Remember when I said I’d be in an anthology with a bunch of great authors like Seanan McGuire, Tobias Buckell, Mary Robinette Kowal, and many more? Well, now you can see the whole Table of Contents here:
http://www.johnjosephadams.com/robot-army/table-of-contents/
Check it out, you guys. It’s pretty cool. Expected sale date: July 1, 2014
1) A comparison of Zulu and Filipino stick fighting. Video.
2) The Oatmeal on the wonderfulness of the Tesla Model S electric car.
3) Five Details They Cut From My Season Of The Biggest Loser. We all knew this show was complete shit, but it’s even worse than I thought.
4) What happens when engineers own dogs. Video.
5) The 10 Commandments of Typography.
7) “In my view, the parties do not need a judge; what they need is a rather stern kindergarten teacher” Spiteful upper-class twits drive each other wild.
Let’s start with the good news. I’m going to be in two anthologies coming out this summer, both of them funded via Kickstarter: Help Fund My Robot Army & Other Improbably Kickstarters, and the shared world Walk The Fire, Vol 2. Don’t worry, no one is asking you to back a campaign, I promise. These projects were closed months ago.
Again, the books will be available some time this summer, and believe me I’ll post links to buy them when they’re out.
The complicated part is this: I’m glad both books are coming out and I’m pleased with the stories I sold them, even though both rejected my initial submissions.
The WALK THE FIRE antho is a shared-world deal, centering on a future where people can travel via special fires. That’s right, fire. You step into the flames in one place and emerge in another. It’s teleportation with a few complications added in.
Anyway, the first story I wrote, “A No Without A Thank You”, was basically a slam on Doctor Who, because I thought the fires allowed people to travel through time and space. The anthology bible even said “time and space” in one spot. Feedback from the editor insisted that I hadn’t followed the guidelines correctly, and I had to read the bible several times before I worked out that it was supposed to be “time and space” only. The guidelines as a whole only made sense if they were space-only. Oops.
At that point, with a rejected story, I could have withdrawn; I do have a shitload of work to do to fulfill my own Kickstarter. But! I’d also promoted the campaign to my readers and thought it would be unfair to them if I back out of the project now. So I set everything aside and wrote a second story, called “Sterile Oceans”, which was accepted. And I’m proud of that story. Plus, “A No Without…” is ready to go into the short fiction collection I listed as a stretch goal for my Kickstarter backers. So that’s all good.
HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY… brought up a similar situation, although the reasons behind it were different. That anthology is a collection of stories told in the format of a Kickstarter campaign–with a sales pitch, stretch goals, comments, the whole deal–and my original submission was a parody of the “Above the Game” campaign, (which I won’t link) that PUA manual that supposedly advocated sexual assault. My story was about a PUA who planned to sell (short-acting) love potions, and who insisted they were completely different from roofies.
It was dark, yeah, but the editor decided it was too dark and bounced it. Once again, I had a choice of disappointing backers or writing a second attempt. The followup story was accepted, and it’s fun (but deliberately slight) and technically, this also frees up the PUA/love potion story for my own story collection.
Except, now that this loser in UCSB (I’m not posting his name online) has had his rampage, I’m tempted to yank it all together. The original story was supposed to be darkly funny, but I’m not feeling it anymore.
Anyway, two new anthologies mean four new stories from me this summer (or maybe just three, who knows.) I’m also thinking I need to take a break from Kickstarter anthologies.
I haven’t been online all that much (and shouldn’t be right now, either–I have books to finish) but apparently Amazon has stepped up its pressure on Hachette by yanking buy links for all their books. Beyond that, they’re also screwing with search results, messing with book categorizations, and pushing readers who want to buy Hachette books toward Hachette’s competitors. And the reason they can do this is you.
Now, if your response to all this is to say “Amazon is an independent company and they can legally do whatever best serves their interests,” let me assure you that I agree. They can legally do all these things, just as Wal-Mart can legally include information on sighing up for food stamps during their new employee orientations. There are a lot of things powerful people and corporations can do that are both legal and deeply, deeply shitty.
And why is Amazon doing this? Because Hachette won’t accept a new, lower rate on their ebooks.
But the thing is, this wouldn’t matter so much without you.
It’s the readers who give Amazon all this power. It’s people who click through Amazon links but never do for any other bookstore, and who impulse buy like crazy online but no where else.
Some years ago, I tried an experiment: For a full month, I wrote about books constantly and all the buy links I put in my posts went to indiebound. Not one person bought a book.
The next month, the only buy links I posted went to Mysterious Galaxy, a terrific store in San Diego that ships books just like any other seller. Not one person bought a book.
Which isn’t to say that no one clicked those links. They did. But those clicks didn’t translate into sales.
More recently, I posted links for the new paperback POD edition of Twenty Palaces. The link pointing to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The link to Amazon got more sales than the link to B&N got clicks. When I’m talking about sales ebook sales for the same book, B&N provide about a fifth what Amazon does, with all the rest in negligible numbers.
Now, this is what the general public has chosen. When people go looking to buy something online, they turn to Amazon. Hell, when I want to send a purchase request to my local library, I use the Amazon page to dig up the publication date and the ISBN.
But at this point it’s hurting authors. (Here’s the website listing Hachette’s authors, highlighting bestsellers, of course, but like most publishers they have a mob of midlisters.) Anyone could be next. Small presses are already being squeezed. Self-published authors have been so happy with their “70% royalties” (which is really a 30% sales commission for hosting/delivering a file and processing payments) but as soon as Wall St decides the company needs to start turning profits, I’ll bet that’s the first place they start to squeeze.
But this raises questions for me: Do I remove the links to Amazon for all my books, as other authors have done? Like Fred Hicks, I’ve already emptied my Amazon cart of the obscure crap I was planning to buy when The Great Way was finished.
What’s the point of doing all that, of linking to other book sellers large and small, if readers won’t buy from them, even for paper editions?
Summer is about to start, so it’s time to repost my annual warning for 2014:
How to recognize when someone is drowning.
It’s not what you think. Before you take your kids or loved ones into the water, read this article.
I saw this tweet from Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) a few days ago, then read the linked blog:
Really odd thing about this is an NHS model for cars would work fine: http://t.co/p4bDuLFTCA
— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 17, 2014
Recommended. The LA Times follows up here, pointing out that we’ve reached “Peak Freakonomics” where our two authors seem to have run out of innovative ways at looking at subjects and should probably try to find a new niche to market.
But I was thinking about Yglesias’s proposition: What if the government bought your cars for you? How would that work? So here’s a thought experiment for that:
First, no frills. No leather seats, no iPhone dock, no super-quiet engine. There’s nothing wrong with those sorts of luxuries, but taxpayers won’t swing for them, so they’re out. If you want a DVD player for your kids to watch a movie, you have to spring for that yourself.
Second, how much will you be using your vehicle? Look, the government will be happy to give you a car to transport you places, but does it need to be idle all night while you sleep? Do you need to have it sit on your corporate campus for nine hours while you’re at work?
It would probably be cheaper for the government to pay for a chauffeur who would drive you to work, then go drive other people who needed rides, then pick you up after your shift. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be the same chauffeur!
Third, what if it’s not a one-person vehicle? Why should the chauffeur drive you and you alone to your destination when there are probably quite a few people who work where you work, or who would like to shop at that mall? Single-occupancy vehicles are wasteful and cause traffic jams. The government could streamline things by carrying several people at once.
Larger vehicles would be called for, ones with the capacity to move lots of people around. Perhaps some sort of schedule could be devised (and routes established) to maximize the movement of users.
Fourth, what about free-loaders? Obviously, there are those who want a car just for the thrill of driving. Would the American taxpayer be willing to subsidize that sort of purely-pleasurable but unproductive pastime? Considering how they act when food-stamp recipients buy soda, I doubt it.
Perhaps some sort of small co-pay could be required to discourage joy riding. We could call it a “fare.”
And you know where that takes us? To public transportation, which is certainly not perfect but is still used by millions of people every day. How would the Freakonomics guys feel if we increased its funding? I wish my transit system had more dollars.
Because the government is never going to allow people to walk into a car dealership and pick out any car they like. It’s ridiculous to even offer that as a thought experiment. But if the government thinks it’s important for people to have access to a minimum standard of health care, they will work that out. And if the government thinks people should be able to move around a community without driving a car of their own, they’ll work that out, too.
It won’t be extravagant, but it might make your society run better.
It’s not a satire of the original Jack Chick comic! It IS the Jack Chick comic brought to life!
Debbie and Marcie arrive at college unaware of the dangers of RPGing. They are soon indoctrinated into this dangerous lifestyle where they face the threat of learning real life magical powers, being invited to join a witches’ coven, and resisting the lure of Ms. Frost, a vile temptress of a GM. But what peril must the two friends face when they stumble across the Necronomicon and their fantasy game becomes a reality game? Find out in Dark Dungeons!
From the FAQ on their website:
Have people committed suicide due to RPGs?
No cases of RPG-related suicides have been proven in court. However, that does not mean that it doesn’t happen. For all we know, BIG-GAMING may just be very good at covering them up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies
BIG GAMING! Click through to learn more.
I just saw the umpteenth iteration of “If only this had been edited!” which I’m not linking to because why and also because it’s always and everywhere. You can’t swing a dead pixel without hitting some forum comment lamenting that There Are Errors Where There Shouldn’t Be.
So.
The verb “edit,” when it’s applied to text, does not mean “fix.” I don’t care what the dictionary says, it doesn’t. It means “change.”
Obviously, yes, we hope the changes we make will be improvements. We’re trying to fix things when they’re broken, correct inconsistencies, smooth out sentence structures, fix verb tenses, switch out that off-key word with a clearer one, whatever. Edits are an attempt at improving things.
However, sometimes an edit creates a conflict with something else in the text. Sometimes it’s just a flat out error. What’s more, as a reader we can’t tell if an error was added in the first draft and missed in revisions or if it was added on the very last pass through.
Hey, mistakes happen, even when you edit.
Walking out of the latest version of GODZILLA, my son surprised me by saying it was one of his three favorite movies ever.
Now, when I was a kid, giant monster movies were my favorite thing in the whole wide world. I stayed in Saturday afternoons to watch all the giant monster movies, even the boring ones like Vs. The Sea Monster, the kiddie ones like Gamera Vs [Everything] and the shitty ones like Yonggary. I even sat through the musical number of Reptilicus. I didn’t know anyone else who liked them and I knew nothing about words like kaiju or whatever. I watched the movies. I watched the TV shows. I daydreamed about stomping through a city, smashing everything in sight.
But my kid has always had zero interest in this stuff. Does he care about a giant egg washing up on a beach, or miniature women who sing to colossal moths, or a burning flying saucer that turns out to be a spinning turtle? Hell no.
But he does love post-apocalyptic landscapes, and this was a movie for him.
Lots of people like looking at Ruination Pron. Me, too. The latest Godzilla movie is for us.
A lot has been made that the big G doesn’t show up until 60 minutes into the film (although you see glimpses in the first few minutes). What you do see is a lot of shit after it’s destroyed. Wrecked skyscrapers. Smashed cars. Collapsed towers. You even get glimpses of a Japanese town left to decay for 15 years. It’s like something out of a post-apocalyptic video game.
My kid… well, he’s kinda sensitive. Seeing a car with a smashed fender makes him sad. Throwing out socks, even if they have holes in them, is like a betrayal. So, when there’s a smashed cityscape on the screen, it really affects him.
That’s why this is the movie for him. Yeah, there are some monster fights, most of which are pushed to the end of the film. Yeah, there are people running around, stumbling into the monsters’ paths through sheer coincidence. Yeah, there are female characters to be: a) a source of manpain b) helper to the exposition character or c) human symbol of everything our fighting boys are risking their lives for. Yeah, the cinematography is gorgeous.
But the real appeal of the film is the ruination. Bring your favorite urban explorer.
Last week, we hopped a train down to San Jose to visit my wife’s uncle and visit him and his home city, Santa Cruz. It wasn’t long enough, and sleeping in coach on a train may be better than sleeping on a plane, but still: sleeping in a chair. (The train ride from Seattle to SJC was 24 hours, 20 minutes.)
So, it was not long enough. Few vacations ever are. However, my uncle has a beautiful little house with a pretty little garden (filled with drought-resistant plants, because California) and the beach was only literally a ten-minute walk away.
Pics behind the cut: Continue reading