July Links & Things

I've lost a week of work this month with a trip to Southern Cal to visit the mum in hospital rehab. She entered the hospital the morning of Friday, July 9 (about the time I arrived in Boston for Readercon), and she should be home, finally, by the end of this week. Then we'll have to see how she does on her own, though I suspect she'll have some in-home care for at least the first week.

Thus my recap of July's Links & Things will have less entries than normal due to time constraints. I do want you to know that I review all the links I pass on to ensure that they will be worth the time spent to read them (or in the case of video, to view them); if my readers aren't going to gain something that I feel is of value, then I don't include the link. It's as simple as that. Of course, I do have my own personal preferences and prejudices, but then who doesn't?

So, here are my links and such for the month of July. I've listed them here, with a bit of additional detail and comment. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern.

• SFSignal.com reviews Hespira, the third volume in Matthew Hughes' Henghis Hapthorn series, which I edited for Night Shade Books; the first two volumes in the series are Majestrum (2006) and The Spiral Labyrinth (2007). In his review, John DeNardo writes: "...Hughes' writing style is the real star, using a pitch-perfect delivery of stylistic prose that sets the mood and dry humor that is sure to elicit a few smiles.... The usual caveat of a latter-series novel applies here: you do not need to read the previous Henghis Hapthorn stories to enjoy Hespira, but you will gain even more enjoyment out of it if you do."
  

• Of all the books that I've edited over the years, the most-reviewed are undoubtedly the Laundry Files titles by Charles Stross: The Atrocity Archives (2004) and The Jennifer Morgue (2006), both from Golden Gryphon Press, and the recently published The Fuller Memorandum from Ace Books. I could fill an entire blog post with blurbs from all the TFM reviews I've read over the past two or so weeks, but for the sake of brevity, I'll only refer you to one of those reviews, which I felt was especially astute and articulate -- and that would be the review by Russell Letson, posted on Locus online on July 16, 2010. I've linked to the review for your reading pleasure, but what I wanted to do here was include a quote from the novel itself that Russell quoted in his review. Here are geekish demonology hacker extraordinaire Bob Howard's thoughts on the iPhone: "About the only smart phone that doesn’t stink like goose shit is the JesusPhone. But I've steadfastly refused to join the Cult of Jobs ever since I saw the happy-clappy revival tent launch." Unfortunately, before too long, Bob succumbs to the shiny. [I've written a lengthy blog post about my working with Charlie Stross on this series.]
  

• New eBook publisher Weightless Books (catch phrase: Books That Don't Weigh You Down) -- a branch, or subsidiary, or imprint, or whatever of Small Beer Press -- has published an eBook of the definitive edition of Judith Moffett's first novel Pennterra. This is the edition of Pennterra that Judith and I worked on over a period of weeks last year (published in a trade paperback edition in 2009 by Fantastic Books) to ensure that it was indeed the definitive version. And while you're at it, you may as well snag the eBook edition of her latest novel, The Bird Shaman, volume three in her Holy Ground Trilogy; but as with volume three of the Hughes trilogy above, you do not need to read the previous two volumes to enjoy The Bird Shaman.
  
  If you're into physical books, you can also purchase a signed (or signed and inscribed) copy of The Bird Shaman direct from the author's website. [And last, but certainly not least, you can read my earlier blog post on Judith Moffett and her various books and stories.]
  

• As long-time readers here know, I'm a fan of the axed-by-Fox-before-its-time TV series Firefly. Well, io9.com (@io9) felt that the introductory credits sequence that opened Firefly needed a bit of sprucing up. To use io9's words: the intro needed "a kick-ass, old-school, synth-happy, guitar-solo" and "Spaceships, 1980s-style." So, click the io9 link above, click the vid, sit back, and enjoy. Oh, and turn the sound up on your monitor! (via @charliejane)
  

June Links & Things

You have hopefully noticed my More Red Ink header change -- a new logo. At BayCon over Memorial Day weekend, I participated on a panel with Lee Moyer, an illustrator and graphic designer. We chatted briefly before the end of the con, and exchanged business cards -- at which point I admitted that I needed a new business card (referring, as I was, to the schlocky design on my existing card). To make a long story short, Lee designed a new biz card for me, and with some tweaking on his part, I was able to use the basic logo design for the header on my blog. That BayCon panel, by the way, was entitled "Judging a Cover by Its Book."

Also, I have added two new pages to the blog, you'll see them just above the start of this post. One is "Is Anybody Out There?" which lists all of the blog posts that specifically pertain to this anthology, including the six stories I posted in their entirety. The second page is entitled "Authors and Their Books" and lists all of my author-specific blog posts.

I should note here, too, that I just completed reading a book entitled Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age by Steve Knopper (Free Press, 2009). This book should be mandatory reading for executives and upper management in the (New York specifically) book publishing, marketing, and distribution businesses.

Here are my links and such for the month of June. I've listed them here, with additional detail and comment. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern.

• The final volume in Matthew Hughes's trilogy of Henghis Hapthorn tales -- Hespira -- has finally been published by Night Shade Books. The first two titles in the series, Majestrum and The Spiral Labyrinth, were published in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Hapthorn is a discriminator (investigator) by profession, and to appreciate Hughes's characterization and world building, imagine if Jack Vance had written the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Holmes' investigations took him to other planets. Wonderful stuff. Hapthorn uses intellect and reason to solve crimes and resolve issues, but in The Spiral Labyrinth we learned that "sympathetic association" (magic) was slowly becoming the dominant force, and Hapthorn was doing his best to survive in a changing world in which he did not fit. Mark Rose at Bookgasm reviewed Hespira earlier this month: "In this tale, Hapthorn accidentally stumbles into a woman who has lost all of her memories. She has no idea who she is, nor any thoughts about her past or future. Hapthorn, though decidedly not interested in her in a romantic way, feels obligated to protect her somehow and, in turn, find out her identity. What follows is a picaresque adventure as he slowly ferrets out certain details that help him discover her origins, all of which of course leads him and his companions into grave danger.... Hughes has the panache to put all of this across to the reader without it seeming made up along the way. There is much to like here in this series, and here's hope that more books are on the way." [Note: I edited the Tales of Henghis Hapthorn series by Matthew Hughes for Night Shade Books.]

• When I read a character name like "Henghis Hapthorn" I tend to wonder how the author came up with this name. There are some great character names in the sf/fantasy genre: Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, Leto Atreides, and Gandalf, to name just four that immediately come to mind. So I was pleased to see a blog post by RasoirJ entitled "Much in a Name." After listing a group of well-known character names, Ras writes: "The characters listed here do have something in common, though. Their names fit, and very nicely indeed. Admittedly, there's a certain circularity in my argument. It's hard to say whether Jake Barnes seems so right for the character because we're exceedingly familiar with the great novel in which he appears, The Sun Also Rises, or whether the name Jake Barnes is a small but crucial element in the interwoven artistry of a great novel." Ras goes on to break down the name "Jake Barnes" to determine how Hemingway may have come up with the name. Other sections in this article include: discussions on "It's easy to go too far with a name" and "How is a writer to come up with good names?" (via @AdviceToWriters)
  

March Links & Things

Following are my links and such for the month of March. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail and comment (and the occasional rant). You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern.

• If you haven't surmised by now, I am a freelance editor; my wife is also self-employed. When our health care premium topped over $1,100 per month -- more than $13,200 a year (and that was 2 years ago!) -- we had to abandon that plan and go with an HSA plan with a high deductible. So you won't be hearing any complaining from me about health care reform; in fact, I'm truly saddened there is no public option: that was the only way to force some real competition among the private health care providers, who whine about rising costs as they give multi-million-dollar bonuses to their CEOs.
  
  I bring this to your attention because of a blog post by award-winning author George R. R. Martin, who speaks from the heart on health care and its impact on freelance writers: himself and his close friends. "It is worth pointing out that if either of my friends had lived in Canada, or Australia, or France, or England, or any country with that old vile 'socialized medicine' the right wing likes to denounce, they would never have gotten so sick. They would have seen a doctor much earlier, early enough so that their medical problems could have been diagnosed, treated, and perhaps cured or ameliorated before they required major surgery. But no, they couldn't afford doctors, and they didn't feel THAT bad... not at first... so they did what millions of Americans have done, and ignored their symptoms until it was almost too late."
  
  If you are a freelancer, if you are self-employed, and you have health care coverage -- even what is termed "catastrophic coverage" -- consider yourself very, very lucky indeed.



• In my February Links & Things, I talked about Paul Williams, former editor of Crawdaddy, former head of the Philip K. Dick Society, author of the Bob Dylan: Performing Artist series, and all-around great guy; and I linked to an article about Paul's current illness: early-onset dementia. As a follow-up to that entry, author Paul Di Filippo has an article on BarnesandNobleReview.com in which he discusses the significance of the Collected Stories of Theodore Sturgeon (12 volumes to date), all of which have been edited by Paul Williams. The final volume, entitled Case and the Dreamer, is scheduled to be published this October. Paul Di Filippo expresses concern that Paul Williams "might already be beyond the point where any kudos can reliably reach him." It's a well-done, albeit short article highlighting the significance of Sturgeon's short fiction, and this 13-volume series in particular. I have all 12 volumes in my library, and am eagerly awaiting the final volume in October.



• Author Mark Teppo (@MarkTeppo) is in the news a lot these days to promote Heartland (Night Shade Books), book two in his Codex of Souls. You can read my previous blog about working with Mark on the first two books in this series.
  
  Mark has two entries on Amazonblogs's Omnivoracious, hosted by Jeff VanderMeer. In the first, on "The Nature of Magick," Mark writes: "I love the idea of secret knowledge, and when you strip away all the pomp and circumstance surrounding most modern religious practices, what remains is an unshakable faith in a secret." The second entry is entitled "On the Existence of Monsters": "I think we're more afraid of our fellow man. We're more terrified of the innocent-looking neighbor who might worship a different god or who has a predilection for devouring children or who might simply want to tell us what we can do in the dark privacy of our own home. These sorts of monsters are hard to defang because you can't find them, because they aren't physically different than you or I. What makes them different is the way they think."
  
  Lastly, here's an excerpt from the Mark Teppo interview in Fantasy Magazine: "I jettisoned all of [the urban fantasy tropes] for historical occult practices, secret religious doctrines, alchemical theories, and other religious magic practices. Why? Because I couldn't sort out a worldview where vampires didn't turn us all into cattle, or we got our shit together to wipe them out. Couldn't do it. Stopped trying after a while. Though, to be fair, Markham [the protagonist in the series] is, essentially, a psychic vampire, and the soul-dead are zombies, so I haven't quite abandoned the tropes.... Ignorance is not the victor; that is certain. Ignorance is what gets Markham into trouble and what hounds him during the ten years he spends wandering. In Lightbreaker, it does come down to a faith and/or knowledge, and [which one] the reader chooses will inform how they interpret the last chapter."



• Another new title (which I also edited) is Matthew Hughes's Hespira (Night Shade Books), the final volume in his trilogy of Henghis Hapthorn adventures. Hapthorn is a "discriminator" (think Sherlock Holmes but in the style/language of Jack Vance), who is trying to survive in a world in which the age of rationalism (aka science) is succumbing to sympathetic association (aka magic). Hespira is reviewed by Andrew Wheeler, former editor of the Science Fiction Book Club. Wheeler writes: "I can't see any reason why the SF audience would avoid a writer as witty and endlessly pleasurable as Hughes, but they certainly didn't buy all that many copies of [his earlier Warner and Tor] books. But Hughes has kept writing, adding new wrinkles to his Vancean far future with each book and becoming one of the most entertaining writers the modern genre has to offer.... Again, I can be reliably counted on to call each new Matthew Hughes novel a triumph; he writes wonderful books that I enjoy massively. The Vancean flavor [has] mixed with a dash of Wodehouse, a couple of jiggers of Conan Doyle, and a shot or two of Wolfe to form a bracing cocktail that is nothing but Hughes. Hespira in particular builds on its two predecessors to make a satisfying end to a trilogy -- and what SFF reader can resist a trilogy? Hughes is the writer I invariably mention whenever the question of modern underrated writers comes up; he writes the kind of wonderful, funny, thoughtful, exciting, zippy novels that should be massively popular and winning him shelves-full of awards."



• We've all been hearing about the demise of print media -- magazines and newspapers in particular; how ad revenue has dropped 30-plus percent over the past year, thousands of newspaper and magazine employees laid off, etc. Well, here's one: Robert Feder of blogs.vocalo.org writes: "...you'd think the chief executive officer of a company struggling to emerge from bankruptcy and desperate to salvage an $8 billion buyout-gone-bad would have better things to do than pester his underlings with crazy proclamations. But in the case of Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels, you'd be wrong. The man at the top of the troubled media empire took time out of his real job this week [the week of March 10] to issue a list of words and phrases -- 119 of them, to be exact -- that must never, ever be uttered by anchors or reporters on WGN-AM (720), the news/talk radio station located five floors below his office in Tribune Tower." Here are a few of those banned words: "alleged," "close proximity," "flee," "icon," "legendary," "motorist," "untimely death," "vehicle," and "youth," to name only a few of the 119 words/phrases. You will be shocked to see the everyday words on this list. (via mediabistro.com)



• NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has updated its Flickr account with some new, astounding photographs of the "Blue Marble" -- Earth. I often imagine what it would be like to be "out there," looking down. Whew.... (via @Huffingtonpost)

January Links & Things

I spent a few hours the other day trying to tweak the code on my previous blog post so that it worked correctly with Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. The blog worked perfectly using IE, but not the other three browsers, which actually are used more than IE. I tried everything; I must have reviewed and tweaked the blog post code (seven printed pages) a half-dozen times, but I couldn't get the blog to list properly on those three browsers. I slept on it, and then tried a different kind of search the next day and discovered that the code I was using for the "jump" break (i.e. "Continue reading...") was obsolete; Blogger had updated the template code, unbeknownst to me. I deleted the old code I had entered, inserted the new jump code, and here we are. Would have been nice to have received something from Blogger proactively; instead I had to do a multitude of Google searches until I found the problem explained, along with its fix, in the Blogger Help forums. I sure could use those hours back!

Following are my links and such for the month of January. I've listed them here, all in one post, and with additional detail and comment. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern.

• In an earlier blog post, I wrote about my involvement in Andrew Fox's novel The Good Humor Man, Or, Calorie 3501 (Tachyon Publications, 2009). Unfortunately the book didn't get the attention that I felt it deserved. With the constant talk on the news, news-magazine programs, health-oriented websites and blogs, etc. on the alarming increase in obesity in this country, particularly childhood obesity, I thought that these folks would have eaten up this book! (Sorry, I couldn't resist...) Thankfully, io9 has published Chris Braak's thoughtful, and thought-provoking, review: Headline: "One Lipsuctionist's Wild Ride Through American Gluttony" -- "Fox's presentation of the Good Humor Movement -- the neo-fascist organization that, in order to preserve an overburdened healthcare system from the catastrophic expenses associated with obesity -- doesn't just seem frighteningly plausible; the way [liposuctionist Dr.] Schmalzberg describes it, it actually seems like kind of a good idea. The underlying intelligence of the novel is its recognition that, even in organizations whose actions are manifestly evil, the individual members of that organization imagine themselves to be doing good.... an intensely interesting, wild ride through a wickedly accurate depiction of the American psyche that, fortunately for all of us, doesn't bother hewing too closely to its ideological forebears. This is more than just a goofy reversal of Bradbury's classic [Fahrenheit 451], but a witty, incisive satire all on its own. By turns heartbreaking and mesmerizingly grotesque, The Good Humor Man is well worth the read."


• Another series of books that I had the pleasure to edit is Matthew Hughes's Henghis Hapthorn trilogy (Night Shade Books), which consists of Majestrum (2006), The Spiral Labyrinth (2007), and, finally, the just released Hespira. Henghis Hapthorn is a freelance discriminator (read: investigator/detective) in a world where the scientific method and technology are quickly losing ground to the emergence of "sympathetic association" (i.e. magic). It's a delightful series, which I have seen described as "Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Vance's Dying Earth." You can read Chapter 1 online, on the author's website, but be forewarned: the series builds upon itself beginning with the first book, so you really need to read the series in order. The Publishers Weekly starred review concludes with: "A droll narrative voice, dry humor and an alternate universe that's accessible without explicit exposition make this a winner."


• Author Philip K. Dick spent his final years in Southern California, specifically Orange County. Scott Timberg, for the LA Times on January 24, looks back at PKD's years in the OC, based on interviews with his ex-wives and comments from Tim Powers (which Powers gleaned from his journals). Some revealing content, particularly PKD's marital divorce advice to Powers (PKD was married and divorced five times). The article also touches on the events and paranoia that caused Phil to flee from Northern to Southern Cal, and his health issues, which affected his writing. (via @maudnewton)


• Author Jeff VanderMeer shares with us an excerpt from his recent publication Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer (Tachyon Publications) -- "Seven Points to Consider When Submitting Short Fiction": "1) Standard approaches are still the norm; 2) There are complexities to the term "highest paying market"; 3) Repurposing the public perception of your fiction may be important; 4) Pro rates do not necessarily mean an overall level of pro quality stories; 5) Breaking your standard submission cycle may teach you something new; 6) To a new writer, encouragement can be a kind of payment; and 7) Not every writer's career path is the same because not every writer's fiction is the same." For all the specifics, you'll just have to read Jeff's blog post. (via @ericrosenfield)


• If you think that publishers are looking for big fat wordy fantasy novels, think again. Lit agent @ColleenLindsay, of FinePrint Literary Management, has more than a few words to say on the subject of "word counts and novel length." It's an old post, but since Ms. Lindsay continues to see such abuses in the submission queries that she receives, she has retweeted this blog post yet again. Colleen writes: "If a contract calls for a book that is 100k words and you turn in one that is 130k, expect to go back and find a way to shave 30k words off that puppy before your manuscript is accepted. Remember that part of the payout schedule of an author's advance often dangles on that one important word: acceptance." The word counts are broken down into these areas: middle grade fiction, YA fiction, urban fantasy/paranormal romance, mysteries and crime fiction, mainstream fiction, and science fiction and fantasy. A must read. There are more than 65 comments posted that are also worth reading.


• But before you worry about word counts, you had best master the art of writing first! Caro Clarke points out "four faults" that all beginning writers make: "As an editor, I know when I am reading someone's first novel. I have nicknames for the four give-away faults beginners make: (1) Walk and Chew Gum (2) Furry Dice (3) Tea, Vicar? (4) Styrofoam. I see at least one of these in every manuscript where the author has not mastered the craft of writing before submitting his or her work. What are these four faults and, more importantly, how can you cure them?" If you want to know what these four faults are, and determine if you are guilty of them yourself, then you'll need to read this essay.