Two observations

One

I never read chapter titles. In fact, I often don't even notice that a book has them -- I'm two thirds of the way through The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin, and I only just realised each chapter has its own name. This has got me wondering about their purpose. Are they intended to set expectations for the chapter? How is my reading of the book affected by skipping them? 

It's probably too late to start with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but next time I read a book with chapter titles, I'm going to try to pay closer attention. 

Two 

The odds that I will read a sequel decrease rapidly as time elapses since I read the first book. This is true even of books I enjoyed -- Steph Swainston's The Year of Our War is a good example. I loved it, but I still haven't got to No Present Like Time. 

I think this is because my expectations regarding initial confusion periods are different for sequels. When I'm reading fantasy and especially sci-fi, I expect to be confused while I work out the rules under which the story operates. That's cool; it's just part of reading those genres. 

When I'm reading a sequel, however, I expect things to be instantly familiar. My memory isn't excellent, so the only way I can guarantee that familiarity is if I just read the previous book in the series. And given a choice between re-reading books just so I can get to the next one, or reading something new, I'll usually just pick something new.

Is this a lack of trust on my part? Maybe. I imagine that every author is working hard to get me back up to speed at the start of a sequel, so if anything the initial confusion period is probably shorter than in the first book. I'm going to try testing this soon, hopefully -- I really want to get to Chill, the second in Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder series.

(Incidentally, I think this initial confusion period might be one of the barriers that keeps new readers from SF. I don't think the mainstream genres train you to cope with that feeling.)

Hugos 2011: Feed, by Mira Grant

So. Zombies.

Look, I love a good zombie movie. But honestly, they interest me in novels and short stories just about as much as vampires do. Which is to say generally not much, although I'm willing to make the occasional exception. Usually those exceptions are reserved for authors I already like, or a premise that seems genuinely different.

Mira Grant's* Feed definitely falls into the latter category. For a start, it isn't your standard zombie apocalypse novel -- it takes place decades after the Kellis-Amberlee virus caused the first zombie outbreak. And it didn't lead to the end of the world; American society goes on, albeit locked behind layers of security and in a perpetual state of fear.

And the main characters are bloggers. The first bloggers ever to officially follow a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. It's kind of like The West Wing with zombies. And a Republican instead of a Democrat, and bloggers instead of the President's staff, and… yeah, really nothing like The West Wing.  But American politics is kind of fascinating to me, and so it's a great hook to drag me into the story. Grant's premise is good.

And so is her execution (heh). The book is very, very readable. Grant writes well. I don't mean that I revelled in the beautiful way she rubbed words against each other. Rather, I think this book is an excellent example of invisible prose -- the words fly by as if you're hardly reading them, leaving you to race along with the plot (and with the entertainingly caustic narrator, the 'Newsie' Georgia Mason).

The plot itself is, I suppose, a fairly conventional conspiracy thriller. I find that sort of thing very readable, in much the same way as I find procedural cop shows on television very watchable. I didn't think it was a particularly surprising conspiracy -- it was fairly obvious who the bad guys were -- but that's okay when the execution is so good. I may not have been surprised, but I will say that I cared when bad things happened to the bloggers (and bad things certainly did happen to them).

The zombies, and the world that the survivors live in, are a fairly obvious metaphor for the War on Terror and modern-day, fear-ridden America. I'm not going to say much about that -- it's there, it's not unexpected, it's not particularly ground-breaking, but it also isn't hammered to the point of irritation.

I do think the book is too long. The edition that I'm reading is 570 pages. It didn't ever lose me, but the thriller-shaped plot seems much better suited to something about half the length. The book is paced to keep you flipping the pages, and fortunately I had enough free time to consume it quite quickly. If I'd been forced to read it slower, it might have suffered. The danger of a reduced length, though, is that it might have come at the expense of the world building, and that's what initially drew me in.

As is often the case when I sit down to attempt a review, I feel like I'm focussing on the negatives at the expense of the positives. I would never have picked this book up were it not for the Hugo nomination, but I'm glad that I did. It was an enjoyable read from start to finish, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I cared about the characters when it all reached crisis point. Would I recommend it to everyone I met? Nope. But I would recommend it to anyone who liked zombies and at least one of politics, political journalism, or thrillers.

There's a sequel -- Deadline -- due out in the UK in a few weeks. I honestly can't tell you if I'll ever read it, but if somebody handed it to me I probably wouldn't have any objections.

* Mira Grant is a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, winner of last year's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer**. It feels weird talking about Grant like she is a real person.

** Not a Hugo.

Hugos 2011: got to start somewhere

I have started my Hugo reading today, with Mira Grant's Feed. I'm doing my level best not to pre-judge, but I'm just saying: Ms. Grant (or Ms. McGuire, whatever), you're going to have to work hard to carry me happily through a 570-page zombie novel whose main characters are bloggers. I wish you luck!

Also paid for my supporting membership at Renovation, this year's Worldcon. I'm probably going to need that Hugo Voter Packet to get my hands on all the novellas and novelettes!

Added 5 May 2011: wait, it's a novel about a presidential campaign in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse? Your task just got easier, Ms. Grant!

Things I like #5: smashing genres together

Aside from both being really good space operas, Elizabeth Bear's novel Dust and Ian McDonald's novella "The Days of Solomon Gursky" don't really have a whole lot in common. There is a connection, though, and with hindsight its so obvious I'm kicking myself for not noticing it sooner: although both are clearly science fiction, they've both got a healthy dose of fantasy mixed in.

I'm not just talking Clarke's Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"), although there's certainly some of that in there. I mean that each of them appropriates some of the trappings and stylistic conventions of fantasy. Dust has warring noble houses, a quest, mythical creatures (well, technology dressed up as a mythical creatures). "The Days of Solomon Gursky", in its later chapters, starts to feel as much like mythology as science fiction.

That's the connection it took me a silly amount of time to see: genre-mashing. I think the thing that clarified it for me was reading Greg Bear's Hull Three Zero. It was a much straighter science fiction novel, despite (I feel) plenty of opportunity to throw something else into the mix. And it just didn't capture my imagination like Dust did.

It doesn't just have to be science fiction and fantasy, either. The books that got me back into reading science fiction were Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space and Chasm City, both space operas smooshed with gothic horror. China Mieville seems to specialise in this sort of thing. Karl Schroeder's Virga series of novels, Finch by Jeff Vandermeer, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. A great many of the novels that have left me feeling like I just read something really exciting whacked genres against each other.

I really have no idea how difficult it is to write something like this. I suspect very. But I'm going to have to try. I wonder if it is something that the authors set out to do consciously? I'd guess yes for Lies of Locke Lamora and maybe Dust, but perhaps no for the Alastair Reynolds novels, but those really are guesses.

Yeah, I know, there's not a lot of deep insight in this post. I suppose time will tell whether that's because I'm just starting out at this sort of thing, or because I lack the capacity for insight. I'm hoping for the former!

Things I like #4: ordinary things made extraordinary

Rather than spend a long time trying to describe this one, I'm going to give you two very different examples.

The first is a story I recently heard on Escape Pod called "The '76 Goldwater Dime", written by John Medaille and narrated by the always-excellent Norm Sherman. It's about a guy who collects coins. And what could be more ordinary than that? But these coins, boy, they certainly are not ordinary. I can't really say much more without giving it all away -- go and listen to the episode. Or, heck, you can even read it in its entirety (it isn't very long) at the link I provided above.

My second example isn't even a story. I read about it in a post on Jeff Vandermeer's blog. Some of his Finnish fans had created t-shirts and hockey jerseys for a fictional team called the Tallahassee Tentacles, named for Jeff's home town and the frequent occurrence of squid in his fiction. I'm Australian -- sport is a pretty ordinary, everyday part of my life. I really liked the way the Tallahassee Tentacles turned that on its head.

The trick, of course, is that nifty transformations like this don't make a complete story on their own. I think you could argue that "The '76 Goldwater Dime" would have functioned better as a piece of flash fiction, and although the Tallahassee Tentacles hint at a story, they aren't one yet.

Still, they're a great hook to drag people like me in.

That thing I read once on the internet

I'm a citizen of the networked world. Or something. I read stuff on the internet all the time, think 'man, I really must remember that', and then immediately forget it. Sometimes I send myself an email, or save a text file somewhere, or star an article in my RSS reader, but those things never work. So I'm going to try something new: I'm going to make a list of internet-writings I want to remember here on the blog.

Really, this post is for me. I'll come back to it (probably) and update it in the future, but I'm unlikely to call out the fact that I'm updating it. Maybe you'll find something that interests you here too, but I'm just going to call that a bonus. You cool with that?

So here's the list:

• Jeremiah Tolbert, conflicted about whether what he writes matters.
• Janice Hardy with practical notes on showing-not-telling.
• Janice Hardy on making your descriptions help your story.
• Janice Hardy on the rule of three. 
• Warren Ellis on the links between crime fiction and science fiction.
• Erica Holt with basic tips on standing out in the slush pile.
• The Intern with ten reasons why a scene should be rewritten.
• Janice Hardy on scenes needing three reasons to exist.
• China Mieville (and M John Harrison) get punchy about world-building. In a good way.
• Janice Hardy again! On raising tension!
• Rick Spilman on anthropomorphisatoring ships. 
• Courtney Schafer's ode to joy. 
• Stina Leicht with some simple, just-enjoy-it comments. 
• Sherwood Smith, on the connections between space opera and epic fantasy.
• Janice Hardy, on interesting people, problems and solutions.
• Dave Trowbridge on a connection between space opera and the Siege of Vienna.
• I should just bookmark Janice Hardy (on fleshing out plots).
• Paul Guthrie on a new look at magic as science. Less for the content than the idea.
• Teresa Frohock on writing children, Guillermo del Toro style.
• Bradley P. Beaulieu with ten bits of advice for writers. 
• T. N. Tobias talks about writing action (which I suck at).
• Standard manuscript format.
• It's that Janice Hardy again, with advice on protagonists and choices.
• Oh look, more Janice Hardy! She's internalising.
• Chuck Wendig, with a "25 Things..." entry on plot.
• Some (possibly useful?) advice on avoiding viewpoint mistakes. 
• James Sutter, via Inkpunks, arguing that it's okay to be a hack.
• Chuck Wendig, with 25 bits of advice on dialogue. 
• Terry Bisson's 60 (slightly distressing) rules for short SF. 
• Nayad Monroe, with five possibly useful things she learnt from reading slush. 
• Wendy Wagner on balancing scope. Interesting because I love the large-scale stuff.
• Juliette Wade gives some advice on endings.
• Aliette de Bodard on simplicity and SF. 
• Chuck Wendig on messing with your characters (I should really just link to Chuck Wendig's blog and Janice Hardy's blog and be done with it.)
• Jaym Gates and assorted editors on avoiding self-rejection. 
• T. N. Tobias with lists of ways to come up with character names.
• Janice Hardy, on conflicts that don't involve throwing punches.
• Juliette Wade on layering plots. 
• Janice Hardy with 10 tips on revising.
• Hal Duncan on how to write a sentence.
• io9 (Charlie Jane Anders) on creating interesting supporting characters.
• Jeff Vandermeer on story openings teaching you how to read what follows. 
• Cory Doctorow on why sci-fi movies drive him crazy (portrayal of science and scientists, mostly).
• The Intern on keeping conflict interesting. 
• Jeff Ford on being profound (basically: don't. Or, at least, don't force it.)
• How not to open a short story by Philip Athans.
• Seven craft lessons every writer should learn. Apparently.

Adding to the Hugo noise

Here I go again, complaining about lists on the internet...

So you may or may not have heard that this year's Hugo nominees have been announced. A couple of years back, I decided to read all of the nominated novels, to see if I agreed with the eventual winner (short answer: I did). Last year, I was lucky enough to attend Worldcon, so I made a point of reading all of the nominated fiction so I could make an informed vote on the Hugos. This year, I'm intending to do the same.

I can't really comment yet about the nominees in the Best Novella, Novelette or Short Story categories. To the best of my knowledge, I have only read one of them: Ted Chiang's novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects. I liked it well enough, but I don't think it was his best work. There are five nominees in various categories from Asimov's, so I'll have to go digging through my pile of (sadly) unread back-issues to find those ones.

I do want to say a few words about the Best Novel category, despite also having read none of them. First, it's pleasing to see that four of the five nominated books were written by women. The gender balance typically isn't great in that category. Only fifteen of sixty-two Best Novel nominees in the last decade were written by women (and a bit of foreshadowing here: four of them were Lois McMaster Bujold novels, and two Connie Willis novels). A nominee list dominated by women can only mean good things for the genre.

I have to admit, though, that the list isn't particularly exciting me. I'm unsurprised to see The Dervish House by Ian McDonald there, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I had also planned to read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin, so I'm happy to see it on the list. I haven't heard anything about Feed by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire), but I'm very willing to approach it with an open mind.

The last two nominations are the ones that leave me a little dismayed. Blackout/All Clear is actually two books by Connie Willis, adding up to a combined total of something like 1200 pages in the US hardcover editions. The books are set in the same universe as her earlier Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, both of which also won Best Novel Hugos. I'm a little confused how two books got nominated as one entry. Maybe they're both very worthy, but even given how much I enjoyed To Say Nothing of the Dog, the thought of reading a further 1200 pages in the same setting doesn't fill me with excitement.

And then there is Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold. A quick skim of her Wikipedia page suggests this is the thirteenth Miles Vorkosigan novel. I think it is the eighth in the series to be nominated for a Hugo (four of them won). Perhaps it's just my own ugly prejudices in action again, but I find it hard to believe that the thirteenth book (or nineteenth, or twenty-fifth, depending how you count it) in a series can really be that good.

I guess it feels like the last two entries -- Blackout/All Clear and Cryoburn -- are obvious nominations, given to beloved authors because they put out another book. Of course, I shouldn't judge before I've actually read them, so here is my promise to you: I'll report back as I work my way through each of the novels. Except possibly Blackout/All Clear. I just don't know if I can hack it.