Various and Sundry Things

Here are some quick thoughts on some things that have been in my aggregator form numerous people that I felt compelled to add to:

Recently, science fiction witness the sad event of the passing of Jim Baen. Notices from the Science Fiction Book Club and David Drake. I never met Jim, so I have almost no personal asides I can add. I know little about his work, only that he once worked at Tor as an editor, and then spun off to his own company with Tom Doherty's help. Jim seemed to do a lot of interesting things--both in the work that he published and in how he published it--but all the same it was material outside my realm of interest. The little I know about him was always tainted with the personal dissatisfaction with Jim Baen of those telling the tale to me. Whether you liked him or not, Jim did a lot of good work. And like Andy Wheeler, I don't think we need to honor Jim with the best editor Hugo next year. Jim worked for DECADES in which people could have nominated and voted for him for best editor.

Oh I forgot, almost no one that goes to Worldcon nominates or votes for the Hugos; so Jim's had no chance for decades. Never mind that a book editor only one once.

Like Andy Duncan, I'm slightly befuddled by the pronouncements of Gwenda and Jeff VanderMeer about a secret that was not a secret. Apparently, the wildly talented (in my opinion) Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King.

Huh.

My first reaction (after the 'worst kept secret?, well I didn't know' reaction [and I admit, if I was told the secret and then repeatedly admonished not to tell the secret, it would get on my nerves]) is, who cares? What difference does it make who his father is?

But, then I think again. I'll have to make a confession here. Despite everything, Stephen King is probably one of my favorite writers. I'll give most anything he publishes a chance. I'd be beyond thrilled if I ever got the chance to work with him. So, maybe it makes sense that Joe is also a good writer. And maybe it doesn't. More likely, it doesn't. Surely Joe's life (with a father and mother who wrote and published) was filled with the tropes of publishing and filled with ramblings/rantings on what does and does not make good fiction, so who knows?

Then again again, if I saw a book with the blurb 'the son of Stephen King' splashed across the front, I would probably avoid it. Instead, I was able to judge Joe merely on his own merits, and I found that I really liked it. One of my favorite finds last year. Would knowing he was the son of Stephen King tainted my experience? Yeah. I wouldn't have had the experience in the first place. So, in the end, I would have cared had I known before I read Joe, but now that I know, I don't care.

From a LONG post by Hal Duncan (gets you prepped for reading the novel), a post from Critical Mass, and a post from Emerald City, the concept of reviewers being 'paid' for writing good reviews is discussed (specifically that you can't trust the impartiality of reviews with Amazon links since we all make so MUCH money from our Amazon Associates accounts; because you know, people actually click on those links on websites, which is why I'm goldplating my laptop with my AdSense money...).

The two posts also talk about book's pre-pub hype and how very often books don't live up to their hype. Well how could they? How often have friends raved to you about how great a movie is? They go on and on to such a degree that you expect to come out of the film a changed person. Then, when the film is just 'good' (or worse, when it sucks) you hate your friends and their worthless opinions. It's no different with books. They get hyped. This is how publishers sell copies of books. This is how publishers make money. So they can keep publishing books.

Sure, the uber-slick VELLUM ARC was way cool. And created crazy buzz for the book. And caused issue #9 of Electric Velocipede to sell out because Hal hadn't published many places at the time. The good news for Hal (and everyone who bought VELLUM and EV#9 to read [damn collectors!]) is that he backs up the hype. For me (and here I am, being that friend who you'll hate down the road when you don't love the thing in the same way and volume that your friend did), Hal's book was the most exciting and groundbreaking debut I'd read since Clive Barker. There was a lot of hype, but the book fucking rocked.

But, that's pretty rare, I suspect. And I also suspect there are those who read (or tried) Hal's book, and hated it. Or maybe merely didn't like it. It's bound to happen. If we all had the same tastes, we'd only need one author.

Tags: Science Fiction, Electric Velocipede, Hal Duncan, Joe Hill, Jeff VanderMeer, Gwenda Bond, Jim Baen