Marginalia

[coalescent]

One for immortalradical and snowking both, I think: Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. "Welcome to New London. The time is 2103 to 2104, and the game is afoot!". WITH ROBOT WATSON. Other Holmesian fun: a story at BBC Cult written by Kim Newman. EDIT: Jonathan Strahan points out that there are other Holmes stories on the site by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Paul Cornell, Christopher Fowler and Dominic Green.

karentraviss writes about respecting the reader: "Dissing popular and media fiction isn't just insulting to writers: it's actually contemptuous of the readers who buy it. Sneering at their choices tells them that they're too stupid to know any better.  If they were smarter, they'd know they should be reading Literature, or maybe they've tried and just couldn't manage it, poor sods." Charles Stross debates: "Every media tie-in book published is potentially one less book set in a universe of their own imagining by the author who wrote it.". matociquala has further comments, with reference to the geek hierarchy, here.

The mass market paperback edition of City of Saints and Madmen has a different cover to the hardback/trade edition. I don't like it so much.

24 season 4 has started: "Who will the really big bad be? I don't know, but I'm hope hope hoping it's aliens. Jack Bauer vs aliens." I think we can all agree, that would be cool. There's a preview/trailer/mini episode thing set between seasons 3 and 4 to be found here. [via tomburnell]

The Guardian reviews Graham Joyce's new novel, The Limits of Enchatment. "The Limits of Enchantment is an intricate, involving dramatisation of a battle in English history that still continues today, just about, although there now seems to be hardly any doubt about the winner: the conflict between folk wisdom and modern science. [...] This remarkable novel should scoop Joyce out of the dusty corners of bookshops and introduce his work to a much wider readership." Also in review, less favourably: Belle de Jour's book.

An article about 'Feral Cities' from the Naval War College Review. "Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles. Once a vital component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power..." [via Matt Cheney]

The best thing to come out of the great LJ blackout of 2005.

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> Sneering at their choices tells them that they're too stupid to know any better.

And this is wrong how exactly?

It is done because it is easy. It produces books which sell. It does not produce books which are great works of art. It is classic high brow low brow argument. Can I be bothered to read Karen's argument? no

[snowking.livejournal.com]

And this is wrong how exactly?

Well, it makes you sound like a twat for one. It's just replicating people who say SF cannot produce great works of art, only you're using different values of brow. Go you!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It's not clear to me that producing a really good work of 'popular' art is any easier or simpler than producing a really good work of 'literary' art. Are you saying that it is?

It's also not clear to me that a really good work of 'popular' art is inherently less meaningful than a really good work of 'literary' art. It may tackle more universal themes, but that doesn't make them lesser.

I think in most cases, it's mostly in the execution. It's quite possible to have brain-meltingly bad popular fiction (*cough*TheDaVinciCode*cough*), but then it's quite possible to have brain-meltingly bad literary fiction. It's a difference of subject, and possibly degree, not quality.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

That said, I do have some sympathy for Charlie Stross' point--most of the time I would rather read an original imaginative work than a derivative one. But then, you could apply that argument against series fiction as well, and he's as guilty of that as anyone.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

The question was not just about popular art, but media tie-ins. When people write media tie-in novels they are constrained by having to re-use existing characters and cannot have much character or world development. In my experience this regularly produces books which would not stand up to examination. Sure - it is possible to produce a good one but it is the exception rather than the rule.

I don't see why snowking had to be so offensive about something which is a straightforward observation of the market as it is now.

[kittynic]

24 Season Four has started? But it's not allowed to!

I'm only half way through season three!

[kalorlo.livejournal.com]

Because it ignores any basis for those choices and just says they're all wrong. It's elitist in the bad way.

Because "low brow" does not mean valueless. I'd far rather read a book which has story than one which waffles on in an essentially unreadable manner. Books don't have to be works of art to be great.

Because these books can be better than the source material they're based on. In the hands of the right writer there's no reason why it can't produce "high brow" works. When the source material has potential, but is let down by basic plots or flat characterisation, there's often a wish to see what a better writer would have done with that material. Or there's a wish to see what happens next, or how places away from the centre of action are affected.

Media tie-ins and things like new Cthulhu and Sherlock Holmes stories are professional fanfiction, and in my view this is a good thing. Sure, there are ones written just for the money but there are also ones written for love. Immediately deciding that they must all be crap (and so must the people who read them) seems a little reactionary...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Watch faster! :p

[wg.livejournal.com]

Its starting on Sky One at the end of this month, if you have that. Better do some 24 evening :-D

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

ObExample: Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novel.

(I suspect pikelet might argue for the Doctor Who tie-ins, too).

[ajr.livejournal.com]

I might offer up the Dragonlance books, Dragons of Autumn Twilight/Winter Night/Spring Dawning books as another example too. Along with the ShadowRun book, Never Trust a Dragon by Robert N. Charette.

I read far too many Dragonlance and ShadowRun books when I was much younger.

[sieuesie.livejournal.com]

The best thing to come out of the great LJ blackout of 2005.

I remember another filk created with that song. It had something to do with Lindsay's pants in it.

:o)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Huh. I always thought the Legends trilogy was the better of the two, if only for the creepy as hell alternate future where Raistlan had killed all the gods. Brrr.

Then too, those six books are the Dragonlance origin stuff, so they are essentially original world-creation (even if a lot of it came from gaming). It's the umpty-zillion books that came after that are the sharecropping. :)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

... I don't want to know!

(Though let's face it, there are probably others around here who do.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

My need for Cthulu fanfic is very very low. It basically starts with 'A Colder War' and ends with The Atrocity Archives. :)

I acknowledge that accepting a predefined set of constraints--like, say, an existing fictional world--can be seen as a challenge: how can I build in all this and still write a good story? I just mostly prefer original stuff.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Raistlin, I think I meant.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Does that not prove my point? I have had something like 20 Star Wars books pass through my house (one was reviewed on DiverseBooks.com in the last few days). The fact that only a small proportion of those were memorable seems to support my view and not disprove it.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I could send you the MP3, if you like.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Another example: John Ford's The Face of the Enemy, which is a rather good Classic Trek tie-in.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

John M Ford has won the world fantasy award, even. Although not for the Trek novel.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

... there's an mp3?

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Ah! I nearly forgot about the Legends trilogy. Though I tend to think of it as being the Twins trilogy, personally. Yes, that was good too, though I still give the edge to the first trilogy.

Of the umpty-zillion books that came after that, the only one I recall anything of now is Richard Knaak's The Legend of Huma, though I couldn't trust my memory to say whether it was good or not.


Come to think of it, your point about the Dragonlance books I cited being the origin books could also apply to the ShadowRun book I cited. And I got the title of it wrong too. Oops. It's Never Deal with a Dragon, actually. Along with Choose Your Enemies Carefully and Find Your Own Truth it made up the trilogy that launched the ShadowRun line of books. And as I recall, seemed a thoroughly decent mix of cyberpunk and magic. Of the later books in the series, again I remember little of them other than one called Burning Bright, and again, I couldn't trust my memory as to how good it was.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Another Trek book which springs to mind is David Gerrold's The Galactic Whirlpool. Indeed, even though I'd heard people recommending it as being good SF for years, it wasn't until I actually managed to get a copy of it myself that I realised it was a Trek book.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I think The Legend of Huma didn't suck (although there was a sequel about a minotaur I didn't care for much). Er .. I remember some of the 'origins of the companions' type books, including the really not good one where Sturm and Kitiara GO TO THE MOON.

Oh! But I liked the trilogies about the history of the elves (Griffin cavalry!) and the history of the dwarves. Can't remember who wrote them. There must be a website somewhere.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Oh yes.