Books

I've been travelling in airports lately and have noticed more and more people toting around electronic book readers and it's common to overhear their owners sing the praises of their new devices to curious people inquiring about them. Anecdotely at least, it seems that these devices are starting to gain some traction with mainstream consumers.

What is interesting is how the devices are starting to change people's reading habits. This survey found that most people with ebook readers were reading the same amount as before, but a large percentage were reading more now that they had the gadgets in their pockets or purses.

That sounds like it would be good news for authors and publishers, but the spectre of book piracy looms. Some think that free copies of ebooks will be good for pushing physical books, but I'm not so sure. There was a time that video files were hard to pirate because internet connections were too slow and the file sizes were too big. Now it is easy to find and download movies and TV shows and e-book files are so laughably small that they could be sent by dial-up connections in no time at all.

In fact, it's not uncommon to see torrents of science fiction books that collect thousands of titles in one archive that could be downloaded with ease. How can book-sellers compete with that? The next few years are going to be interesting.

I am struggling through a book right now that is one of the Hugo finalists for best novel. It is Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente and this blogger's review pretty much reflects my own opinion, although  I haven't finished it yet so haven't made up my mind whether or not I like it, but I can say that I have considered abandoning it completely, which is rare for me.

I mention it because I read this blogger who complained about what he perceives as the screwed-up priorities of the science fiction writing community to produce books for critics and not for people to enjoy. So far, Palimpsest fits into that category.

So that brings up the question as to what makes a book worth reading or not. This Atlantic article looks at why many stories fail, and not just in science fiction. He concludes that bad fiction is a failure of imagination. I must say that the dreamworld of Valente has perhaps too much imagination.

I wonder if the book qualifies as "SciFi Strange" a new sub-genre name coined by this fellow, although some comment that it's just another label for new weird. I'm so out of touch, I can't keep track of the labels people keep throwing out there. It's like every generation of writers is keen to pioneer some new strain of science fiction. It reminds me of the ridiculous labels you see in the music field. Electroclash? Wonky Pop? Say, what?

It sounds like Ray Bradbury beginning to lose it. Either that or he's one of those old guys who's lawn you should keep off of.

In the runup to the celebrated author's 90th birthday he gave an interview where he opined on the American government's lack of vision. Instead of fixing the nation's banking system and pulling the country out of bankruptcy and economic ruin, Washington should be sending astronauts to the moon in preparation for our colonization of Mars.

Another old guy, scientist Stephen Hawking, also recently spoke of how our biggest priority is to start colonizing the stars in order for mankind to survive.

They both sound like two fellow who are disappointed to not see their dreams come true in their lifetimes.

Oh yes, Bradbury is also complaining that we've got too many "internets."

I'm not the only who think Ray's losing it.

Bradbury has also complained about Amazon's Kindle, but he's not the only one, so maybe he's not so crazy. His name was invoked in this article about some interesting technology that could make ebook readers much more useful than they are now.

I think I'll go back to rememebering Bradbury and his ilk in the nostalgic days when they were at their prime, such as when they were meeting at Clifton's Cafeteria in Los Angeles, which is still a place of literary piligrimmage for some.

I'm in the middle of Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl which is why this interview with him by a Boston weekly was of interest. Not much is revealed in the article other than the fact the first-time novelist is as surprised by the accolades he's receiving as anyone else is. The interviewer even listed the book as this year's Hugo winner, even though the awards won't be handed out for another few weeks.

Another author who is in the running for this year's best novel Hugo is China Mieville for The City & the City. He was at Comic-Con recently and this interesting profile resulted.

Someone who already has three Hugo awards to his name, although none of them for a novel, is British author Brian Aldiss. What you probably didn't know about him is that he's also a painter. He recently mounted an exhibition of his works in England.

If all this talk of science fiction authors has got you into the mood for a bit of reading, here's a review from the Geek Dad blog of a new book called How to Live in a Science Fiction Universe that makes it sound like a decent read.

From the title, I thought it was some sort of comedy, but it seems to be serious. For something less sober, check out this list of 50 novels for when you need a good laugh. There's even some science fiction content on the list.

Finally, this newspaper has a brief roundup of SF book reviews, including praise for the 11th novel in a C.J. Cherryh series. What is the point of reviewing the 11th book of a series in a mainstream newspaper? Is someone going to say, I'd read that, but first I have to read the previous 10 books?

Back in the spring, Canadian science fiction author William Gibson gave a speech at book expo. I stumbled upon a link to it today and thought I'd pass it on in case you hadn't seen it.

He has some interesting observations about the state of science fiction, the death of the future and the direction of publishing. He even talks about the latest book he's working on. Even though his last two books were purposefully set in modern times and not science fiction, it's hard to tell the difference which was exactly his point about the death of the future. We're living in the future we've imagined all of those years ago.

Another author from a different generation who is always interesting to hear from is Ray Bradbury. He, too, is labelled as a science fiction writer, but often writes outside of the genre, but slips back and forth so seamlessly that SF fans don't always notice. There is a recent book out that collects interviews with this literary lion that sound like must-reading for anyone who is a fan of the man.

Almost as interesting is news that a long-slumbering musical of Bradbury's is on the way. He's written across many genres, but I never would have imagined him as the musical type. That should be interesting, to put it mildly.

I'm always intrigued to hear words of wisdom from just about any author, be he or she famous, infamous or obscure. Not long ago, IO9 served up some pithy quotations from a variety of genre writers that offered advice about life. Some of them are quite good.

So how do you decide which books to read? Many of us rely on word-of-mouth from friends or from other fans posting reviews on websites like this one, but some of us are now turning to book recommendation engines. These are social websites which compile the likes of its members to crunch the stats to come up reading ideas for you.

If the thought of your tastes being boiled down to a mere algorithm is distasteful, be aware that there are professional book recommenders. No, it's not a recommendation you get from reading a professional book review. It's a flesh-and-blood person who quizzes you on your tastes and comes up with a reading list for you. We used to call those people librarians.

If that sounds too pricey, you could always turn to free web quizzes like this one which lets you decide which flavour of apocalyptic fiction is right for you.

The news that Amazon is selling more electronic books for its Kindle than hardcover books is interesting. Does it signal some sort of tipping point that e-books have passed into the mainstream?

I've found myself reading e-books more and more and am perfectly comfortable with them, although they have their limitations, but I think that is mostly a problem when people try to adapt text from an existing printed form into an electronic one and the result is less than optimal.

The problem remains whether or not selling e-books, or e-any kind of media, is going to be sustainable in the long term. As this essay bluntly states, the internet is a copying machine and once copies are super-abundant, they become worthless. Will that happen to books and other media? People will pay for scarcity, but soon supply is going to outstrip demand.

The other thing I have found with electronic books is that they are even easier to amass than the physical ones which already strain my shelves to the point that they are becoming warped. When you can fit hundreds of electronic books in your pocket, you find that you want to read them all and end up skimming more than you would with "real" books.

Some think that we are becoming accustomed to skimming by reading on the internet. We're more interested in learning new facts than we are in actually absorbing those facts and taking the time to digest them. That has led some to propose a "slow reading" movement. I am all for it, but I wish I could read faster and with sufficient comprehension that I can actually plow through those books, physical and electronic, which are threating to bury me.

Not long ago, I was commenting on how I would like to see a collected letters of Robert Heinlein. That might not be coming any time soon, but an authorized biography is coming soon on the man who many consider to be science fiction's greatest author.

The first volume of the biography is coming out in August and will be titled Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve. To get people excited about the release, the publisher, which is Tor, has asked a number of prominent science fiction authors to name their favourite Heinlein books.

The first response to be posted is from David Brin who cites Beyond This Horizon as his fave. I can't say that I've read that one, but I have certainly read many of Heinlein's books. I cannot decide between The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers. Both are fantastic books.

So what is your favourite Heinlein?

Looking for some beach reading? How about book recommendations from scientists? You probably won't be surprised that there's a fair amount of science fiction in the list, but there are some non-fiction entries, too.

If you prefer your recommendations from critics, check out this roundup of reviews of some new science fiction book releases from the Denver Post.

For something a bit different, here's a review of a new shared-setting anthology edited by John Scalzi. I've always liked the idea of writers collaborating to flesh out a world together, but it never seems to fully click. I think that sort of thing works better more established universes like Star Trek or Star Wars. They have matured to the point where there is enough back story that the reader can quickly jump in.

Have you ever wondered why established science fiction writers would stoop to writing for media tie-ins for established franchises like Predators or Halo? IO9 recently asked some of them for their reasons and the responses were quite interesting.

Will Paolo Bacigalupi's first novel The Windup Girl end up winning the Hugo? It's next on my reading list, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will just because of all the other awards it's been winning like the Nebula and the Locus award for best first novel. All that attention has the Washington Post publishing a belated review of the book.

Bacigalupi has since written another book called Ship Breaker. Here's a mini review of the book and a profile of the author. As an added bonus, it explains how to properly pronounce his name.

If you like belated reviews, the Guardian is going back to examine past Hugo winners. Their most recent write-up was on Larry Niven's Ringworld.

Niven's book is included in Gollancz Science Fiction Masterworks series which consists of close to 100 books. Some ambitious bloggers aim to read all of them and review them along with Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks books.

I picked up that last link from this blog which lists all of the titles in the series and asks readers how many of the books they have actually read. I've only read about half of them which means I've got lots of catching up to do.

Of course, that prompts the question, can you have too many books? This observer tackles that conundrum.