Eligibility Posts – A reader’s point of view

I read only 54 books last year, but that didn’t even scratch the surface of what was published.   It would be impossible to read everything published in SF&F in a year, and that’s just the middling to great stuff.  Too much info to sift through.  I don’t really care about the Hugo’s unless someone I know is eligible and even then I usually can’t vote.  I’d rather spend the money on interesting SF&F coming out from SE Asia. But for those awards that I can vote in, I do like to be reminded about or alerted to, what’s out there.

SO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD,

please talk about your stuff that is eligible, do it in any damn way you please.  Do what you feel comfortable doing?  If you turn into a used car salesperson I might un-follow you or… you know, exercise the ability to click on the next title in my RSS feed or walk out and water the chooks.  Let me worry about whether you are creating too much white noise. I am a grown up and if you get boring and start advertising your books I have this strange and apparently rare ability to decide things for myself - I can change the channel.

Talk about your works and what you really liked about them, point me to others reviews.  Reflect on your career to this point.  Just make it interesting.  I have an atrocious memory for books, can’t remember what I read at the start of last year, or midyear for that matter, so jog my memory. Remind me that I haven’t read enough gender diverse material.

Your posts combined with others opinions might lead me to buy and read your work.  Usually it takes a couple of mentions by different folks before I take an interest

Don’t feel like doing it.  Fine just write great fiction and I am sure I’ll encounter you somewhere along the line.

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Still an old white man telling women how to behave

You’d have to be living under a rock or enjoying an internet free rural paradise (my internet’s been out again) not to have noted the furore caused by the bumbling oafishness of David Koch, the Business journalist turned morning show host on the nation’s leading Breakfast variety show.

He’s generally an affable bloke, outside of his area of expertise (finance) he’s a bit of a soft touch, sort of what you’d require in a morning show host. 

If you can forgive him the collection of groan worthy jokes he puts out and the fact that he’s chairman of Port Adelaide Football club. He’s not too bad, like an affable uncle who thinks he’s still funny. 

Relatively harmless.

But he chose to weigh in on the issue of breastfeeding, was criticised for it and was unrepentant.

He clarified his position such that he believes women have a right to breastfeed in public (actually it’s the law, regardless of what he thinks), but that he thinks they should be discreet about it, classy even.

Perfectly reasonable one might say. Except of course that I’d be hard pressed to think of a time that I have seen women breastfeeding indiscreetly (and I come across a few in running the Mums and Babes session in my Library work).

In reality it’s not really a problem is it -  the majority of Australians  are not assaulted by the sight of milk laden mammaries to the point of revulsion.

Bikini covered bosoms on Sunrise are another matter entirely though eh?

Yet here we have a high profile media figure expressing an opinion on it, letting women know (ever so affably) what he thinks they should do.

Everyone has a right to an opinion, to express it, is his view. 

Yes, everyone can have an opinion they’re as common as the aperture that I’d suggest Koch has his head in inserted in.

The trouble is not everyone has a platform to send that opinion nationwide. 

One could argue that to broadcast your opinion widely, it had better be an informed one. Because for all the unthinking oafs on television, there are hundreds of unthinking viewers out there willing to take their opinion as gospel.

I suspect Koch is adamant that he won’t back down because, he’s been caught out being an oaf, expressing an opinion on something he has no experience or knowledge of and he’s so used to being in a position of power and knowledge, so used to being perceived and perceiving himself as the nice guy, that he can’t cope with the challenging reaction.  He’s not a bad guy, he’s not a misogynist, he must think.

No he’s just an old white guy letting the girls know how they should behave. Reinforcing cultural myths surrounding women.  Contributing to that cultural bias that means we have discussions about breastfeeding, or how women who get raped should have been dressed more discreetly.

Standing steadfastly by an opinion is not a good thing when that opinion is opposed by well argued points of view. The bigger person has the courage to reflect, see that they were wrong and admit it.

It gets harder to do the older we get, the less challenged we are in our spheres of influence.

And Koch is a privileged old man, atop the celebrity talk show pile.

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Muppets and A Memory of Light

A tip o’ me hat to Tom at Literarium for the news.

And sorry to those who came here looking for Kermit the frog.

Muppet: A person who is ignorant and generally has no idea about anything.

A Memory of Light was released today, to the hordes of Robert Jordan fans who have been waiting 20 years for the series end.  Unfortunately for some die-hard fans the eBook will not be released until April and they isn’t happy, leaving (at time of writing) 155 one star reviews on Amazon. 

Such passion from fans, so much passion that you’d think they’d be hanging on every snippet of information, like this from Tor, the publisher:

Tor Books has announced that the ebook edition of A Memory of Light, the exciting conclusion to one of the most epic fantasy series in existence, will be available for e-reader devices on April 9, 2013. The initial book release is scheduled for January 8, 2013.

Tor March 2012 <---quite some time ago

I find the actions taken on Amazon disappointing.  I can't help but see it as a bit of privileged dummy spitting.  The information on the book was out there and the reasons for the ebook's delay as well. 

Jordan’s widow wants it to soar up the NYT charts, maybe she wants the bookend to his career with glory, maybe she wants to get the best return she can. I’ll begrudge her none of those things; she supported him in his writing for all those years and writing good fiction is a several magnitudes harder than reading it.

You can give me a number of reasons why an eBook should be released at the same time – I’ll probably agree with some of them.  I can understand the disappointment that comes from expectations denied (The Hobbit showing in Australia two weeks after everywhere else).

A suitable response would be to contact Tor on their forums, write them,telling of your disappointment. If still angry to vote with your feet and walk away or buy it from some cheap retailer of books.

But for some that’s not good enough, they feel the need to attempt to affect sales of the book by sabotaging the amazon review process and lodging a one star protest.  Like we are trying to stop some evil megacorp from using whale fat to fry their burgers or something.

Reminds me of every privileged, eye bulging, angry customer who thought I had to worship the ground they walked when I worked in retail.  Seriously I teach teens who have better control than this.

This is not a real protest. This is privileged whining - when it comes down to it, someone's just disappointed they didn't get exactly what they wanted when they wanted it and they are acting like they have been personally violated.

Be disappointed, don't be a muppet.

Surely there's enough good fantasy out there to fill in that three month gap. Now go on crucify me in the comments.

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Unintentional Silence

It’s amazing how having no internet connection feels like having ones arm cut off.  Ok, well maybe it doesn’t quite but you get the picture.  I live on a farm, a lovely rural setting.  It’s generally quiet, except around harvest and wonder of wonders we can actually get the internet here (mobile 3g). 

So for 3 years it’s been pretty ideal.  I use Skype to talk to my far flung family, watch ABC IView, keep my finger on the pulse of what’s happening in Australian Spec Fic land.

Not as of Thursday though.

My first thought was Zombie Apocalypse, when I couldn’t get a signal in the man cave/library.  On rare occasions when I have had signal issues before the usual fix has been to move locations to the back room or more drastically, sit outside (thank goodness for lap tops eh). The problem usually rectifies itself anyway.

So its Saturday night and I have:

• uninstalled/reinstalled the USB dongle
• wondered round the back paddock
• called the Internet company and asked if said Zombie Apocalypse had happened
• been informed that rumours of a Zombie Apocalypse are highly overstated and that being 17km from the mobile tower I shouldn’t be getting a signal anyway(theoretically)

Apparently everything seems to be running fine on their end. But they have sent me a new dongle and asked me to test the laptop in another location, before they ring Optus and ask them to check their tower.

So other than weep for the loss of modern convenience I have also attended a short story workshop with Lisa Hannett as lecturer.  It’s a two day course split over two weeks and I am hoping to have a finished and critiqued story at the end of it.

I should use the time productively and write.

Fingers crossed this message gets through.

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Christian School give Harry Potter the Expelliamus

This may be embarrassing for the liberal Christians among you or those who have a modern Christian outlook. Or who can tell fiction from non-fiction.

From the SMH again:

MEDOWIE Christian School in the Hunter has defended a decision to ban all witches and warlocks from its annual Book Week parade and the Harry Potter series from the school library.

The school was one of many that marked Book Week recently by asking children to dress up as their favourite book character for a parade.

Read more:

 

So a tale in which a small boy whose parents are killed, but who uses special powers to defeat their killer and the great evil of the world is not okay, but characters from Star Wars are?.

I know its the witches word isn’t it.  Cause you know Medowie believe in

• the existence of Satan and the reality of spiritual warfare. (not metaphorically, for realz)
• the jurisdiction of civil authorities except in matters conflicting with the
  biblical witness and/or conscience

I wonder if they follow the direction put down in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 or conduct corporal punishment?

I guess they aren’t gay friendly either ( apart from love the sinner hate the sin). If it was me I’d be checking their science curriculum around evolution and global warming.

Oh and this was a pearler:

In respecting that right [we] do not stock books from the Harry Potter series, or indeed other titles which are the subject of polarising public discussion.

Yes don’t let the kiddies read anything that might get them to inspire or question. I wonder what the senior curriculum is like.  No Macbeth?

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The uselessness of starred reviews on sites like Amazon

 

Starred reviews

I submit to both Goodreads and Amazon and both require star reviews.  I find this almost useless as a measure of judging a book or recommending it. 

First the reviewer is given a continuum of emotional reactions from, I hate it = 1 star all the way up to, I love it = 5 star.  So that’s all that the star system really is, it’s not a cut and dried comment on quality, it’s an emotional reaction or it should be.

This is the spirit in which I generally use the system.  Which can lead to confusion when I might give a book a 2 star (I didn’t like it) but talk about how good it might be technically. Or who might like it. But you need to know about my likes and dislikes to interpret that information. You don’t get that from reading Amazon reviews, there is no community around the reviews and least not that I have experienced.

You’ll note I don’t star the reviews here.

The trouble with readers

The trouble is of course that it’s not terribly clear to a reader that this is what the stars mean, on Amazon in particular, mousing over one of the stars only give you a decimal rating ie 1.0 to 5.0.  I think this creates a good deal of confusion and leads readers and authors to settle the on 1 star =shit, 5 star = best book ever written, interpretation.

Authors have no right really to get cranky at someone’s feelings about their book (not openly anyway) not everyone likes the same things, has the same experiences or views things the same way.

People dislike the classics, have done since they weren’t classics.  Good books should evoke emotional reactions. If they don’t then we might as well be reading cornflakes packets. But is this what most reviewers(and I use that term broadly) are doing?  Are they looking at it and saying this is a shit book and I hated it, in giving it a one star? Are they saying I hate the author? Are they saying look at me, I have an opinion?

Getting cranky at misinterpretations, and hate fuelled messages I think is another matter though.  It appears to be happening more that one star reviews are the space in which readers come to grind their axe against the author, rather than the work.  So incensed, are they that the author held a gun to their head and forced them to read such a crap book and then go and comment on a site that you have to sign up to.

What to do?

I have been checking out a few different ways I might present reviews on this site.  Including something similar to the way in which SF Signal formats their reviews.  But honestly I don’t know what way’s best.  The shorter more formulaic reviews are easier to do if I am trying to keep up with the review load but I don’t know if they entice readers to read them? 

I have had some feedback from listeners to Galactic Chat that seems to indicate that talking to authors about their books enables listeners to get a better sense of what the book is like and whether they should buy it. 

So fire away readers let me know what you prefer i.e. set word limits, formatting, , star ranking (don’t you dare),whatever you want?

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