George R.R. Martin in The New Yorker

Laura Miller discusses Martin having to deal with the "Entitlement" generation among other things in this great piece in The New Yorker.  Read it here.

Atlanta Nights: The Best Worst Novel Ever Written (On Purpose)

Does everyone out there know the story of one of the greatest hoaxes of the publishing industry?  In a nutshell, it was an attempt to reveal the fraudulent practices of one of the top Vanity Press publishers.  A group of mostly sf writers wanted to show that this particular publisher, which claimed to be very discriminating, would in fact publish absolute rubbish.  So, they set our to write the worst novel that could possibly be written.  The result: Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea (you'd think they'd been suspicious with the author's name).  I became aware of it because Allen Steele, one of my favorite writers, was invovled with its Frankensteinesque creation.  The complete history can be found here.

If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor.  Do it.  It's bad.  Very bad.  And very funny.  The team goes out of their way to break every convention of writing. 

Well, the big news is that Atlanta Nights may become a film?  Is this a hoax?  Don't know, because the place I read about it was over at Writer Beware, which is a site dedicated to helping new writers not be scammed by so-called legitimate publishers.  If it's for real, I'm not sure it will work.  Part of the novel's charm is the horrendous writing, and that could not be translated to film.  On the other hand, it can't be any worse than a lot of stuff pouring out of Hollywood these days.

Anyway, read it.  I'm sure you can find a copy online somewhere, but I urge you to purchase it.  The paperback is available through Amazon and Lulu has it for download.  Every dime received from this glorious wretchedness goes to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund.

Tales from the Kindle Chronicles

I still love my kindle – yeah, I’m still carrying around version 2.0.   No complaints from me.

Well, maybe one.  But it has nothing to do with the device.  It has to do with the availability of books.  I just don’t understand some of the decisions made.  Okay, 99.9 percent of what I buy is science fiction and fantasy, and it might very well be limited to those genres, I don’t know.  Don’t care.  Some of the selection choices make little to no sense to me.

For example.  I had a hankering to reread Peirs Anthony’s Apprentice Adept series.  Haven’t read in about twenty-five years or so.  (You know, now that I think about it, I tend to do way more rereading since I got my Kindle.  But that was another entry . . . gonna have to post that one.)  I know they have most of the Xanth books up.  Purchased the first three for future rereading.  (Told you.)  So, I looked around and immediately found Blue Adept, the second book of the trilogy.   Fine.  Then I looked some more. 

And looked. 

And looked. 

And looked.

Nothing.

Come to find out, the second one is the only one available in ebook form.  What the frak?  How’s that?  Who in his (or her) right mind would want to read the second book of a trilogy?  (Yeah, I know it’s not a true trilogy, but that was another entry. . . gonna have to post that one.)  Who in his (or her) right mind would only make the second volume available?  I don’t know if it comes from Amazon or the publisher, but either way, it doesn’t make sense.

So I thought, heck with that.  I glimpsed a title in his The Incarnations of Immortality series during my failed cybernetic quest.   I read the first book or so, oh, about twenty-five years ago or so.  (Funny how I remember having done all my initial reading about twenty-five years ago.  Guess I had more free time on my hands back then.)  And I thought I’d reread the first ones – told you – then finally finish the rest of the series.   So, I looked around and immediately found With a Tangled Skein, the third book of the series.   Fine.  Then I looked some more. 

And looked. 

And looked. 

And looked.

Nothing.     

Come to find out, the third one is the only one available in ebook form.  What the frak?  How’s that?

Went to look for Paul O. William’s post-apocalyptic Pelbar Cycle.  Books one, two, and four are available.

WTF?

Jack McDevitt’s Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath or his Academy series?  Missing the first volumes.

WTF?

Niven’s Ringworld?  Only the last two are available.

WTF?

Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun?  None.  Just the second series.

So allow me to reiterate: what the frak?

Which takes me back to the whole “Hey’s where’s  ______________ (fill in the blank with any one of your favorite classics)?  But since I’ve covered that already (gonna have to post that one), let’s just move forward, shall we?

I don’t know what the holdup is on some of these books, but all we are left to do is click the little “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” button.  I put it in my planner to remind me every odd-numbered Tuesday.  It’s the least I could do for us fans.  I challenge anyone and everyone who reads this to do the same.  (Assuming, that is, you have a Kindle.)

So ends the Forty-Second entry of this Chronicle.

A tidbit of Game of Thrones info

While doing my normal surfing for news stories related to the HBO series Game of Thrones based on George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, I came across this tidbit from the This Is Local London website:

"Aspiring young dancer Kelechi Nwanokwu has hit the big time after being picked for the latest big-budget drama to come out of the US.  The 26-year-old is set to appear with Sean Bean in fantasy epic A Game of Thrones"

No details about what role she was cast in, but I'll guess she is one of Daenerys's handmaidens (Irri, Jhiqui, or Doreah) that were Daenerys's gift from her brother at the wedding feast.  Or maybe she is just an unnamed in the employ of Illyrio.  A little searching reveals that, likely because she is a dancer and is pictured with other dancers at an GoT after party, that westeros.org is guessing she is a dancer at Daenerys's wedding feast.  I guess will see when the time comes.  I'm still going to guess she is Jhiqui just for the heck of it.  If she had already filmed the only scene she was ever going to be in before this article even ran, would she really be proclaiming she hit the big time?  (Well, probably, but I'll go with the long odds here).

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/7989839.Talented_dancer_hits_the_big_time/

In Defense of George R.R. Martin

I’ve read lots of stuff complaining and whining about George R.R. Martin’s delays with the next installment in A Song of Fire and Ice.  Some of it’s not very nice at all.  Some of it’s down right hateful and despicable. 

I’ll never forget the first time I discovered the series.  I couldn’t put A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords down.  I drove over three hours to pick up A Feast for Crows and meet Mr. Martin, but I swore not to read it until A Dance with Dragons was released because those two books were originally intended to be a single volume.  So I waited.  And I waited.  And I waited.  Then . . .  I waited some more.  I finally started checking Amazon's and Martin’s websites regularly for updates.  I think it was after the second year of waiting that I decided I would just pick it up when it was finished.  And no, I still haven’t read A Feast for Crows.

Am I frustrated?  Sure.  Am I impatient?  Sometimes – when I think about it too long.  Am I angry?  No.  Mr. Martin has stated that he doesn’t want to turn in anything that doesn’t live up to the project.  Would you, as a reader, want something he didn’t put his heart and soul into?  I can already hear someone saying, “He’s gonna die before he finishes the @#$%&* thing!”   I certainly hope not.  I couldn’t imagine anyone being about to finish the story in the manner Mr. Martin has.  But it’s always a possibility. 

Where will you be next week?  Are you sure?  What if you’re the victim of a fatal accident or a sudden terminal illness?  How do you plan for that?  We don’t.  We plan our lives based on what we expect or hope will happen.  I’m sure Mr. Martin is no different.  A Song of Fire and Ice will probably be his master work.  Why shouldn’t he have the time necessary to make it so?  I believe it was on his website where it was pointed out that J.R.R. Tolkien worked on The Lord of the Rings for decades.  All the time and effort was worth every word. 

Consider this.  You think we’ve had a long wait.  Ever read David Gerrold’s War Against the Chtorr?  It’s an amazing series.  One of the best alien invasion stories I’ve ever read.  The people in it are very real – too real sometimes, just like in Mr. Martin’s, as they are forced to do some extremely bad things sometimes.  Seven books are planned; four have been complete.  The last one, A Season for Slaughter, was published in 1992.  Eighteen years I’ve been waiting to see what happened next.  Eighteen.  Am I frustrated?  Sure.  Am I impatient?  Sometimes.  Am I angry?  No. 

Anyway . . . the next time you get fed up or you decide to create an I Hate George R.R. Martin fan group (I saw one online – honest – I really saw one), pause and think about this: we may be just as responsible for the delay as any other reason.  How would you feel to have thousands of people breathing down you neck, demanding something fantabulously great, right now.  That’s a big demand on anybody.  Fan demand can be just as harmful to an artist as it can be beneficial. 

In the mean time, I’m enjoying the first three books again as I prepare to watch the HBO series.  I will probably go ahead and read A Feast for Crows this time.  Then I will wait ever how long it takes.  Maybe the series will spur Mr. Martin onward, since they plan to do a season per book?  Who knows?  Let the artist create the art.  It’s his work, it’s his property.  He’s just sharing it with us.