... and other stuff

So, Aigaion Girl turns two this month, which is kind of a big deal and simultaneously not a big deal at all.  In some ways, it feels like it's been a lot longer than two years and in some ways, like it's still very new, just stepping into the world.  I feel like there's a lot more I could and should be doing with it, but still, I'm glad it's out there.

Also, there's this.  It's one of those things that you read and think, Damn, I wish I'd written that - and if you're a writer (and, more especially, if you know a writer) you should definitely give it a read.

I read it yesterday and I couldn't have discovered it at a better time; I'd just spent an evening being told everything I'm doing wrong in terms of marketing myself and that my decision to self-publish was completely incorrect and that I have to do this, this and this to become famous and get rich - since we all know getting rich is why we became writers to begin with.  The letter linked above made me feel instantly better, grounded and more confident.  I'm not going to be quitting my day job anytime soon, but the letter was refreshing and made me remember that one day, I will.

eReaders - The End of Paper Books?

I've spent a lot of time over the last little while thinking about e-readers and whether or not they're going to eventually mean an end to paper books. I really hope not.

It's not that I don't want people to be environmentally conscious. I do and I recognise that every little bit helps, so even though switching to ebooks isn't going to have the same impact as, say, driving a fuel efficient car or walking to work every day, I don't think it's a bad idea to do something to help the environment, especially where trees are concerned. This seems to be a hot topic for debate at the moment, but so far, even where there is a clear support of the continuation of paper books, everything I've read suggests that, over all, for avid readers, ereaders are the environmentally conscious way to go. Two blogs with differing opinions on the subject, but which present essentially the same research are Daniel Goleman's (E-Reader Versus Book: The Eco-Math) and Earth Beat (The future of paper books ... and e-readers).

So, why, as an environmentally conscious writer, would I not want ereaders to replace traditional books? A few reasons.

The first and biggest reason is that I think our society depends far too much on technology. Just about everyone in North America remembers that wide-spread, three-day blackout and the rolling black and brown outs that followed it. In the realm of disasters, it ranked pretty low, but it wasn't nothing. Some people died as a result, because they had no air conditioning and the financial damages done to businesses due to products spoiling or stores having to stay closed for long periods of time, was immense. And that is a system that has been in place for many, many years. What makes us think that the Internet (something new enough that I remember when only rich people could afford it, something which, at the time, couldn't be accessed without a dedicated phone line and ten minutes of horrible beeping and gurgling) is any less likely to spontaneously go down? Or, Hell, if you believe the Internet is bullet proof, good luck using it if the power goes out again. Good luck charging your ereader, too. If we've converted all of our old books to efiles and, especially, if our new books were never (or hardly ever) actually in print, a technological breakdown would be crippling to the acquired and compiled knowledge of the entire world. Think the burning of the library at Alexandria. Having all of our knowledge stored in one place is a bad idea.

It's also a money thing. Right now, especially, people don't have a lot of money to spend on, well, anything. So while an ereader might save you money overall (from what I can tell, ebooks aren't that much cheaper than paper, but they are a bit), most people don't have the money to spend on an ereader up front, and if they do, and enough people switch, it's going to drive the price of traditional books up - which means that people who couldn't ever hope to afford an ereader now won't be able to afford paper books either. Any new technology does this at first, drives out the old technology while simultaneously being too expensive for many people to afford (I saw this first hand with the transition from tape-cassette to CD, Discmans to mp3 players and videos to DVDs), and yes, eventually, it does balance out, but in the meantime, it sucks for the people who are too poor to afford the new stuff and (because the new stuff is so widely available to those who can afford it) can't find the old stuff anywhere.

Then there's the issue of the traditional in traditional books. It may sound a bit snobby and like it's not much of an argument, but there is something to be said for the feel of a paper book in your hands. There is something to be said for the idea of taking your book on a plane or a bus or to the beach or camping or hiking through the mountains and not having to worry about what happens if your batteries die. I don't know, the idea of reading The Paper Bag Princess to a kid on an ereader just doesn't work for me.

As for the solutions to the environmental implications of sticking with paper books, my suggestions to the publishing world at large include using recycled (preferably sustainable) paper and natural inks and printing books on demand, rather than printing huge quantities then warehousing them and eventually pulping the unwanted ones.

Obviously, this is a subject which readers and writers alike have strong opinions about and most of the articles I've read contain very evident biases (I read one article comparing various ereaders and paper books, which ranked most of the ereaders' readability as high and the readability of paper books as medium.) and I don't want to suggest that I think that ereaders in general are a bad idea, or that people shouldn't take steps to help the environment. In fact, I think they're a good idea, especially for people who want to read a book but don't necessarily want to own it (especially popular books which may not be in stock at a nearby library but are often overstocked at bookstores) or for people who spend a lot of time travelling and don't want to put fifteen books in the carry-on when they go on vacation. I think there are a lot of great uses for ereaders; I just don't want to see them replace paper books.

Thoughts

I'm thinking of starting a line of Devereaux Court merchandise on CafePress... book bags and pins and such. I dunno; just a thought.

Also, I started writing a story today about a little girl who talks to a rock in her back yard. I'll let you know where, if anywhere, that goes.

Pride and Prejudice. Now with Zombies.

I discovered a book today. It's called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and - yes. It's Pride and Prejudice, only they have to fight the legions of the Walking Dead. Lady Catherine has ninjas. It's awesome.

The whole book is succinctly summarized on the back: "Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read."

Now, I absolutely love the original Pride and Prejudice. In fact, of all of the Jane Austen books that I've read, I love it the most. I made the minor mistake of reading it before I tried Sense and Sensibility, and now can't read S&S, because there's no Mr. Darcy. So I console myself by reading P&P a couple of times a year and wallowing in my girlish squees, even though I know what's going to happen next. I also own two copies of the 2005 movie with Matthew McFayden as Mr. Darcy (who, in my own opinion, is a MUCH better Mr. Darcy than Colin Firth. But that's me).

Seth Grahame-Smith, who did all the zombie bits, actually made it work. He's managed to turn Elizabeth Bennett into a skilled fighting machine who, while being kind and witty and lively and all that, can also slaughter zombies with the best of them. And, it's funny. It's got zombies, and ninjas. About the only thing it doesn't have is pirates.

Of course, the whole thing makes one think.* How much can one get away with, with stories that are in Public Domain?

Because, really...zombies? In Hertfordshire? And there's ninjas involved?

Does this mean that, if I went and took, oh...the Arthurian Legends, and decided that as punishment for their adulterous ways, Lancelot and Guinevere were made into Zombies who then attacked and ate Sir Percival while he was mucking out his stable,** I could get away with that? Really? It's not...irreverent?

It's a tad worrying, because it also means that, if I ever have anything published, and my work were to fall into Public Domain, the new book with the amusing zombified book cover could be The Story That Rainbow Brite Spawned - And Zombies and people would buy it. Assuming, of course, that the original story was popular enough.

And, I think that's the rub. I don't think anyone would want to read War and Peace and Zombies, unless it was the abridged version. Hardly anyone wants to read the original of that now, and I'm fairly certain Whatshisname's already dead and that the book has long since been available in the Public Domain.

Duuuuuuude: I'm going to leave instructions with my kids for when J.K Rowling finally croaks, to tell my grandkids to write this down: Zombie Harry Potter. No really. Screw the Golden Snitch: they're playing for bodyparts, and the prized Jellied Brain, which, depending on who eats it, might just taste like bile. Or something. And there will be ninjas.

You know what Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is, though, right? It's fanfiction.*** 100%, pure, fanfiction. For nerds, who think zombies and ninjas make any story better. The fangirl in me wants to jump up and down and yell "See? See? It is a legitimate form of writing!" while the rest of me wants to hide in the shrubbery (with my book) until people stop looking.

I could, from here, segue into a rambling discussion of fanfiction and intellectual pornography, but I think I shall leave that for another day, considering the purpose of this was to point out that I found an awesome book. Seriously. It's actually good.

~~~

*It also makes me watch myself; I often catch myself, when I've been reading P&P, writing in Austenian prose. This can be rather annoying when writing something that doesn't fit in that sort of language.

** And by 'mucking out' I mean, 'having intimate relations with Bill the Stable Hand. Hur hur hur.

*** Actually, in the case of the Arthurian Legends, most of what's currently thought of as being part of the cycle (like Lancelot) was added in after, and is, therefore, fanfiction. Oddly enough, the same can be said about a great deal of what ended up in the cannonized version of the Bible. It's all fanfiction.