Short Story Reviews: “Forsworn” and “The Face in the Window” by Brian McClellan

A pair of short stories set in the world of McClellan’s Powder Mage fantasy series. McClellan continues to impress and these two stories (which follow previous short stories The Girl of Hrusch Avenue and Hope’s End) do a wonderful job of adding more to the world he’s creating. And heightening my anticipation for The Crimson Campaign…

FORSWORN

Erika ja Leora is a powder mage in northern Kez, a place where that particular sorcery is punishable by death. She is only protected by her family name and her position as heir to a duchy.

When she decides to help a young commoner — a powder mage marked for death, fugitive from the law — she puts her life and family reputation at risk and sets off to deliver her new ward to the safety of Adro while playing cat and mouse with the king’s own mage hunters and their captain, Duke Nikslaus.

Occurs 35 years before the events in Promise of Blood.

This is a great novella. This time, we’re in Kez, and we learn about their strict censure of powder mages – lowborn mages are executed, but highborn mages can forswear their gifts and live (branded). It is set a long while before the novel, as is mentioned above, and it’s only at the end that McClellan connects it with Tamas and his revolution. I really liked the way he wrote all of the characters. The story is very well-paced, and the fight scenes are expertly done. The author continues to impress, the more of his work I read.

Very highly recommended.

*

THE FACE IN THE WINDOW

Taking place two years before the events in Promise of Blood, “The Face in the Window” relates the story of Taniel’s trip to Fatrasta and his first meeting with a mysterious girl named Ka-poel.

Published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #140.

The author announced this rather suddenly on his website and via Twitter, just as I was finishing Forsworn. Naturally, I went straight to Amazon and bought it… It’s a great story, too, one that has a slow build to a sudden, appropriate ending. It was great to read of Taniel’s first meeting with Ka-poel (my favourite character from Promise of Blood, probably). It’s set in the muggy, oppressive, dragon-infested swamps, and Taniel attaches himself to a regiment who end up devastated by their enemies. With Ka-poel’s help, he seeks revenge on the Privileged who murdered his company.

Much shorter than Forsworn, McClellan nevertheless offers a satisfying story. You don’t have to have read Promise of Blood, but you will probably get a bit more out of “The Face in the Window” if you have.

*

Brian McClellan’s Promise of Blood is published in the UK and US by Orbit Books. The next novel in the series, The Crimson Campaign is due to be published in May 2014. I can’t wait!

Upcoming: THE REMAINING series, by D.J. Molles (Orbit)

I caught the announcement of D.J. Molles’s The Remaining series via a Twitter conversation between Justin and Rob (both are among the best SFF bloggers, in my opinion, so be sure to check out their sites and reviews). Naturally, I invited myself to join in the discussion, and decided to put together this post (I was on a role – it’s the third tonight).

Seeing as I’ve just blitzed through the first four The Walking Dead collected volumes, I must admit to being rather intrigued by this – certainly enough to read the first book at least. I have a weakness for the Zombie Apocalypse sub-genre. I’ve been pretty good at resisting reading everything, though, as I know I could quickly get sick of it. Thus-far, alongside The Walking Dead, I think my favourite has been V.M. Zito’s The Return Man (also published by Orbit, but only in the US – and it’s excellent, so you should all go out and buy it). The four books follow “Captain Lee Harden and a group of survivors as they fight to rebuild a devastated America.” Hm. Barrington’s After America but with added zombies? Here’s the synopsis for the first novel:

In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker 20 feet below the basement level of his house, a Special Forces soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace.

The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed.

Soon the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his duty: SURVIVE, RESCUE, REBUILD.

The eBooks of all four books will be made available in January 2014, with print editions coming out in successive months from May (not sure why there will be such a gap, though). It would appear, though, that the series was self-published before Orbit snapped up rights (I remain skeptical of the hunger for re-publishing self-published work, but it does seem to be something a handful of publishers are embracing…). Here are the publishing & purchasing details, followed by the covers for books 2-4:

THE REMAINING  (US | UK) – Paperback – May 2014, eBook January 2014

AFTERMATH (US | UK) – Paperback – June 2014, eBook January 2014

REFUGEES  (US | UK) – Paperback – July 2014, eBook January 2014

FRACTURED (US | UK)– Paperback – August 2014, eBook January 2014

C.S. Friedman’s COLDFIRE TRILOGY finally available as eBooks in the UK!

This is a series that people have been telling me to read for years! Sadly, it doesn’t seem readily available in the UK (and, when in the US, I could never find it in stores – even the massive Barnes & Noble in Union Square, New York, didn’t have any copies). So, now that it’s available in eBook format in the UK, I really have no excuse anymore! These will also be the first books I read by C.S. Friedman, which I’m a little ashamed about. Better late than never, though.

All three novels in the Coldfire Trilogy are available (they were apparently quietly made available at the beginning of May 2013): Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, and Crown of Shadows. In addition, the Coldfire short story, Dominion, is also available in the UK (and has been for a over a year, actually).

Here’s a synopsis for the first novel in the series…

Over a millennium ago, Erna, a seismically active yet beautiful world was settled by colonists from far-distant Earth. But the seemingly habitable planet was fraught with perils no one could have foretold, and the colonists found themselves caught in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a terrifying natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, drawing forth images from a person's worst nightmare or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life.

Twelve centuries after fate first stranded the colonists on Erna, mankind has achieved an uneasy stalemate, and human sorcerers manipulate the fae for their own profit, little realising that demonic forces which feed upon such efforts are rapidly gaining in strength. Now, as the hordes of the dark fae multiply, four people – Priest, Adept, Apprentice and Sorcerer – are about to be drawn inexorably together for a mission which will force them to confront an evil beyond their imagining, in a conflict which will put not only their own lives but the very fate of humankind in jeopardy...

‘I’ve Never Read…’ & New Jackets for GARY GIBSON (Tor)

A new series for the blog (although, I may have done some similar, occasional posts way back when), in which I take a look at an author I’ve never read but really want to. And perhaps should have read by now…

GARY GIBSON, author of many well-received sci-fi novels, published by Tor in the UK. And definitely an author I should have read by now… I’ve always been drawn more to fantasy than science fiction (with the exception of Star Wars and Warhammer 40k, but that’s through long years of familiarity), which probably goes some way to explaining the oversight.

I was reminded of his work today, because Gibson’s Angel Station is Tor’s eBook of the month (DRM free, don’t forget). The author’s novels have received some rather nice new covers for the earlier books (The Shoal series, and his first two stand-alones), to match the style of his latest novel, another stand-alone, Marauder (the full artwork for which graces the top of this post).

Over on the Tor blog, you can read a quick Five Question Interview with the author, which is quite interesting.

Here are the new covers and the novels’ synopses, in chronological order…

ANGEL STATIONS

Aeons ago, a super-scientific culture known as ‘Angels’ had left incomprehensible relics all over the galaxy. Among these phenomena were the Stations, whereby human spacecraft could jump instantly from one part of the galaxy to another. And from them the brilliant Angel technology could be explored and exploited.

One of these stations orbits the planet Kaspar, where the only other known sentient species outside Earth has been meticulously allowed to continue evolving in its own world of primitive ignorance. But suddenly Kaspar's mysterious 'Citadel' has become the vital key to repelling the fast-approaching threat of the stellar burster.

At what cost, though, to its native inhabitants... and to the human residents of the orbiting Angel station?

*

 

AGAINST GRAVITY

It’s the late twenty-first century, and Kendrick Gallmon, survivor of an infamous research facility called the Maze, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life, even though he knows the Labrat augments inside his body are slowly killing him.

Then one day his heart stops beating, forever, and a ghost urges him to return to the source of all his nightmares, a long-abandoned military complex filled with entirely real voices of the dead.

I really like this cover. Reminds me a little of the artwork for Chris Wooding’s Fade, actually.

*

 

The Shoal Sequence:

STEALING LIGHT, NOVA WAR, and EMPIRE OF LIGHT

In the 25th century, only the Shoal possess the secret of faster-than-light travel, giving them absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy.  This gives the Shoal absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy.

Mankind has meanwhile operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes. Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible.

But the Shoal are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly over a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.

Marauder, below, is also set in the Shoal universe, but is a stand-alone…

*

 

Final Days Series:

FINAL DAYS and THE THOUSAND EMPERORS

It’s 2235 and through the advent of wormhole technology more than a dozen interstellar colonies have been linked to Earth. But this new mode of transportation comes at a price and there are risks. Saul Dumont knows this better than anyone. He’s still trying to cope with the loss of the wormhole link to the Galileo system, which has stranded him on Earth far from his wife and child for the past several years.

Only weeks away from the link with Galileo finally being re-established, he stumbles across a conspiracy to suppress the discovery of a second, alien network of wormholes which lead billions of years in the future. A covert expedition is sent to what is named Site 17 to investigate, but when an accident occurs and one of the expedition, Mitchell Stone, disappears – they realise that they are dealing with something far beyond their understanding.

When a second expedition travels via the wormholes to Earth in the near future of 2245 they discover a devastated, lifeless solar system - all except for one man, Mitchell Stone, recovered from an experimental cryogenics facility in the ruins of a lunar city. Stone may be the only surviving witness to the coming destruction of the Earth. But why is he the only survivor – and once he’s brought back to the present, is there any way he and Saul can prevent the destruction that’s coming?

*

 

MARAUDER

Megan Jacinth has three goals, and they all seem unattainable.

First, she needs to find her oldest friend Bash, who she’d left for dead to save her own life. Then she needs Bash’s unique skill-set to locate an ancient space-faring entity. Lastly she must use this Wanderer’s knowledge to save human-occupied worlds from an alien incursion.

The odds seem impossible, but the threat is terrifyingly real. Megan finds Bash, but the person she’d known and loved is a husk of his former self. Bash is also held captive by her greatest enemy: Gregor Tarrant. Tarrant wants the Wanderer too, even more than he wants her life, with motives less pure than her own. And he’s close to finding Megan’s most closely-guarded secret. A race across space to reach the Wanderer seems Megan’s best option. But this entity is also known as the Marauder, and is far from benign. The price for its secrets may be just too high. Megan should know, as she still bears the scars from their last encounter…

I actually have a copy of Final Days, somewhere, so I think I’ll try to get that read. But I may start with Angel Stations. We’ll see.

[If you’re in the UK, Amazon are selling the eBook for less than £4, which is less than Tor, but obviously locked to your device with DRM… The same goes for Nova War and Final Days; Stealing Light and Empire of Light are under £5.]

Anyone read Gibson’s work? What did you think?

WE SURVIVED! So here’s a Giveaway from Night Shade Books…

So, we all made it through the Mayan Apocalypse that wasn’t. I won’t lie, I’m a little disappointed nothing happened (it could have been interesting…), but whatyagonnado? There is, however, one reason to be very thankful that we all made it, and that’s this new giveaway from Night Shade Books! The directions are really very simple:

1). Send an email to stillhere@nightshadebooks.com

2). You’ll receive an auto response with a username, password and link to our download site

3). Visit the site.

4). You’ll then be able to download the .epub or .mobi files of three of Night Shade’s most exciting and appropriately apocalyptic titles:

That’s a pretty awesome selection.

The Rise of “Mini-eBooks” (or “Short Stories”, as we usually call them…)

On USA Today yesterday, Craig Wilson published a story about “mini ebooks”, which are “being served up this summer as bite-size appetizers for the main course to follow”. I wasn’t aware that this was particularly news-worthy, having seen plenty of these short stories and prequel minis released over the past couple of years. Also, Amazon’s been releasing it’s Kindle Singles for a long time, so there’s more evidence that it’s not a new idea.

They are, however, clearly on the rise. Wilson picks up on three – a new Rizzoli & Isles short from Tess Gerritsen (John Doe UK/US), an early Jack Reacher story from Lee Child (Deep Down UK/US) and a new Walt Longmire story from Craig Johnson (Divorce Horse).

I am entirely in agreement with Johnson, who said these eBook shorts were “a good way of providing a bridge between books,” and also Wilson’s support for them:

“[They are] an opportunity to feed a voracious, digitally savvy public no longer willing to wait between books. The public appears willing to plop down a couple of bucks for a teaser before paying $25 for the real deal.”

Even excusing the impatience-born appeal, I think they really serve best as tasters for new readers – which is why I’ve bought both of Child’s eBook short stories – Deep Down and last year’s Second Son (I’ve never read a Reacher novel, and to this day I have no idea why not…). I’m not sure if I’ll buy Gerritsen’s, as I have the first full-length novel in the Rizzoli & Isles series, and John Doe isn’t a prequel.

In the SFF genre, I’m not aware of too many examples, but off the top of my head T.C. McCarthy’s Somewhere it Snows, Brad Beaulieu & Steve Gaskell’s Strata, Nick Harkaway’s Edie Investigates, Brent Weeks’s Perfect Shadow, and Orbit Books’s Short Fiction initiative, which now has 22 titles (sadly still only available in the US, except for Perfect Shadow).

I would certainly be interested to read more short stories from other authors I already know and like, so I definitely see this as a win-win for eReading fans.

The real issue, I suppose, would be more about whether or not the short fiction should be series prequel, a continuation, or something entirely unrelated to the author’s next full-length release. I personally would like a mix of all three.

How do other people feel about this?

***

CORRECTION: Orbit Short Fiction initiative HAS rolled out for UK customers! Just go to the website, and each title has a handy list of vendors. Hurrah! This is great news! I really want seven of them…

Week In Review (May 26)

Bit of a mix this week: an article about authors and Library eBook loans; Amazon & Waterstone’s; Special Needs in Strange Worlds (the series just keeps on going strong); a mini-article by S.G. Browne; a great review of Railsea by China Mieville; and an article by Sarah Pinborough.

eBooks aGlow

Last week, Barnes & Noble released this (although it is actually out of stock – predictable for any new piece of tech):

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, which is apparently the “Only Reader designed for perfect bedtime reading”. In a cheeky move, they also released this graphic, explaining why “Nook is better than Kindle”:

To be honest, this is less than convincing for me – I don’t need a light for my Kindle, admittedly, and have never thought to buy one.

Predictably, Amazon have now announced they “will launch new versions of its Kindle e-reader and tablet, including a monochrome e-reader with front lighting”, and apparently Amazon “is aiming to have the new e-reader in stores in July” (Reuters). It never fails to amaze me how quickly they’re able to bring these new models to market.

Apparently, while the Kindle has been extremely popular (I love mine, FYI), people “have had to buy an external light to attach to the device to read in the dark. The front light eliminates that problem”… Personally, I see this as a pretty strange complaint about Kindles – you would need a light to read a book, too, after all. It’s not the greatest imposition.

What do you think about eReaders with GlowLights or screen lights?

Week in Review (Apr.14-21)

A very busy week around the book-related regions of the internet, with a bundle of interesting articles. I’ve included a couple of older articles, because I was slow and didn’t get around to them until after I posted last week’s links round-up. One is a particularly good comment from John Scalzi.

Herein: Aidan Moher on Women in Fantasy, Elspeth Cooper on Disabilities in Fantasy, Jeff Salyards on being Embedded with the Enemy, an interview with Amanda Carlson, Brad Beaulieu on how he likes shades of grey, John Scalzi on eBooks Drama, The Atlantic on the eBooks Drama, The New Republic on the Dept of Justice & Monopolies (related to eBooks drama)

Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy eBooks

Just a very quick news piece:

While perusing Amazon’s eBook recommendations, as I do quite frequently, I noticed that Tor Books have made the collected Mistborn Trilogy eBook available in the UK!

(Apparently, it’s been available since February, but I’ve not seen it up there before today.)

Priced at £12.82, I thought this was a pretty good deal for three pretty hefty novels I’ve been meaning to try out for quite a while, now. So I bought it. Hopefully I’ll get around to reading it soon. That, or I might save it for my month-long trip to LA and NYC. When I’m also supposed to be getting stuck into writing my own stuff and job-hunting. Hm. This is another example of so much to read and write, not enough hours in the day to do both. Nuts.

Missing, presumed…

That’s a bit of a vague title, I know. Just thought I’d write a quick post to highlight some glaring oversights in the Amazon Kindle UK Store. To be fair, that it’s a “glaring oversight” is completely my own opinion, as I’m sure there are other novels and series that are higher priority for… well, probably everyone, but maybe if I write this, someone will notice…

1. John Sandford, Prey Series

I’m a huge fan of Sandford’s writing, and the Lucas Davenport/Prey series is easily my favourite crime thriller series. The characters are brilliantly rendered, the setting is not one I’m familiar with (Minnesota and sometimes Wisconsin), yet the author can bring the locations to life. From the very first in the series (Rules of Prey) to the latest (Storm Prey), I’ve always been engrossed and entertained by the books. That the author has managed to maintain the quality for a staggering 20 books is amazing, and matched by very few authors. Add to this the Virgil Flowers companion series (Bad Blood, the fourth in the series, will be released soon), and the four, beloved Kidd novels, and Sandford is one of the best crime authors in the world. He seems to be largely unknown in the UK, however (or, at the least, insufficiently promoted).

I would love to get all of Sandford’s novels for my Kindle, so I can start reading them again.

2. Anne Rice, Vampire Chronicles

Specifically, I’m talking about the first five books: Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, Tale of the Body Thief, and Memnoch the Devil. I first read these when I was 16yrs old, and I was enthralled by Rice’s gift for writing atmospheric, intriguing and thoughtful novels about vampires (yes, I know, not much vampire fiction is particularly deep, these days…). Rice touches on such a wide range of issues in her novels – religion, violence, sociopathy, love, humanity, power, to name but a handful – that it’s impossible for these novels to not get under your skin. Rice isn’t opposed to writing passages or about themes that will make the reader squirm, forcing us to think about or confront uncomfortable or taboo subjects.

Sure, they’re also highly entertaining, too, but I guarantee you’ll get more from reading these five books than you ever will from Charlaine Harris, Stephanie Meyer, or any other producer of the new Vampire-fiction crowd.

3. Jonathan Franzen

Strangely, given how successful and popular this author is, neither The Corrections or new opus Freedom appear to be available for the UK Kindle. In what can only be a happy coup for Sony, they are available through their eBookstore.

This is annoying for two reasons: First, because I really want to know what all the fuss is about; and second, the books are huge, and I just don’t have space for two more brick-sized volumes in my already tiny living quarters.

*     *     *

On a happier note, however, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels are almost all available for the Kindle, so that’s got to be a good thing! Other publishers who seem to be embracing the platform are Pyr (I’ll be buying lots of their releases), Orbit (can now take some of my favourite fantasy novels travelling with me), and bit-by-bit Gollancz/Orion.

I imagine I will finally give Stieg Larsson’s novels a try, too. The Kindle versions are really cheap, and the Kindle Sample option will allow me to try-before-I-buy. It really is a great service, and Amazon should be applauded for adding/developing it.

I’m actually surprised I haven’t tried the Millennium Trilogy sooner – if for no other reason than the tattoo depicted on the cover is very similar to my own. Not the best reason to try a book, I know, but still…

eBooks, Readers, Kindles, and iPads

With the release of Amazon’s third-generation Kindle – including a proper UK release – I thought I’d write something a little longer than normal about eBooks and eReaders. It’s a bit of a rambling article, for which I apologise, but I hope it’s interesting.

General Observations about eReading

I’ve been the proud owner of a Sony Reader for over a year now, and I’ve found reading from the e-ink screen a pleasure. The device is superbly portable, and it’s been to Peru and the US with me (indeed, the reviews I posted in July and August 2009 were almost all eBooks), not to mention all over the UK.

Many of my colleagues and friends still don’t ‘get’ the whole eBook ‘thing’, and why anyone would want to read off a screen, rather than have a physical book in one’s hands. This, I admit, was something I wondered about when I first started to read and learn about eBooks. As I wrote on one of my other blogs, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to spend £200 (at the time) for a device, plus book/content costs, when thumbs came as standard.

Over the course of the year-plus of eReading, there are some issues that have cropped up; and maybe with the release of the UK Kindle, we might get that little bit closer to resolving them. I’m going to separate this article into different sections: pricing; Amazon Kindle (this will be a pretty long section); eBook potential in reviewing ‘market’; and any other interesting things that have cropped up over time.

Pricing & Format Wars

On the whole, I’ve found eBook prices to be fine, but there is still one major issue, and that’s the price of “hardback” eBooks – without a tangible book, I think the cost can often be prohibitive and frankly unfair to the consumer. This is only compounded by the fact that, upon the release of the paperback edition, eBook prices are rarely dropped to match this (or, at the very least, find a middle-ground).

This is what author Joe Abercrombie wrote about the pricing of his novels in eBook format, back in July 2009:

“The prices are a tad disappointing – £10 and change for Best Served Cold when a hardback is selling at £8.50, and around £6 for the First Law books when mass-market paperbacks are available for a mere £4.”

He goes on to make part of my argument, only better:

“selling ebooks at more than the cost of the paper books is going to look just a wee bit like taking the piss to some buyers, I suspect. I’d like to see them retail at most at the same price as the paper equivalents, and ideally somewhat lower”

The plethora of formats is another huge issue, and is connected to the price issue. As UK devices predominantly seem to prefer ePub (Sony even changed their format to ePub earlier this year), quite why the Kindle has not been released with the capability to read this format seems ridiculous. This will be picked up again in the Kindle-specific section, below.

To return to the pricing of eBook content, it would appear that there might be a price war on the near horizon. I came across this interesting quote:

“Reg Hardware looked at a collection of 36 books bought over the past fifteen months, originally costing £208.65. To buy the same collection from Amazon’s new UK Kindle store would cost £158.97, or £205.61 from WH Smith’s eBook shop.

“To buy the same books from Waterstone’s now would cost £239.59, an increase (allowing for the VAT change at the start of this year) of around 16.5 per cent; with a WiFi-only Kindle on offer at £109, those who read a lot could find it worth switching to Amazon, even if they already have an eBook reader.”

If ever there was evidence to suggest you should buy a Kindle over any other device, this might just be it. This is another reason I think there’s going to be an all-out price war coming. I did some of my own comparisons, too, focussing on the books I would be most likely to buy. My initial search wasn’t too successful, as the book I was looking for - Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Viljamur – is not available as an eBook on Waterstones.com, or from WHSmith’s eBook store (the second in the series, City of Ruin, was available, for £13.94). It is available for the Kindle, however, for just £3.79. Bargain! My second search was a little more successful: Tom Lloyd’s Stormcaller, the first in his Twilight Reign series. WHSmith’s £6.55; Waterstone’s £7.54; Amazon £6.04 – not exactly huge differences, but still the £1.50 difference between Waterstone’s and Amazon would start to add up if you were as addicted to reading/books as I am. Even in the case of non-fiction, the price differences are considerable. Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man is £11.25 for the Kindle, £15.28 from WHSmith’s, and £16.45 from Waterstone’s eBook store. This is not to say that Amazon’s prices are always fair: Ari Marmell’s The Conqueror’s Shadow, now available in paperback for £4.63 still costs a frankly ridiculous £13.60 for the Kindle, and £15.57 from Waterstone’s.

Moving on from specifics price issues, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on how publishers and vendors could bridge the gap between physical- and eBooks. There is still something nice, familiar, and cosy about a book: You can curl up with it; you can write on it; it ‘starts up’ instantaneously with a bookmark and the simple use of pre-installed thumbs; there’s no worry about battery life; and if you lose it, the loss is limited. One reader of CR, ‘Bascule’, has this to say about why he would prefer a book over an eBook:

“I like the feel and smell of a book, I love the purchasing process, I love great vividly coloured covers. I love my hundreds of feet of groaning bookshelves. I can sometimes, between books, just sit and look at my bookcases.”

Taking into consideration those who still love to own and read hardbacks – a fondness I share, it’s true – why not create special offers for both? For example, when the hardback edition is released, maybe a special ‘package’ or ‘bundle’ deal could be offered? Given that most/many hardbacks are released nowadays with discounts (sometimes as much as half off), what about offering a special package of, say, £20 for hardback and eBook? This way, collectors would still have the pleasure of owning the hardback edition, but for the purposes of travelling, they could easy transport the book with them, without a care for weight limits or inconveniences caused by lugging a massive tome along with them. It’s a particular example, I know, but take Justin Cronin’s The Passage, which is an absolute beast of a novel. Compare the size of my ARC version of the book with my Sony Reader, in the photo below:

It’s easy to see why someone might be more interested in owning the eBook, but equally the physical book looks great on one’s shelves, and feels satisfyingly weighty in one’s hands. Ergo, a hardback-&-eBook package might be popular. The ability to store hundreds of eBooks without taking up physical space – either on the device itself, on your computer – is a real boon. This is good for voracious readers in small homes (and Japan) and also for students.

Speaking of students, are there other benefits for them? Student accommodation is getting increasingly pokey and limited, so the opportunity to stick all your course texts and articles onto one device would be a boon, surely? For English students studying the classics, resources such as Project Guttenberg could help lower costs of studying even when considering the cost of the reader device itself (Sony comes with 100 classics free, and Amazon offers many classics for rock-bottom prices).

A hardback-&-eBook package might also go some way to alleviating the digital-angst felt by bibliophiles, purists, and snobs – you still get the physical hardback, but also an ultra-portable edition of the book to keep on an eReader in case you fancy reading it on the move. This idea appealed to a number of people I spoke to while writing this. Some didn’t see the viability of idea, however, but there is a precedent for it: I’m referring to the ‘Triple Play’ packages available for some movies (e.g. Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia), which include Blu-Ray, DVD and digital copy, usually for competitive prices. Again, some people didn’t see the point, but considering they are only £15 from Amazon, it would protect your collection from technology advances – future-proofing your DVD collection.

Publishers and agents still don’t seem to be sure what to make of the eBook market, or how to best serve the interests of themselves, authors, customers, and vendors all at the same time. (It’s difficult to have missed the Amazon-Macmillan snafu earlier this year, when the retailer and publisher clashed over control of eBook pricing.) In the eloquent Mr Abercrombie’s 2009 post, he characterises the industry mentality as not quite sure how to approach the nascent eBook market:

“At the moment most publishers and booksellers are still focused on the paper market where heavy discounts are applying more and more widely, making ebooks something of a speciality item and hence relatively more expensive. Hopefully in due course that will change, and I’ll certainly be pressing them to lower the price as soon and as much as possible but, hey, it’s a start.”

Sadly, we have yet to see too much movement on prices, although Amazon does seem to have made some progress in this direction. (Abercrombie’s books are priced between £3.80-£5.69 for the Kindle.)

If publishers are worried about eBooks cutting into hardback and paperback sales (after all, Amazon sold 180 eBooks for every 100 hardbacks in July, apparently), then why not make the eBook a midway step between the release of the hardback and mass market paperback editions? This might be annoying, though, as many publishers seem to be releasing three stages already (hardback edition, ‘airport’ edition, mass market paperback), and another edition might just get in the way.

Amazon & the Kindle

It’s impossible not to spend some time discussing the Kindle specifically. For one, it’s the best-looking eReading device apart from the iPad. It’s the most competitively priced device, too – and, from the comments above about pricing differentials, the cheapest to, uh, ‘run’. I’ve tried out a Kindle DX (larger screen, only available in the US at the moment, but can be shipped abroad), and I must say that books, PDF articles and magazines look superb on it’s 9.7” screen. I’m not sure how they’ll look on the smaller, 6” screen, but imagine they’ll look pretty good.

Gavin from NextRead had this to say about the iPad and Kindle:

“I’ve had a good chance to try out Sony’s Readers, and Apple’s iPad so why do I want… an Amazon Kindle? Because it combines the best bits of the other two. An e-ink screen with a wireless way of adding books. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPad, but it’s not good outside and not that portable and Sony’s e-readers just aren’t that easy to use when it comes to getting books... I’d rather have the convenience of a Kindle in all its forms.”

There is also a widely-shared concern nowadays about connectivity. NextRead Gavin, in the same post as above, suggested “that Waterstone’s and a partner (Sony?) need to come up with at least a wireless eReader with a store that supports instant downloads if they are going to compete for sales with Amazon.” Now, Sony does produce the Daily Edition of its Reader, but it is only available in the US (just another example of the UK market lacking the speed and pace of our Atlantic cousins). 3G devices are on the rise, of course – the iPad was the first tablet with 3G capability (at prohibitive costs). With the release of the Kindle, which offers free 3G connectivity, iPad has a serious competitor. The Sony Daily Edition is only available in the US and, according to a March 2010 PC Advisor article, “Sony has yet to reveal when it will be available in the UK”.

Bizarrely, given the popularity of the iPad and new Kindle (which has sold out its first run), in an August 2009 article titled “UK isn’t ready for 3G eBook reader”, Omar Gurnah (Sony UK’s ‘category manager for Reader’) told PC Pro

“We’re expecting the Kindle to arrive [in the UK] before Christmas, I think everybody is, but, to be honest, we don’t see it as much of a threat. It’ll be great, because it’ll raise awareness, but we think it’ll push people towards the cheaper Reader Touch. In the end, it could be a good thing for us.”

This, to me, makes me think Sony is out of touch with the UK market. It’s true that Reader prices have been slashed, but the Reader Touch is actually still more expensive than the top Kindle model: £199.99 vs. £149. And it doesn’t have 3G connectivity. The Pocket Reader (with a smaller screen), is cheaper than the 3G+Wi-Fi Kindle (£99.99), but only just from the non-3G Kindle, which is £109. I therefore think the opposite effect will be the case: with the Kindle’s proprietary format, and the competitive price of both device and content, not to mention the ability to install Kindle Editions on an iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Blackberry device (free, and with total synchronisation between devices as well), I really don’t see any new adopter going for anything but the Kindle. As someone with over 100 ePub books, I’m seriously considering buying a Kindle (the main thing that’s stopped me is that I’m not sure which version would be best for me. Well, that and money...)

Amazon could still benefit further by releasing a patch, program, or update that would allow ePubs to be transferred to the Kindle (certainly in the UK, where I still believe the considerable majority of people will have ePub readers).

As the two must-have gadgets of 2010, though, which would be better, the iPad or a Kindle? The iPad has a colour display that is, frankly, beautiful to behold. The colour option is great for magazines, comic books, etc, but wouldn’t be necessary for ‘proper’ books. Also, over prolonged periods, the iPad’s computer-like screen would apparently be more tiring on the eyes than the e-Ink of a Kindle or Sony Reader. (A colleague has an iPad, and he has actually said he’s experienced no discomfort from reading a novel on the Apple device, so maybe it’s dependent on the individual.) The colour screen also drains the battery life, effectively reducing the iPad’s usefulness on long journeys. The question, therefore, boils down to whether or not it would be better to have two gadgets: one for books (eReader), and one for the general “fluff of life” (iPad)? A recent piece on theBookseller has suggested this might not be a long-lived question:

“The people who know of [Amazon]’s plans said Lab 126 was fostered inside Amazon with this goal in mind, but until recently the company has focused exclusively on the Kindle e-reading platform. Amazon is known to be working on the next versions of the Kindle, possibly integrating touch screens or even creating a colour version of the device.”

There’s still a long way to go, I think, before colour devices are widely available and cost-effective. The lack of colour cover artwork has also never been much of a problem for me – it’s the book’s content that I’m interested in reading. That being said, it would be nice if the eBooks at least came with a black-and-white version of the artwork (some early eBooks were really very poor quality, and yet still expensive).

eBook Potential for Reviewing ‘Market’

Offering eBook editions for review is still not a common option for reviewers. There are some exceptions (Angry Robot, Pyr), but it’s still something that hasn’t taken off. I do, however, think it’s something publishers may want to take a longer look at. It may not cost much to manufacture review copies (though, I believe ARCs are more expensive than normal paperbacks), the option of emailing an electronic copy would certainly save on postage, and stock restrictions would be less of a concern. For example, I was recently sent Jilliane Hoffman’s latest book from the US, and the postage was $14! Pyr, on the other hand, as well as saying they would be willing to send physical books from the US, also offered PDF editions – not only was this quicker and cheaper for the publisher, it also resulted in them sending me two more than I requested.

This highlights another potential benefit of eBook review copies: it could lower or disregard altogether geographical boundaries. This would be a boon for online reviewers, such as myself, but also publishers around the world. Given the international market, the ease of ordering books from the US or elsewhere, not to mention the international readership of blogs, to be able to offer reviews of international releases would benefit bloggers and readers alike. There would be greater scope for more reviews, taken from a broader range of publishers – certainly a boon for those interested in speculative fiction.

This idea probably won’t be popular with everyone, of course – there is a certain thrill one gets from receiving an ARC (more so when it’s a numbered, signed limited edition – of which I have two), and it’s definitely true that not everyone has an eReader of any kind – I don’t count laptops and computers, here, because they are not as nice to read from for extended periods of time. It’s something to think about, anyway, I think.

Conclusion?

I’m not entirely sure what sort of conclusion I was hoping to draw from this. As I said at the beginning of the post, I love all things technological and I’m a fan of the eBook format, so the future of the medium is of interest. I think the Kindle will be an absolute game-changer in the British market, just as the iPad hasn’t been, but I don’t think this will lead to the death of Sony’s market. It will, however, probably come down to a price- and format-war. At the moment, I would say it’s anybody’s guess who or what will come out on top.

New Artwork & Upcoming Books (Black Library)

Black Library has just updated the Coming Soon section of their website, and some of the artwork really stands out. So, here is a selection of the best, along with synopses of their respective novels and a short comment from me. (Really it’s just an excuse to share some of these covers – they’re great!)

“Garro: Oath of Moment” & “Garro: Legion of One”, by James Swallow (December 2010, April 2011)

Two audio-books detailing the further exploits of the hero of Flight of the Eisenstein

In surviving the horrors on board the Eisenstein, Nathaniel Garro proved his courage and absolute loyalty to the Emperor.  On his return to Terra, Garro is despatched on a mission of even greater importance – a mission given to him by Malcador the Sigillite himself. He soon finds himself back amongst the stars and on the fields of battle, thrust into a warzone where the Ultramarnes battle a greenskin invasion. Once again Garro must fight for survival, but now he also fights to achieve a higher purpose...

Nathaniel Garro, loyalist Death Guard, and hero of the Eisenstein, has found a new calling in his service to the Emperor. Surrounded by a cloak of secrecy, Garro travels the galaxy in pursuit of his new goal. His quest will lead him to heart of the most destructive warzones, and reveal a secret that will change the course of the Horus Heresy itself...

I’ve not had much experience listening to Black Library audio-books (only one thus far, with another on the way). Given the Horus Heresy setting, however, I’m rather interested in these two.

“Savage Scars”, by Andy Hoare (March 2011)

Introducing the White Scars

Dal’yth. The forces of the Greater Good have established a strangehold on the planet, and the time has come for the Imperium to move against them.

The White Scars lead the ground assault against the tau, launching into combat with speed and fury, shedding blood as they gain ground against their enemies.

Meanwhile, the members of the Crusade Council are determined to pursue their own agendas, and their politicking and back-stabbing will place the entire war effort in jeopardy. But little do they know that Inquisitor Grand has more extreme measures in mind, and the White Scars must achieve victory quickly or the cost to Dal’yth will be devastating.

The White Scars seem like an interesting Legion, and one that hasn’t received too much attention in the WH40k fiction line. The Mongol-horde inspiration for their character and practices sounds like an interesting alternative to more standard or conservative legions. I’m quite looking forward to this one.

“Broken Honour”, by Robert Earl (March 2011)

The start of a new series from the man who brought us the Adventures of Florin & Lorenzo

The armies of Hochland are at breaking point. Beset on all sides by the feral beastmen, the safety and prosperity of the province is shattered. These are desperate times.

Mercenary Captain Eriksson looks to capitalise on the conflict, buying the freedom of a group of prisoners to form a new free company. The criminals are delighted to be released, but this comes at a terrible price – to fight and die in the upcoming conflict. Eriksson must lead his makeshift company into one bloody conflict after another, putting his faith in those who gave up on honour long ago. On the battlefields of Hochland, either damnation or redemption awaits them.

I enjoyed the Adventures of Florin & Lorenzo: with the author’s quirky humour and quickly-paced adventures, it fell into the same category as the Gotrek & Felix series. Naturally, this makes me interested in Earl’s latest novel. And the cover is just brilliant – really stands out among other WH novels.

“Knights of Bretonnia”, by Anthony Reynolds (April 2011)

Knightly Omnibus

Bretonnia is a land shrouded in myth and magic, under siege from the strange creatures of its shadowy forests and those fallen to the lure of the Dark Gods. Against these fearsome foes stand the Knights of Bretonnia, calling upon their faith in the Lady and their guile with the sword to repel their legions of enemies. When young noble Calard starts upon the path to knighthood, he soon discovers the darkness hidden within his homeland and the price that must be paid by those seeking the holiest of honours – the title of Grail Knight. Accompanied by his faithful manservant Chlod, he must face vampires, wyverns, Chaos warriors and goblins, but each battle brings him one step closer to becoming the legend he seeks.

Knights of Bretonnia collects the novels Knight Errant and Knight of the Realm, plus two new novellas, Questing Knight and Grail Knight. The novels and novellas form the complete saga of Calard, following his story from his training as a knight through his most epic of victories. I never read these

“Age of Darkness”, edited by Christian Dunn (May 2011)

Latest Horus Heresy anthology

After the betrayal at Isstvan, Horus begins his campaign against the Emperor, a galaxy-wide war that can lead only to Terra.

But the road to the final confrontation between father and son is a long one – seven years filled with secrecy and silence, plans and foundations being formed across distant stars.

An unknown history is about to be unveiled as light is shed on the darkest years of the Horus Heresy, and revelations will surface that will shake the Imperium to its very foundation...

Not really sure about what we can expect from this anthology. The previous one, Tales of Heresy, was pretty good, but lacked the cohesiveness of a single novel. The synopsis suggests things are getting close to the end of the Heresy, so who knows how many more novels might follow. I’m curious to see how they’ll advance the overall story

Nonetheless, it’s another excellent cover from Neil Roberts.

Anyway, that’s just a selection of the novels coming up from the Black Library. If you’re interested in reading about other forthcoming titles, head on over to the website to see a full listing (from September 2010 to May 2011).

*     *     *

In another piece of exciting, Black Library-related news, I found this image on their website:

While there isn’t too much detail yet about which titles will be available to begin with (though look closely at the iPad, above, and you might be able to get an idea), I can certainly say this is a great development! The chance to get all the back-listed Gotrek & Felix and Gaunt’s Ghosts novels in eBook format is something I’ve been wanting for a long time. The digital format will also, potentially, allow for older titles to be resurrected. Here’s what the press release says:

“We are looking at both our forthcoming releases and backlist to decide how best to make them available, nothing is set in stone at present.”

As for what formats the eBooks are going to be available in, here’s the comment from the website:

“We will most probably produce our eBooks in Mobi (the Kindle format), ePub (most other eReaders such as the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble Nook) at the very least. We are still looking into this; more info to come.”

So, at least they’re going to do their best to make the novels available to all eBook readers. Now, about the price…? Not a clue.

Anyway, that’s all the news for the moment. Interesting developments, and something I’ll be looking into, when I buy a Kindle (I’ve caved, and I just know I have to have one…).

I played with a Kindle today…

… and I loved it. In fact, I think my level of interest was highly inappropriate for a public setting (I was in the middle of a bar shift).

Just a short post, this, but I just wanted to point out that it’s a great gadget that any technophile would no doubt get joy from.

More seriously, though, I think the device would actually be really useful for me. It was the Kindle DX (currently still only available through Amazon.com), which a friend had brought back with them. The larger screen (9.7”) looks like it would be brilliant for work-articles, as well as the magazines I subscribe to in PDF format, and also the PDF ARCs I receive from a handful of US publishers.

The text clarity was great (much better than my beloved Sony Reader), and the on-board PDF reader had a great feature that appeared to get rid of much of the white border on the page, therefore making the text bigger and easier to read – this is a huge advantage over the Sony, which can’t handle some PDFs, particularly those with images (which would include watermarks – such as those on PDF ARCs).

[If there are any publishers/publicists reading – I intend to buy a DX, so if you’d like me to take a look at any books as PDFs, then I’d be happy to do so. Always interested in reading new things from any publisher.]

The Kindle is Coming to Blighty

So, Amazon are finally releasing a Kindle for the UK, and adding a Kindle eBook store to their Amazon.co.uk site.

Should we care? Should we be upset in the UK at getting it a year later than the US?

The release is all well and good, but I have one question: why don’t they open the Kindle to the ePub format? For this reason alone, I am leaning towards rather upset…

I could be wrong, but I believe all the eReaders available in the UK (and many in the US, for that matter) read ePub format – indeed, the Sony Reader switched from its proprietary BBeB format to ePub sometime this past year. eBook stores sell ePub editions (in the UK, Waterstone’s and WHSmith’s seem to be the best vendors, and they sell predominantly ePub formats), so those who have adopted e-reading up until now will be somewhat screwed. As there’s been no real mention of the UK Kindle for some time – at least, not with any concrete information or dates – I wouldn’t be surprised if people gave up (I know I did, and I’ve been obsessive about eBook and eReaders since the beginning!).

Does Amazon really believe it’ll be able to get people to buy the Kindle in addition to other readers? True, it’s ridiculously cheap, when all things are considered: the Wireless-only device is £109, and the Wireless and 3G device will be £149 – great prices, in fact, when you consider it’s closest rival (or similar physical size) is more expensive, and the 3G device doesn’t require a monthly data-plan. But how many people will want to juggle two eReaders?

As someone who has been using a Sony Reader for about a year and a half, I must admit to still being tempted by the Kindle – it’s a gorgeous piece of kit (the new ‘slate’ colour is so much nicer than the horrible white), I’m an absolute technophile, and the price is impressively generous (unlike the iPad…). But, I have almost 100 ePub eBooks, and I really don’t want the hassle of having to keep track of which device I have this or that book on – it would also defeat the purpose of their portability, if I had to take two on holiday/business, wouldn’t it?

There’s no news on how much the eBooks will be, through the UK store, but they have apparently said that Amazon will be setting the prices, rather than the publishers (as in the US). This might be a way to lure in new users and also committed e-readers, but it’ll probably go the way of Waterstone’s and others’ sites as eBook prices rise in the future (don’t get me started on this – it’s one of my biggest gripes, that eBook prices don’t change after a book has been released in paperback).

Now I wonder if a UK version of the Kindle DX (larger screen) will be released anytime soon? Maybe in time for Christmas?

Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there, on the off-chance it reaches someone with the ability to do something about my gripes.

(I don’t know anyone else with an eReader, so not a clue what other users think. Feel free to chip in, if you have an opinion.)

No (i)Porn on the iPad

Just a quick post to mention a recent, short piece on theBookseller.com, “Apple removes erotica from iPad book charts”.

Victoria Gallagher, the author of theBookseller piece, wrote that Apple had been accused of censorship of its iBook bestseller charts:

“Yesterday morning the novella Blonde and Wet, the Complete Story by Carl East was topping the chart, with another title by East, Big Sis, second, and Six Sexy Stories by Ginger Starr, in fifth place. By the afternoon these titles had disappeared and had instead been replaced with the likes of The Perfect Murder by Peter James and The Third Man by Peter Mandelson.”

The story caught my eye because when Sony’s eReader came out, I was amused by the fact that the charts on both Sony’s own online eBook store and also Waterstone’s eBook store (which caters for UK-based owners of the Sony Reader) were dominated by ‘erotica’ novels. It’s obviously a lucrative market, so one has to wonder why Steve Jobs would want to cut his company out of that market – especially considering the fact that ‘urban fantasy’ is still available, and books in that genre are frequently filled with explicit (and cringe-worthily-written) sex scenes.

I put this down at the time to the benefit of downloading a book with a saucy cover over buying it at a store (which I assume comes with a modicum of embarrassment).

There’s something about the way Gallagher wrote the above paragraph that certainly lends itself to innuendo and supposition that dropping the erotica titles benefitted the rankings of such big-name publications as Peter Mandelson’s memoir – although, one must wonder if the book really needed any more publicity or help in sales, given the level of publicity it’s already received…

Anyway, I just thought I’d comment, put my two cents out there.