David R Slayton

Feb32011

My Own Two Cents: Why I Hate My Kindle

I love technology. I may write about fantastic societies without computers or electronics, but I still love my iPod, my netbook, and my Playstation. Despite this, I hate my Kindle.

It was a generous Christmas gift, and I’ve been trying to experiment and work around my initial impressions, but so far any attempt to find a more positive angle hasn’t worked.

Let’s start with the consumption problem. When I buy a latte in a disposable cup and drink it, it’s been consumed. I trash the cup, I notice the expense on my debit card statement, and I move on. I’ve consumed something, and it is wholly gone. Books on the Kindle feel the same way for me. I can’t give them to a friend, donate them to the Denver Children’s Home, sell , or trade them. The book I purchased for the Kindle was the same price as a paperback, and it’s gone. I’m never going to read it again. From an author’s standpoint, this is a good thing: a single copy for a single reader, so a book will have higher sales figures, but it also impacts the ability of a reader to spread the book’s popularity by word of mouth or loaning it out. If eBook’s cost were lower than a paperback it might appeal to me.

The second problem involves the portability: I can use the Kindle to load up on books so that say, on a two week trip to Europe, I’m not toting around as much weight. But I can’t use the Kindle during takeoff and landing, two periods when I’m most likely to read while everyone else watches the belt bit or braces for impact.

I thought perhaps the vocal feature would be useful: I could listen to any book I purchased, but that quickly proved grating. It was like being read to by Stephen Hawking, so I’m more likely to pay for an Audible book that I can stand to listen to.

A friend pointed out that pdfs can be transferred over, but this did not work very well either. I have a lot of reference books, mostly historical, that could be usefully stored in a digital form, but the Kindle doesn’t handle viewing them very well. You need to zoom in and around in order to see the pages. This kills the pdf’s ease of use completely, and I’m more likely to stick with my netbook. This problem might be solved by upgrading to the larger version, but that would further degrade the portability factor.

I am sure that the environmental impact of printing a book and shipping it to a store outweighs the cost of transmitting it wirelessly to the Kindle, but I’m also tired of having to charge the various devices in my life. A book is perfectly serviceable. It does not require a battery or one more cord in a drawer.

These are my own impressions, and two friends swear I’ll come around, that in no time the Kindle will be as indispensable to my life as my iPod, but so far I have to say that I’m going to stick with killing trees and browsing bookstores.

Jan302011

Shades of Grey Don’t Always Look Good On Me

Sometimes, I need my heroes to be heroic. They do the right thing not because it’s convenient, but because they’re driven to it by their morality and nature. Personally, I write reluctant heroes. They do the right thing, but they’re pushed there. They can see the shades of grey in the world and might resist the call to do the right thing, but they ultimately rise to the occasion.

After reading a lot of “realistic” fantasy, where innocence is brutally punished, and even the good guys struggle to take the right course of action, it’s good to spend some time with better people. I’m ripping my way through Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series and loving every minute of it. Sure, we lose some of the tension in the good guys being so good, as we know a fall from grace isn’t around the corner, and Butcher seems hesitant to kill his characters to raise the stakes, but it’s still a hell of a ride.

Like Mistborn, Alera’s world has a tightly defined magic system. Butcher gives us an elemental based magic that makes easy sense. A few of the good guys have god-like powers, but he balances this nicely by providing the same to the villains. He draws a bit too deeply on Roman history for me in the series, but I’ve only spotted one blatantly ripped off moment so far. Yet these books are page turners. After a strict diet of first person point of view in the Dresden Files, I’m happy to say that Butcher can work the third person limited with just as much skill.

What I like most about this series are the characters. They do the right thing. They are heroes, so while they are often tempted to compromise, I never doubt them. They’re also clever. They solve their problems using their heads more than their blades. It’s a refreshing change from stories where a hero can’t make a connection that the reader made fifty pages ago. Shades of grey, or doing the wrong thing for the right reason, are for the villains. It may not be realistic, and it can feel a little didactic at times, but it’s still a nice change.

I should also say that Butcher has done a great job of taking Roman military tactics and adding magic. He fully embraces what would change about a legion’s standard formation and attack when coupled with fliers and casters capable of tossing fireballs against the enemy. And the action scenes are lively, busy, but without becoming a slog of gore that I want to hurry past.

Jan252011

The Dark is Always Out There

We live in amazing times. The level of our technology, health, sanitation, and literacy are unmatched in recorded human development. Sometimes, especially in the wake of tragedy, it’s hard to remember that. The current popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction tells me that on some level, we know how fleeting the light of civilization is. As we stock up on canned goods, we know that a Dark Age is not very hard to achieve, and a little social or economic decline can go a long way.
When we think about the Dark Ages, most of us reflect on the European medieval period: castles, knights, and ladies in towers. Fantasy has traditionally drawn on these elements, to the point that they can be considered cliché. Books like the Silver Phoenix try to branch out, and take other periods as influence, yet I’m still drawn to the European Middle Ages, to reading about them and writing about them, perhaps because of the day to day struggle for survival in those times.

We know that the period after the Fall of Rome’s western half was disastrous. The light of literacy largely went out, leaving us with scant records of the period.

What we do know about the early Middle Ages is that they weren’t easy. No element of modern life, clean running water, proper shelter for wars or the elements, was widely available. The smell alone might bowl you over. Disease was rampant, misunderstood, and largely untreatable. Work was constant, leisure rare, and privacy largely unknown.

In fantasy we romanticize an age of struggle, where human life was short and cheap. I think on these details and shudder at the notion of living in such a world, and I find myself grateful for what we’ve achieved in our era. Our world remains flawed and violent, with tragedies , crime, and intense disagreements which in of themselves are a luxury. It gets me down from time to time, but I can easily turn on my faucet, watch the water spiral out, and thank what I believe in that I live when and where I do.

Dec122010

The Kind of Book I Want to Write: Gushing Over Mistborn

I read a lot of good books, and I’m fortunate to have people in my life with great taste. Sometimes I pick a book up at random, without any prior knowledge. I got lucky with my latest grab, though as usual, I’m the last to the party. It’s rare that I finish a book I like so much that I want to give it as a Christmas present, but I just finished Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, and I’m really anxious to open volume two. Mistborn is epic in scale, with the requisite world-threatening plot, magic, monsters, and some good action. There’s a nice balance of coming of age and political manipulations thrown against a relatively small setting. There’s also a romance plot that stays safely, sweetly, on the PG side. This is a long book, not quite at the eye-rending size of George R. R. Martin, but the paperback weighs in at 675 pages. Yet she’s a page turner. I was never bored with Mistborn. While there are points of view in Martin that I wish would just hurry along so I can get back to someone I care about more, the POV switches in Mistborn are just long enough.

Though there are relatively few points of view, the book does have more than one. It’s a nice change from my reading in urban fantasy or young adult, where a single point of view is the norm. I didn’t mind the switches in Mistborn: they’re well-timed, which brings me to the point that this book is well edited. Transitions are handled very well. Smooth breaks are achieved throughout, and I didn’t spot a single typo or spelling error.

Sanderson uses some techniques that really set the book apart for me. First, the narrative within a narrative works very well. These are journal vignettes, short paragraphs that start every chapter. They quickly come to have grave importance to the book’s plot as well as tie the reader into the characters’ lives: they’re reading the journal with you, and even more anxious for it to make sense as their lives depend on it. Generally these sorts of insertions into fantasy just serve to build the world and ultimately detract from the action. They don’t often reflect the plot so tightly.

The book has been praised for its magic system, though I must admit, despite its originality, that aspect never really grabbed me. How the magic is used works great, but the actual mechanics are a bit too cleanly defined for my taste. Things got a bit matrix-y in the action sequences, but I still enjoyed them. The characters get pushed to the limits of their power reserves, and often risk running out of fuel at the critical moment.

Epic fantasy is a genre that I often worry about. Does it have a future when urban fantasy has become so popular and fewer agents seem to be representing the epic side? I love epic fantasy, yet two of the three books I’ve put down in the last few years have been epic fantasies that were boring me to death. Mistborn renews my faith in the genre. It’s ultimately an underdog tale. I’ve never so clearly felt that the heroes are badly outmatched. They doubt their chance of success openly, yet as good heroes should, they keep climbing that hill. Sanderson gives his characters heart. Whereas Martin maintains a distance, letting you know that anyone can bite it anytime, Sanderson isn’t afraid to show us the charisma of the doomed. Great power doesn’t equal invincibility if you want your readers to stay hooked.

Go read Mistborn if you haven’t yet. I recommend just picking up the trilogy. You’re going to want to open book two the moment you put the first one down.

Dec122010

Cheating on Book Club: Monsters by the Sea

I say without any intended irony that I think the Percy Jackson books are a thoroughly American series. Despite their emphasis on the Greek myths, the characters have a focus on American food and soda brands, but Percy also has a directness and mindset that impresses me more than a certain British boy wizard.

At a wedding in Mexico, with some time to lounge, I picked up book two in the series: the Sea of Monsters, and we got along quite well; so well that I wouldn’t have minded having the third book available while digging my toes into the sand and watching the sea roil.

While reading Atonement and other literary fiction works mental muscles that need developing, reading a good fantasy or two, even those for a younger audience, reminds me why I love my genre.

The second volume picks up the pace and pulls in the slack. It’s slimmer than the Lightning Thief and a better read. Rick Riordan draws on the Odyssey in funny ways, with a witty jab at Penelope’s adventures in weaving and an update to certain other bits that I won’t spoil. I appreciated a toning down of the sillier mythic reinventions, something that cluttered up the first book for me, though if you know the tales, you’ll quickly spot where chapters are going.

The main character, Percy, grows a bit. He’s not perfect, and his flaws are human and relatable. They fit a boy moving towards adulthood. His demi-god powers take a major leap forward, but Percy gets some setbacks too, which was a nice touch.
The Sea of Monsters is a breezy read. There’s not a lot else to say. I liked it, and it ended on a great twist which makes me anxious to see where things go. If I’ve a critique of the book it’s that the chapter headings often act as spoilers. Major developments are given away there. For the younger reader, to whom the book is written, this might not be the case; but I wouldn’t have minded if Riordan had stretched out the surprises. My other critique is copy editing. This book is slight, and I spotted two copy problems. The first was early, on page eight. It’s an area I’m working hard on in my own work so it really jumps out at me when such a best-selling book makes errors.

Nov62010

Flashbacks and Memories

Memory is a deep component of our personal story. As writers, it’s a source of material and a means to add texture to our characters. While I fight nostalgia when writing, afraid to create something that is too sanitized or sentimental, when I become stuck on a scene or plot point, it helps to look back in my life and find how a younger self would have dealt with something. This a key quality in writing young adult fiction, imbuing it with senses and reactions appropriate to the protagonists’ age when everything was just a bit more intensely.

Characters arrive with memories of their own, and they can bring their memories to life in vivid detail. Writing allows for time travel in many ways, not the least being the use of flashbacks to explore the past.

For flashbacks to function, they have to deeply impact the current chronology without overwhelming its story. Like points of view, they need to possess both merit and resonance. I always think of Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye as the gold standard for flashbacks: the chronology in that book synchs past and present, with the present usually being the weaker of the two.

As I write the current work-in-progress, I’m struggling with the use of flashbacks. Fully half of the book is planned to occur in the main character’s past. But as I read through the current draft to find the rhythm, I find the pace slows when I hit the first memory. It soon picks up again, but any drag on the story is a problem. In genre fiction, pace can be everything. I want my readers turning the pages, into the night, over-sleeping and being late to work because they could not stop reading my books. Backstory is often boring and so often very unnecessary. If events in a character’s past are so important to their lives, shouldn’t those events be the plot of the book?

Some books, like the Steel Remains, limit the flashback sequences to either small vignettes or single scenes which reveal the key moments of a character’s history. This keeps the story moving and only derails the chronology to give you what is essential in the character’s past. Flashbacks can only hold so much tension: you already know the main character has survived. Death is not a potential. Perhaps he was greatly affected by those events, even shaped by them: but like all good fiction, the boring parts should be left out. An important part of making flashbacks work is to twist readers’ expectations one way in the present, but unfold events in an unexpected means in the past. You know he survived, but there are unknowns in the how or the things he had to do to keep himself alive.

Flashbacks are more than memories. They are scenes in a character’s life, and they should be given as much life as possible in order to keep them active and engaging. It’s just one more place where “show don’t tell” is the rule.

Oct132010

Book Club: Atonement

In case you missed it in the comments, the novel for book club this month is Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Sorry for the delay on this post. I’ll work at being more prompt.

Oct132010

Book Club: Art and Memory

There’s a theme in literature that explores the powerful connection between art and memory. The best example I know of is Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, otherwise known as my favorite book. But it’s something we all experience. I can’t always remember the fashion or music of a certain time in my life, but I can tell you want I was reading and how it affected me.

The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean, takes the connection between art and memory and lets it casually supplant everything else in the characters’ lives. As Marina’s memory dissolves with age, she recalls her time in the Hermitage Museum of Leningrad during World War II. Flashback is tricky. It has to be used wisely, but like the best books that alternate points of view, the important trick is to make both time periods engaging enough that the reader gets a little anxious when you change the channel, then they find themselves captivated by the new chapter before you reverse course again. Dean manages Marina’s past with a delicate touch and a compelling perspective, but each time you find yourself in Marina’s present, you are anxious to get back to the past.

As with so many recent entries in literary fiction, Madonnas is a brief book, only an inch thick and 228 pages. Yet it captures important turning points in a human life. If good writing is “life with all the boring parts taken out,” then Dean accomplishes her goal. Not that the book is all action, plot, or event. Little touches run through the narrative, humanizing moments that reinforce the difference in the chronology. Unfortunately these grounding elements are also some of the weaker points in the narrative, though still they manage to help tease out the mystery. In a way, the chronological shifting also hurts the book’s plot, as you know certain outcomes are inevitable: Marina and her husband Dmitri will survive the war. They will be reunited. Still, Dean had my full attention for most of this novel. She drew me in with the vignettes on art, digressions into discussions of the museum’s missing treasures.

Madonnas is a touching, memorable little book, but I have to echo Alfred’s comment that the daughter’s point of view was a distraction. It made me wonder what history is slipping away from us as our grandparents pass. What learning techniques? What arts? A vast history of personal experience slips constantly away from us, ineffable, and ever eroded. It made me want to sit down with my grandfather and ask him to poor out his own memories of the War before they vanish.

Oct122010

The Power of Language

As writers, language is our greatest tool and weapon. We wield it daily in our craft, but it is just as easily turned to hate. In the last few years I’ve backed off the “politically correct” censoring of certain terms. I now consider that a mistake.

My friend Laura doesn’t blog too often, but her post today is a can’t miss on the power of language and its effect upon us.

http://someblundersandabsurdities.blogspot.com/2010/10/thoughts-on-coming-out-day-2010.html

I encourage you to read Laura’s post and leave her a supportive comment.

Oct72010

Can You Help a Betsy Out?

Betsy Lerner has released an updated Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers. This is one of my top books on writing. It mixes the practical advice with some digestable inspiration for keeping at it.

I’ve bought more than one friend a copy over the years (you know who you are); but if you want to write, or publish, I’d recommend picking up a fresh copy to see what new insights she’s brought to bear.

This is a book I reach for when I get bummed by the publishing process. Help Betsy get a bestseller and pay her back for all the help she’s given aspiring writers.

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