We’re sorry if your feelings were hurt, but we didn’t do anything wrong.”)

And might I suggest, for the hojillionth time, that you go out and support your local independent bookstores, rather than purchase your titles from Amazon.  Find the indie nearest you at Indie Bound.

Holy hell, it’s been a while. Apologies! Work travel has kicked me in the ass, but I’m still around.

Currently reading: Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.  Review to follow in a couple hundred pages.

What’s on your nightstand/in your backpack/hidden under your pillow?