The Book of Exodi–which contains my latest story, “Cladistics”–is on-track for a mid-March publication, according to the publisher’s website. The theme of the collection is mass exodus, with an emphasis on the planetary sort. Apparently there is also to be art that accompanies each story. I’m curious to see what mine looks like…

You can find short descriptions of the stories at the book’s website here. There are still a few descriptions to come as contracts arrive and everything gets nice and legal, so check back often to see the complete list.

– S.

There was an interesting essay in Friday’s New York Times Online about the rise of (and perceived necessity of by both authors and publishers) promotional websites for books and authors.

Now, as an author who blogs (semi-) regularly to promote himself and his writing I’m not going to dispute the desire to have such websites. But what I did find really interesting about the essay were questions about just how effective such websites are in driving sales.

As the article points out, publishers have long hoped that a well-designed jacket or a good-looking author photo (it helps to have a good-looking author, which isn’t always possible…) would increase attention and sales by signaling that a book is a BIG DEAL. But in recent years, as publishing houses have encouraged writers to create a robust online presence, a new team of experts has emerged whose profession is to design book-specific websites and videos, with many authors willing to shell out big money for the privilege — between $3 500 to $35 000 per site, with writers paying from their own pockets about 85 percent of the time.

Yikes!

The example they give in the article is the website designed for The Da Vinci Code–a website that featured “eerie original music, crisp graphics, and intricate quizzes and ciphers, [looking] more like an up-market video game than an ad for a novel.”

But do book sites really help sell books? As in so much of publishing, no one quite knows. “People now latch on to a Web presence the way they once did with the book tour,” said Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Vintage/Anchor. “I don’t know how well the success of book Web sites can be tracked, but they do get thrown into that priceless bucket of buzz.”

A survey released last June by the Codex Group, a research firm that monitors trends in book buying, found that 8 percent of book shoppers had visited author Web sites in a given week. It didn’t, however, say how many clicked on the “buy the book” link.

Some authors try to ratchet up the wow factor by including a book video on their site. Modeled on movie trailers, these videos have become increasingly popular since 2006, with the advent of YouTube and MySpace.

For a really first-rate, well-produced book trailer, check out my friend and fellow WOTFian’s Jeff Carlson’s video promo for his books, Plague Year and Plague War. You can find links to it at Jeff’s website here (the hi-def version is stunning).

The book video business began back in 2002, when Sheila English, an unpublished romance novelist, trademarked the term Book Trailer and started her own company, Circle of Seven Productions. Her first clients were mostly science-fiction and romance novelists, but the invention of video-sharing sites brought interest from mainstream publishers. Three years ago, English’s company had 12 projects. In 2008, it had 140, including a trailer for Nic Sheff’s best-selling memoir, “Tweak,” featuring droning rock music, fragments of text, and images of body parts, but never a full face. “At the end you see a girl’s eyeball, dilating,” English said. “Anyone who has had the experience of tweaking will automatically recognize that image.”

(Blogger’s aside: do you really think that meth addicts are your major target demographic? Do you think they buy a lot of books, hmm?)

Back in 1996, Brad Meltzer built an author Web site for his first novel, “Tenth Justice,” including character interviews and the first chapter. His publisher thought he was nuts.

(Blogger’s aside #2: The New York Times says that Meltzer’s website was “arguably” the first author site but that’s just plain wrong. Robert J. Sawyer’s author website has been online since Wednesday, June 28, 1995–it’s older than Amazon.com! Check Rob’s post about this here. I agree with Rob: “Arguably” should not be used as a substitute for “I’m too lazy to check.” And they call the NYT the newspaper of record…)

“The publishing world is very resistant to change,” Meltzer said. “But there are always people — mostly the young and the hungry — who are trying new things. The days of just holing up and writing in solitude are gone. Today, you can’t be a successful writer without having a little Barnum in your bones.”

At the end of the article it states that J. Courtney Sullivan, the author of the piece, has her first novel, Commencement, being published in June. One wonders whether she will have a website herself…

– S.

WHY does storytelling endure across time and cultures? According to New Scientist, the answer lies in our evolutionary roots. A study of the way that people respond to Victorian literature hints that novels act as a social glue, reinforcing the types of behaviour that benefit society.

Literature “could continually condition society so that we fight against base impulses and work in a cooperative way”, says Jonathan Gottschall of Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.

Gottschall and co-author Joseph Carroll at the University of Missouri, St Louis, study how Darwin’s theories of evolution apply to literature. Along with John Johnson, an evolutionary psychologist at Pennsylvania State University in DuBois, the researchers asked 500 people to fill in a questionnaire about 200 classic Victorian novels. The respondents were asked to define characters as protagonists or antagonists, and then to describe their personality and motives, such as whether they were conscientious or power-hungry.

The team found that the characters fell into groups that mirrored the egalitarian dynamics of hunter-gather society, in which individual dominance is suppressed for the greater good (Evolutionary Psychology, vol 4, p 716). Protagonists, such as Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for example, scored highly on conscientiousness and nurturing, while antagonists like Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula scored highly on status-seeking and social dominance.
The characters in the novels fell into groups that mirrored the egalitarian dynamics of hunter-gatherer society

In the novels, dominant behaviour is “powerfully stigmatised”, says Gottschall. “Bad guys and girls are just dominance machines; they are obsessed with getting ahead, they rarely have pro-social behaviours.”

While few in today’s world live in hunter-gatherer societies, “the political dynamic at work in these novels, the basic opposition between communitarianism and dominance behaviour, is a universal theme”, says Carroll. Christopher Boehm, a cultural anthropologist whose work Carroll acknowledges was an important influence on the study, agrees. “Modern democracies, with their formal checks and balances, are carrying forward an egalitarian ideal.”

A few characters were judged to be both good and bad, such as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights or Austen’s Mr Darcy. “They reveal the pressure being exercised on maintaining the total social order,” says Carroll.

Boehm and Carroll believe novels have the same effect as the cautionary tales told in older societies. “Just as hunter-gatherers talk of cheating and bullying as a way of staying keyed to the goal that the bad guys must not win, novels key us to the same issues,” says Boehm. “They have a function that continues to contribute to the quality and structure of group life.”

“Maybe storytelling – from TV to folk tales – actually serves some specific evolutionary function,” says Gottschall. “They’re not just by-products of evolutionary adaptation.”

So does this explain why I hate books and movies with unhappy endings, or where the hero dies? Is it because my genes are hard-wired to hate it? Does this then mean that Canadian so-called “literary fiction” is a counter-Darwinian force since it is all so gawd-awfully depressing, dull, and pointless?

Hmmm…

– S.

No, seriously–hear me out.

On this, the Inauguration Day of the 44th President of the United States, I know this sounds like weird fanboy-ishness…and, okay, maybe it is. But that doesn’t mean I’m not right!

Admittedly, I was pretty jazzed when Obama won. But listening to the pundits and talking heads over the last few month describe what we can expect Obama’s ‘style’ of leadership to be as the American President, and as we’ve seen his various cabinet picks, I was struck by an odd familiarity…

I’ve repeatedly heard Obama described as someone who welcomes debate and discussion, constructive disagreement and constructive criticism, all options and opinions being brought to the table and welcomed…

These are the same traits I recall being ascribed to someone else: Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Okay, granted he’s a fictional character, but that doesn’t mean the example is any less valid. Noted Canadian philosopher and academic Mark Kingwell has lectured on Picard as a model leader and bureaucrat, and there have even been books dedicated to unlocking the ‘Picard style’ of leadership.

And what would that style be?

Picard’s whole approach is best summed up in the second season episode, ‘Pen Pals‘, in which Wesley Crusher faces his first command and the problems that ensue. Seeking advice from Riker on ordering around a difficult crewman:

Sound like any President we know?

– S.

Over the last few days I’ve been revising a story I wrote before my trip to Australia and it struck me just how much it was improved by drawing on experiences I had while away.

Part of the story involves a man in a kayak being swept out to sea, being rolled and pushed under by the waves, and in real danger of drowning.

Now, I thought this scene was pretty good before I left. It was tense, filled with vivid description of the sounds and sensations of nearly drowning. When I was a kid I nearly drowned a pool a couple of times, so I figured I knew what I was talking about (you know–as much as a person can, short of actually drowning).

That was before I went to Australia, however. Now I know what it’s like to almost drown in the ocean. A completely different experience.

See, I went (or rather tried to go) surfing at Manly Beach while in Oz and let’s just say it was a punishing experience, for both body and ego. Not only did I not manage to get up on the board even a little, I distinctly recall thinking on several occasions: “Oh, THIS is what it’s like to drown…”

Perhaps my favorite memory was when I fell off the board trying to get past the breakers and managed to get the tether tangled around both ankles. Not only was I very rapidly losing hold of the board, but I couldn’t kick to get myself back up.

“You okay?” asked the surf instructor as he also tried to help another student on to her board.

“My feet are tangled in the tether,” I said.

“Don’t worry about that. Just get up on your board.”

Huh? How the @#$% do I not worry about having my feet tied and being unable to swim or move in thirty feet of pounding surf!?!

Oh, did I mention my lesson had been scheduled at high tide?

Oh, and that this was my first time ever SEEING an ocean, let alone swimming and/or trying to surf in it?

My genius surf instructor’s response was to try pushing me up on the board saying: “You have to get on the board or else the waves will–oh, @#$%…”

I had just enough time to think in that instant, as I turned my head to see the on-rushing wall of water, “If he’s saying “Oh @#$%, I’m a dead man…” before I was hit.

Prior to this I’d heard about the “power” of the sea, about the “pounding” surf, but I had no frame of reference. At last I understood for myself some small aspect of nature’s raw, unstoppable power.

I was pushed under the surface, spun head over heels, still tangled in the tether, so that as the power of the wave ebbed and I might get back to the surface for air, I was instead looking down into deep indigo water, upside down and running out of breath. Then, an instant later, when another wave caught the surfboard (to which I was bound inextricably) I was pulled along by my ankles toward shore, yes, but down, too, and no nearer the surface and precious, precious air.

Unable to swim by kicking, I thrashed and thrashed my arms until I somehow righted myself and managed to break the surface. The waves came in series, with perhaps three seconds between each one, just enough time to gasp once and fill my lungs with an equal-parts mixture of air and saltwater.

Back down I went, the experience much the same as before. It’s funny the things part of your brain notices while the rest of it panics. I was struck by how distant the thunder of the waves seemed, though I was in the midst of them. I recall the whitewash of surf and bubbles around me as waves broke overhead and I thrashed for dear life. I was surprised just how salty seawater is. And I remember the indigo depths I stared into while hanging upside down, somewhere between life and death. No doubt Davy Jones was staring back at me.

When at last I returned safely to shore after repeating this harsh baptism several times, I lay on the sand for perhaps an hour coughing up brine and drying in the sun. I understood for myself the power of waves, had myself been pounded by the surf. I understood that the ocean was to be feared and respected. I re-read Dune while I was in Australia and one thought filled my mind: “I am a desert creature,” I repeated over and over. “I am a desert creature…”

I had almost forgotten that the story I was revising contained this drowning scene and was struck as I started to re-work it that–wait!–I had actually been in that situation. Write what you know, right? So I re-wrote the scene entirely with this experience in mind. It’s much stronger than the original version, containing an added level of vivid believability, I think.

My plan is to send the finished story out to markets soon. With luck you’ll get a chance to read it in the near future and see what you think…

– S.

I got IRON MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT on DVD for Christmas and was joking with my brothers that IRON MAN was the best superhero film I’d ever seen…until the next month when THE DARK KNIGHT came out.

But more than that, for my money THE DARK KNIGHT is one of the best films I’ve ever seen PERIOD. Watching it again on DVD put me right back on the emotional roller coaster I was on the first time I saw it on the big screen…and the other three times I saw it on the big screen, too. (The IMAX version was amazing!) Heath Ledger’s performance is simply riveting and is one of the very few film performances that make me want to go back and watch the film over and over for that alone, if for no other reason. In fact, late on Boxing Day night (Boxing Night?) I found myself jumping from Joker scene to Joker scene and ignoring the rest of the also awesome film.

So I’m hoping (perhaps against hope) that THE DARK KNIGHT will be getting some well-deserved Oscar attention when the nominee announcement are made on January 22. I’d like to see a nomination for Ledger, but I don’t know whether he’d fall under Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. Christopher Nolan should be up for Best Director and THE DARK KNIGHT should be one of the Best Picture nominees if there’s any justice in the world.

I mention all this because today I found some hilarious DARK KNIGHT-related fan art on the web.

Can you imagine this as the “For Your Consideration…” ad for Heath Ledger’s Oscar campaign?:

Like I said, that’s fan art. I think Warner Bros should give this guy a truck load of cash and use his inspired poster in official ads.

And the second combines two of my favorite movies into one hilarious trailer (as an aside, I note that both of these movies are that rare creature: a sequel that surpasses the original film):

– S.

In a continuing rough day for sci-fi TV actors and fans, Ricardo Montalban has died. He was 88.

While the New York Times obit insisted that Montalban was “best known as the faintly mysterious, white-suited Mr. Roarke, who presided over a tropical island resort where visitors fulfilled their lifelong dreams” on the Fantasy Island, I think Bloomberg News was correct in stating:

Montalban was perhaps best known for his portrayal of the character Khan Noonian Singh, a genetically engineered, tyrannical super-human introduced in a 1967 episode of “Star Trek” that ended with the space ship USS Enterprise depositing Khan and his followers on an inhospitable planet. The plotline resumed 15 years later in the movie “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982), with Montalban’s character seeking vengeance.

You’re darn right!

One of the great regrets I have as a Star Trek fan is that Montalban declined to reprise the Khan role for a planned two-part episode of ST:TNG in which the Enterprise-D and her crew would have encountered Khan in the 24th Century. Apparently, it was all to have been a holodeck battle-drill simulation, but only Picard and Data were to have known, while the rest of the crew was to have believed they were in mortal danger. Could have been interesting but Montalban declined because he suffered back pain his whole life after a fall from a horse in the 1950s and was confined to a wheelchair for sometime before he died. Robert Rodriguez managed to talk him into playing the grandfather in Spy Kids 2 (which was a lot of fun, actually) and even wrote the wheelchair into the script.

– S.

I will not make any deals with you.
I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed,
stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed
or numbered. My life is my own. I resign.
– Number 6

Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, star of the 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80.

McGoohan played the character Six in the surreal 1960s show. I just found out today that he wrote a number of the episodes under a different name, and he was considered for the role of James Bond in DR. NO as he’d previously played a spy in the British TV show Danger Man.

It’s a shame he didn’t live to see the mini-series remake of The Prisoner that’s airing this year on AMC, staring Sir Ian McKellen as Number Two, and Jim Caviezel as Number Six, the eponymous Prisoner.

The BBC Online has a nice obit of McGoohan here.

And in the lead-up to their own series, AMC is showing all seventeen episodes of the 1960s The Prisoner online here. In tribute to McGoohan I plan to watch all the episodes and occasionally shout: “I am not a number! I am a person!”

– S.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is switching from a monthly to a bimonthly publishing schedule beginning with the April/May 2009 issue, according to Locus Online.

Each installment will be 256 pages (16 pages more than current double-issues, nearly 100 pages more than current standard issues), except for a “jumbo” anniversary issue. Publisher and editor Gordon Van Gelder explains, “We’ve made the change because rising costs — especially postal costs — and the current economy put us in a position where we either had to raise our rates severely or cut back somewhere…. We’ll lose a little more than 10% of our content this year, but we should be in a great position for the coming years.”

Hmmm…I hope that’s true.

– S.

Hello all –

Well, it’s that time of the year again: Hugo Award season. Yes, nominations are now open for the 2009 Hugo Awards, to be presented at Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Montréal, Quebec, at the Palais des congrès de Montréal from August 6th – 10th, 2009.

And if nominations are open for the Hugo that means that nominations are also open for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This is my second year (of two years) of eligibility.

The John W. Campbell Award is given to the best new science fiction or fantasy writer whose first work was published in a professional publication in the previous two years. For the 2009 award, the qualifying work must have been published in 2007 or 2008–and you may recall I’ve had three publications in that window. You can see my Campbell eligibility profile over at Writertopia.

The Campbell Award uses the same nomination and voting mechanism as the Hugo, though the Campbell Award is not a Hugo. The award is sponsored by Dell Magazines and administered on their behalf by the World Science Fiction Society.

To be able to nominate a writer for the 2009 award, you must have either been an attending member of the 2008 Worldcon in Denver or be a supporting or attending member of the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal.

Nomination ballots must be received by March 1, 2009. Please see the official nomination ballot (in PDF) on the Anticipation website.

Thanks for your consideration!

– S.