November 04, 2005

Writing Science Fiction

At some point in my not too distant future, I'm going to finish one or all three of the fictional stories kicking around in my head. Probably not before the one about the guy who blogs about audio and video for fun and profit grows stale. There's a strong possibility one of my three yarns will take a sci-fi turn, which might make Jeffrey Carver's course in writing science fiction come in handy. In the meantime, I'll keep gathering pieces and see how they play out in the end.

Posted by Jake at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2005

Author To Google: Please Scan Me

I'm ambivalent about Google's quest to scan all books into a searchable universe of human knowledge. The idea of an Encyclopedia Galactica, ala The Foundation series, fascinates me on one level. On another level, I think book rights holders should have the right to be excluded if they don't want their books included. But what about those people who desperately want whatever attention they can get for their book? One of Jason Kottke's reader's is a book author who wants her book included in Google's archive. Her publisher is suing Google to keep their books out. As someone who works to spread the word about any of my own projects, her reasoning makes perfect sense and I find it hard to believe Simon & Schuster will lose a dime as a result. Ironically, I predict the letter to Kottke.org will result in a massive spike in sales for the book in question, Field Guide to The Apocalypse.

Posted by Jake at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2005

100 Best English Language Novels

We see no end to the popularity of popularity lists. Starting in 1923, the year Time magazine came into being, this list of 100 Best English Language Novels leaves out some great works (Joyce's Ulysses, for instance) and points very clearly to the fact that I rarely read from anyone's list of great fictional works. I'm batting a mere .100, counting the 10 books I'm certain I've read. There might be 2 or 3 more, but considering my lack of certainty, those might merit revisiting. Thankfully, the list spares us numerical ordering and just clusters the books alphabetically by title. I read Play it As it Lays, by Joan Didion, just last month or my reading list would be another book short.

Posted by Jake at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)