A Bit of Mythos

Ah, I have been a Lovecraft fan since I could read, and I have designed Mythos stories for well over twenty years – more like 26 – all RPG. I reckon I designed, maybe, 50 or 60 stories. Well, for the first time I am writing a mythos story for a challenge among my circle of writer friends. The only question rising out of this – why didn’t I do this before? Title is The Lucky Mouth. Should finish it by tomorrow.
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Growth of ebook sales

I found this interesting information regarding ebook sales – a definite trend here.

Got this via @namenick on Twitter, who in turn, got it from Infographic

Note that 2010 and 2011 figures are estimated, but on good data. All data is based on reports from 14 top publishers, to the Association of American Publishers.

Year US$M
2002 5.7
2003 7.3
2004 9.5
2005 10.6
2006 20.0
2007 31.8
2008 44.5
2009 165.8
2010 439.2
2011 724.2

Taken from Publisher’s Lunch

Amazon Says Kindle Sales Exceed Paperbacks–and Coincidentally, Profits Fall Even As Sales Rise Over $3 Billion
Amazon reported sales of $12.95 billion for the fourth quarter, up 36% from a year ago. But operating income actually declined, even with almost $3.5 billion in extra revenue, down $2 million at $474 million.

The company says they sold "millions of third-generation Kindles" in the quarter, and indicates "Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com" and "this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales." The company adds that, "since the beginning of the year, for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the company has sold 115 Kindle books."

Ultimately Unfulfilling (Book Review: Dracula: The Un-Dead – Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt)

** spoiler alert **


 

Dracula: the Un-dead, by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt, is an entertaining story, but fails to deliver completely. Being a very strong fan of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, causes me to be more disappointed than I would normally be.

Firstly, its strengths. The novel is very well researched, capturing a realistic London and Paris of 1912 (the only exception was the cringe-worthiness of several uses of the word ‘fix’ for one of the character’s injection of morphine). The Gothic atmosphere is tangible and enjoyable.

Another strength is the clever use of explaining that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was, in fact, a novel, and the truth was somewhat variant to it. Aside from mixing reality and fiction in an interesting way, it allowed some ‘legitimate’ doctoring of facts to suit the sequel. I should point out, however, that this ‘doctoring’ process is a two-edged sword, and devotees of Dracula must be satisfied with the variance. To mix metaphors, they trod a very fine line.

Characters were well developed and the idea that the surviving heroes all were destructively affected by the adventure of a quarter of a century earlier, all in unique ways, was also admirable. And believable.

Now, the disappointments.

Firstly, I believe that the authors tried to do too much. Much too much. They wanted surprises and twists and created an ennobled, non-intrinsically-evil Dracula in counterpoint to the original novel (but curiously, counterpoint to all bar Mina in the ‘real’ history of twenty-five years previously). They even threw in a trip on the Titanic. It was overkill and it undermined the Gothic-ness of the story, and also diminished the suspension of disbelief.

Dracula was the king hit when it came to failure. Aside from the intention to create a story that was unique, unpredictable, it was not good enough to work against the immense portrayal of loss of soul and darkness in Dracula’s heart. He was old and gnawed at his own heart for too long and these images and perceptions of the count were shredded by the character portrayed in the sequel. I sort of understand what the authors were trying to mold, but it did not work, not entirely. Unfortunately, 90% is as good as 0% when inevitably comparing this novel with the masterpiece written by Bram.

I enjoyed the book but it didn’t grab me, and there were moments when I really felt betrayed. The ending of the novel was simply a concentration of those failures… and then there was the Titanic. Yik.

Three stars.
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History Repeats Itself, part 2

This comment follows directly from my previous entry.

I decided to outline my plot over the next month or two. Because the novel (working title, The Comfort of Beanbags) will be a YA novel, I think, it is likely to be smallish. Maybe around 40 to 60k. I think I can write it pretty rapidly.

More work, but hey, we writers are masochistic.
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History Repeats Itself

Yes, history does repeat itself. I feel like I’m in one of those Sixties b-grade scifi movies where the main character gets caught in a time loop. Or possibly even Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

I wrote a short story a week or so ago (The Comfort of Beanbags) that was quite a challenge (I blogged that point during the process), and I now realize that part of the difficulty of this particular piece was to instill the intended theme and moods in a short work. The jury is still out on that matter, but I have come believe now that the path I should have taken was to write a longer work, a short novel, or novella.

Ironically, going through the process of writing the short story may have been a necessary ingredient to come to this realization…

So… I have another project in scope. I can’t let it go now. I am sure this story will turn into something a lot better in longer form.

Why does history repeat? Because that’s exactly what happened with Guardian of the Sky Realms. A short story turned into a novel.

Stay tuned.
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Political Correctness Disease

This posting was stimulated by reading a truly excellent column by Michael Chabon of the Atlantic (via Jay Lake’s link salad) titled The Unspeakable, in Its Jammies. Thanks Jay.

In my humble opinion, the US has far more political correctness than my homeland, but Australia isn’t that far behind. I understand that we should be thoughtful about how we communicate, particularly among the impressionable, but I believe we have gone way over the mark. With the kerfuffle on censoring Mark Twain in the US, which spurred on debate, including Chabon’s, I realized that I have been outraged on numerous occasions on the political correctness theme over recent years. For many reasons.

Let’s use Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn as an example, and the word ‘nigger’. This book was written for the younger set, and the word ‘nigger’ was an accepted part of language. Whether the symbolism of the word, and its actual usage, was right or wrong is irrelevant. It was the word that was used in Twain’s generation. More importantly, it seems to me that reading Huckleberry Finn (or more pertinently, Tom Sawyer, which uses the N word a heck of a lot more) in its original idiom, is an excellent way to provide historical, cultural context, and current linguistic nuances to the uninitiated. It is educational, and it is insightful. It allows a child, or adult, to grow. Of course this requires the right attitude by the person who reads the tome, or who writes the monograph, etc. Responsibility. The antithesis of this viewpoint, are those who want to wrench this responsibility from individuals and instead impose censorship. Frankly, it disgusts me.

I am rather glad I still can hear ‘Merry Christmas’ from people’s lips during late December, instead of some compulsory "Happy Holidays" or whatever, to ensure we don’t offend those precious little ears who aren’t supposed to be infused too heavily in Christianity. Here in Australia the retail industry nearly did away with it, but managed to find some common sense.

As a writer, my skill is in part measured by the way I can harness words and anticipate the way they will be received by readers. This relationship (words/readers’ minds) is what excites me. There are some in society who feel that they have a better grasp of what is decent and what isn’t, what is right and what is wrong. Under normal circumstances I would just have a chuckle about such folk (for after all, ignorance and control freakishness has existed since humanity walked upright on the plains), but I am not laughing any more. They seem to have succeeded in gaining a good measure of control, using spurious arguments to gain support (or mitigate opposition).

Rant over.
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