Y: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded & You're Not Fooling Anyone

You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop by John Scalzi

And

Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi

John Scalzi is one of my favorite authors. He’s a rare writer who actually makes a nice full-time living from writing AND is willing to talk numbers. He also writes one of the oldest, most-visited blogs on the internet. I believe the chapters in both these books are pulled from his blog, so theoretically you could read them there. That’s significantly more involved than just getting the books, though. As you can tell from the titles, they’re about writing, and they’re both amusing and insightful.

Because he’s just that awesome, John has a regular feature called The Big Idea, where authors talk about “the big idea” behind their new book. Considering his blog got something like 5.4 million visits last year, that’s a lot of publicity. Based on Big Idea posts, I’ve read:

Starters by Lissa Price

Fair Coin by E.C. Myers

Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells

The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K.Jemisin

And other books that were profiled, but which I discovered elsewhere.

I’ll read tons more when the A to Z Challenge is over. J

John Scalzi’s work is everywhere: science fiction books, TV shows (he was a creative consultant for Stargate: Universe), nonfiction of all kinds, articles, blog posts, movie reviews, and his latest project – mobile games from Industrial Toys, a new video game company. I’ve even seen him on television – the Science Channel did a pretty cool “what if” program called Alien Encounters (on what it might really look like if aliens decide to visit Earth), and Scalzi was one of the people interviewed, along with Nick Sagan (Carl Sagan’s son), Neil Degrasse Tyson (director of the Hayden Planetarium), Jill Tarter (director of the SETI Institute), David Brin (astrophysicist & SF author) and other people in science research and entertainment. Scalzi also tours and does the big conferences. Paramount Pictures announced last year that it's making a movie of Scalzi's first book, Old Man's War, directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

For anyone, this is a lot. For a guy still in his early 40s, one has to wonder when Scalzi sleeps.

I think I first encountered his writing in the famous article on Being Poor that he wrote in response to “But they were warned, why didn’t people just hop in their cars and drive away?” comments that were everywhere after hurricane Katrina. I’m not sure where I read Being Poor (lots of media carried it), and didn’t know who he was at the time, and didn’t immediately connect the article with him when I discovered his fiction a few years later. His blog is truly entertaining – whether you want to read about books, science fiction movies, publishing industry news, interesting technology, occasional commentary on politics (or politicians), see great pictures of his cats, or anything else that’s caught his interest that day.

Since his name has a Z in it, I’m going to cheat and discuss his fiction for the next entry…

M: Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) & Mirror Of Her Dreams

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
Genre: nonfiction, psychology

Just looking at this book makes me want to read it again. The subtitle describes it better than any description I can come up with: "Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts".

Written by two psychologists, it delves into all sorts of reasons why people dig in and defend beliefs or opinions even when they're clearly wrong and everyone involved knows it (e.g. why law enforcement officials might continue to insist someone is guilty or innocent because they originally labeled them as such, or why politicians make excuses and tell lies even when the amount of attention being paid is so intense that it’s only a matter of time until the truth comes out). It has chapter names like "Knaves, Fools, Villains, and Hypocrites: How Do They Live with Themselves?", "Cognitive Dissonance: The Engine of Self-justification", and "Pride and Prejudice...and Other Blind Spots".

This is a book I can safely recommend to everyone. It's easy to read, it's fascinating, and you'll never approach disagreement (or your own memory) in quite the same manner again.

The Mirror of Her Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson

Genre: fantasy

Terisa Morgan lives in a fabulous New York apartment paid for by her neglectful-yet-overbearing father. When Geraden comes crashing through her wall-sized mirror looking for a champion to save his land, he insists she's the one he came to get.

This is one of my favorite books. It bucks the current (and I must say, IMO, very American) trend of super-active single-protagonist books. I know we like to read about people doing things and taking control of their own destiny...but there are other stories, too. Terisa spends most of the story being dragged into things she would never have done if given a choice, and it makes her story no less fascinating for me. I like books about cautious introverts. They're so rare in fiction now. Every time I hear that a recently-published book has an introvert for a protagonist, I know in a few pages that character will just turn out to be an extrovert who was having a quiet day and soon shakes it off.

http://aliettedebodard.com/2011/08/31/on-the-prevalence-of-us-tropes-in-storytelling/

This blog post is by Aliette de Bodard, winner of the Writers of the Future Contest, finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer , nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, etc etc. She states what I feel (perhaps more strongly than I feel it), but in short, there are lots of valid stories out there. I remember feeling such relief as I read her post, because for many years now I'd feared the world had moved on without me.

I'm happy reading stories about individuals who control their own destiny, people who save the day, people who lead. But I'm also happy reading group stories, stories of people who aren't immediately equipped to deal with what life throws at them, stories where violence has lasting consequences for everyone involved, stories where someone isn't becoming a larger-than-life superhero in order to deal with problems. There's room for all of it on my bookshelf!

Think of the movie Training Day. His first day on the job as a narcotics officer, Jake (Ethan Hawke) is assigned to accompany Alonzo (Denzel Washington), and what follows is the most horrifying day of Jake’s life. Despite the awards they won (Denzel won best actor, Ethan Hawke best supporting actor), from a storytelling point of view, it’s Jake’s story we’re invested in, his thoughts, fears, and decisions that are the focus of the story, which makes him the protagonist. He spends most of the movie being dragged into things by Alonzo. I'm not sure he makes a single active decision until near the end of the movie. And yet it's one of the most thrilling, edge-of-my-seat movies I've ever seen.

I want more stories like that. Because while I’m entertained by people who always rise to the occasion, say the wittiest possible thing and do the best possible thing to resolve the current situation, I identify better with someone who’s overwhelmed by situations they’re not equipped to deal with, and have to muddle through solving problems, sometimes with the help of other people. As long as it’s written well, I see no reason why every single action that moves the story forward has to be the protagonist’s.

And that's it for M!

F: The False Prince, Firefly and Freakonomics

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Genre: fantasy

I actually bought this in hardback while browsing through a store last week. I don’t remember the last time I bought fiction that way (I still buy print books, but usually nonfiction for research, sometimes from Bookins (a book swap website), but I loved the concept of The False Prince so much I was afraid I would get home and find out it wasn’t available on kindle.

First the General premise: The royal family has been murdered, and soon the nobles will no longer be able to keep it a secret. To avert a civil war, a nobleman named Conner finds four orphans who look like the younger prince (who disappeared many years before, believed to have been ambushed and killed by pirates). Connor’s plan is to train all four to impersonate the prince. Whoever does it best will gain the throne and a life far beyond what a child from an orphanage can imagine. The others won’t live long enough betray the plot.

Jennifer Nielsen didn’t disappoint, y’all. She handled her plot (and her plot twists) deftly, and the book is imbued with all the fast-paced freshness one expects of young YA. YA has gotten really dark lately. That’s fine, but that makes books like this so much more special. I highly recommend it.

And then there’s

Firefly created by Joss Whedon
Genre: Television SF

Joss Whedon is, of course, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Dollhouse. He also wrote and directed the movie adaptation of The Avengers, coming out later this year.

Firefly is the greatest television show ever, so amazing that even after it was canceled, overwhelming fan support led to Serenity, a movie based on the show. According to Wikipedia (the only place I could find all the awards listed together), “Serenity won film of the year awards from Film 2005 and FilmFocus. It also won IGN Film's Best Sci-Fi, Best Story and Best Trailer awards and was runner up for the Overall Best Movie. It also won the Nebula Award for Best Script for 2005, the 7th annual "User Tomato Awards" for best Sci-Fi movie of 2005 at Rotten Tomatoes, the 2006 viewers choice Spacey Award for favorite movie, the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and the 2006 Prometheus Special Award.“

And, IMO, Serenity wasn’t even as good as the TV show it was based on (or maybe I’m just mad at Joss Whedon for killing off my favorite character in the movie).

I would say more, but thinking about the fate of Firefly, which was canceled before its first season even ended, depresses me (for comparison, the reality TV show Jersey Shore is entering its sixth season. Sixth. Words fail me).

Besides, the very fact that Firefly couldn’t be reduced to a pithy sentence or two was the beginning of its marketing problems. So I’ll just post a picture of The Official Companion, Volume One (it has the scripts, which I reread when I’m looking for something with great dialogue) and give it a tearful moment of silence…

Yes, that's Nathan Fillion, currently starring in Castle

…There.

One more F book!

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
Genre: nonfiction (economics/psychology)

Written by an economist and a journalist, it was getting lots of press when I read it a few years back. What I liked most about it was the authors’ way of looking at the same scenarios as everyone else, but seeing them from a completely different perspective. It wasn’t necessarily the conclusions they drew (which were always unconventional) but the process they went through to arrive at those conclusions that fascinated me.

Some of the questions they addressed: Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

And that's it for F!

Random books: All British for Christmas week

Oops. I was going to post a version of this on Christmas eve, but life got in the way. I hope everyone spent Christmas (or the holiday season) the way they wanted to spend it, with the people they wanted to be with.

Books! More specifically, British books!

The Atheist's Guide to Christmas by Ariane Sherine
Genre: nonfiction

We read this collection for one of my book clubs. Many (if not most) of the comedians, philosophers, scientists, and authors who wrote chapters for it are English. Some entries are stellar, some I just skipped because I was falling asleep. As one would expect with any semi-random group, the authors are split about half and half between those who enjoy Christmas and those who don't.

My favorite chapter is "How To Escape From Christmas" by Andrew Mueller. People trying to opt out of Christmas dinners/shopping/decorating/craziness are usually either dismissed as Scrooges or immediately invited to the house of everyone with an extra chair, which means instead of guiltlessly sitting by the fire at home, you now have to delicately make your excuses, or lie to your thoughtful friends.

I LOVE Mueller's suggestion for getting out of this predictable discomfort - get on a plane late on December 24th that will be refueling in some conveniently non-Christian spot, and arrive in Australia on December 26th for beaches and sunshine. I think I'll try this next year.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: historical fiction/suspense

This one's going to take a while. And while it still has the big issue I can't ignore (solving everything using clues not mentioned before), it turns out Sherlock isn't boring at all. I'm really entertained by the character-in-print in a way I'm not by the popular-culture version of him.

For one thing, he doesn't instantly know everything. He doesn't know the earth orbits the sun, for instance, because the information is of absolutely no use to him. And once Watson told him, he resolved to instantly forget it, because "Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." (A Study In Scarlet, Page 21). Specialization, folks. Sherlock said it first-ish.

I must admit I'm slogging through a WTF section right now about the misdeeds of a particular Mormon sect. But I'm hoping it'll eventually make its way back to 19th century London.

Unraveled by Courtney Milan
Genre: historical romance

Courtney Milan is my favorite romance author (I believe she's American; her characters are English, hence the inclusion in this post). I don't say that lightly, because the Romance genre is teeming with great writers who are routinely dismissed because they are often women who write about romance (men who write romance but call it something else, like Nicholas Sparks, get glowing reviews, accolades, and movies based on their books). Milan is not only an expert in Georgian/Regency/Victorian-era English law and law court decisions (and is (or was once) a lawyer in her day job), but she writes the most intriguing characters working through gut-twisting situations.

For instance! Unraveled is part of a series about three brothers. Their deranged mother abused them relentlessly. They couldn't go to anyone for help because their mother was the respected widow of the local lord, and very charitable, besides. She let their sister die because it was "God's will". She named them each for Bible verses. Not Biblical characters. VERSES. Of course they all go by shortened versions - Ash, Smite, and Mark.

When Ash takes off for India to make his fortune, their mother tries to kill Smite by starving him in the flooded cellar. Mark rescues him, and they run off, surviving on the streets of Bristol before their brother comes back and finds them. Ash is rich now, and determined to give his younger brothers everything he wanted and didn't have - an education at Eton, big houses, power. But Smite and Mark have now formed a bond that seems to exclude Ash, no matter what he tries. This is all backstory, but just think of what a skillful writer could do with characters with this sort of psychological damage.

Ash's story is Unveiled. He's set himself a mission to destroy the wealthy distant relation who refused to help them when they were in need. His love interest? The daughter of that family, who is equally determined to save her family from social and financial destruction.

Mark's story is Unclaimed. Mark is a sincere, funny, likeable guy who writes a hugely popular book on chastity. His love interest? A courtesan who's been hired by a political rival to take him down.

Smite's story is Unraveled. He is a dedicated magistrate. His love interest is a runner for the local crime boss.

Which brings me back to what I think is the oddest criticism made of romance novels. I don't hear complaints of fantasy for being stories where the hero always fulfills the quest. No one criticizes the police or detectives in suspense thrillers for always catching the bad guy. Why is the idea that two people are going to end up together at the end of the story so unpalatable? The question in genre stories is almost never If. It's How. And Courtney Milan is a master at the how. LOVE these books. Fiction doesn't get any better than this.

Kate: the Making of a Princess by Claudia Joseph
Genre: biography

Thirty pages in I was a little worried, because all I'd gotten was a detailed account of all her relatives who had suffered horrifying deaths in 19th century coal mines. But I'm in the WWII era now. It's a fascinating part of British history that's sobering and humanizing to me, because I tend to think of Britain as historically wreaking havoc on the rest of the world.

And that's last week's post!