Fact: Internet Polls Suck.

Tor released a curious best of 2011 list today as voted by us, the apparently incompetent internet populace. It's a bad list and they know it, as evidenced by their attempts to ferret out the causes behind the self-described "interesting" results.

1. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (140 votes)
2. The All-Pro by Scott Sigler (105 votes)
3. The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson (63 votes)
4. The Seventh Throne by Stephen Zimmer (63 votes)
5. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (55 votes)
6. The Final Arbiter by Mark Rivera (55 votes)
7. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (53 votes)
8. Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (52 votes)
9. Dancing With Eternity by J.P. Lowrie (50 votes)
10. Among Others by Jo Walton (49 votes)

Um, yeah... Why are we allowed to vote for anything?

I agree with Tor.com that something is definitely amiss. I'm not pretending to be the be-all, end-all when it comes to genre literature but when I haven't heard of 3.5 (familiar with Scott Sigler but not The All-Pro) novels on a voter defined Top 10 list, it's a bit unusual. 

It appears certain authors may be gaming the system. Getting on to the list only takes 50 votes, and you would only need 141 to climb to first. Both of those numbers are definitely doable with a sufficiently motivated fanbase.

But that would be unfair of me to assume right?

There's no way that Stephen Zimmer's shameless plugging on his website had nothing to do with his 4th place slot, nor the fact that this monstrosity took home Best Cover of 2011.

It's like putting Dan Fogler on the cover of the SI Swimsuit Edition.

I mean really? Zimmer must have a garage full of kidnapped puppies somewhere.

Then there is Mark Rivera's constant updates on his book's facebook page. It is surprising that he got 55 of the 82 people who liked his page to go vote for him. I'm impressed - I've got 40 odd cousins and I thought that was a big family.

J.P. Lowrie got in on the act as well. And internet campaigns? Not without Scott Sigler.

BUT WAIT!, you say. You're being unfair, you're not using logic. Maybe it's possible that these books were just really good self published novels. Maybe a lot of people read them, liked them, and voted for them without being asked to by the authors.

Fine. Let's get freaky. -nomically at least.

Let's compare by matching this up with the number of amazon reviews each book got. While the # of Amazon reviews isn't a good indicator of quality, it is a fairly good number of the people that read your book, assuming a comparable % of readers are reviews. I would even assume that people that read self published fiction are MORE likely to review it based on what is likely a closer familiarity with the author. Face it, it's harder to stumble onto self published books than mainstream ones.

My theory is that the more people that read your book, the more people that can vote for it. (Assuming that there are no people who voted for a book without reading it, who would do that?) And since this is purely a numbers game, if 10% of 1000 that read a book like it, you would have more votes than a book that was liked by 50% of 100 readers. And that's being considerate - the numbers of readers for Name of the Wind versus The Final Arbiter are probably more in the neighborhood of 500,000 to 1000.

Lets take a look at the numbers.

Now, I reduced A Dance With Dragons's numbers because it skewed the chart too much at a whopping 31.1 reviews/vote but I think you might be able to guess which of these books might have had their own voting campaigns. Three books have a virtually non-existent ratio and the 4th (Dancing With Eternity) appears to be boosted by some fake Amazon reviews. A pseudonymous reviewer who writes a very short, very positive 5-star review for that specific book and nothing else on Amazon? Look out for herbivores -  you are a plant.

Blegh.

What is the point of having these lists if you can't trust them to be anything more than the most popular books of last year combined with the most mobilized fan community? Complain all you want about juried awards but I'm starting to think those are the way to go.

And Tor.com, is this really a list you want to put your name on? You're better than that.

---

Here is the raw data for those who care.

The Wise Man's Fear - 713 reviews / 140 votes - 5.09 reviews/vote
The All Pro - 16 reviews / 105 votes - 0.15 reviews/vote
The Allow of Law - 150/63 - 2.38 reviews/vote
The Seventh Throne - 3/63 - 0.05 reviews/vote
Ready Player One - 613/55 - 11.15 reviews/vote
The Final Arbiter- 2/55 - 0.04 reviews/vote
A Dance With Dragons - 1650/53 - 31.1 reviews/vote
Fuzzy Nation - 113/52 - 2.17 reviews/vote
Dancing With Eternity - 40/50 - 0.80 reviews/vote
Among Others - 48/49 - 0.98 reviews/vote

Thrown Clear

The past few days have been a rough one, with both my wife and myself getting sick. (New Year's Resolution - get a flu shot) So I intended to take it easy this morning, with no larger goal than to get through a few hundred pages of reading or fall asleep trying.

I was well on my way, plowing through the first several chapters of Joe Schreiber's Red Harvest, when I read this.

"Listen to me, Trace told him. I don't know who you are, but I am in possession of a very special set of skills. If you bring my sister back right now, unharmed, then I'll let you go. But if you don't, I promise you, I will track you down. I will find you. And I will make you pay."

Sound familiar?

In case you can't stream that, here is the quote from Liam Neeson's Taken (2008)

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

I don't know if this was intentional or not. (I have a hard time believing it's mere coincidence) but I don't know how this is an acceptable practice. Someone should have caught this. Can you imagine if Han saw the Death Star for the first time and said, "I think we're gonna need a bigger spaceship" ?

When I read this, my suspension of disbelief hit a wall doing 100+. It's through the windshield and smeared across the pavement. Things don't look good.

I was enjoying Red Harvest up until this point. I don't know if I will pick it up again.

---

Update: I found the following quote from Schreiber in this interview with Suvudu.

"5) The character of Rojo Trace is based on Liam Neeson’s character from Taken, to the extent that I think I even ended up stealing some of his best lines for the book."

To which I reply - why?

Lest You Forget...

Today's lesson will discuss the fundamental difference between books and Ebooks.

I present to you two copies of Lauren Beukes's excellent Zoo City, when dropped from identical height.

Class dismissed.

F*** You Tor! (a.k.a. Covering Covers: Antiphon)

I woke up this morning to a wonderful spring day. The sun was shining, the weather was warm, and I was facing a 4 day work week (moving day is Friday).

And then I see this post over on The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf and Book Review...

My response: F*** You Tor!

Antiphon, book 3 in Ken Scholes' fantasy quintet, The Psalms of Isaak, is coming out this fall. And guess what? They are abandoning the cover style of the first two books in favor of something that looks like a lovechild between Malazan Books of the Fallen and Mistborn.

Here's the cover.

Cover Artist: Chris McGrath

Now I don't have any problems with this cover by itself. I like the work McGrath has done with The Dresden Files and the implied texture gives a gritty feel to his art. The font is interesting and while it's a little cartoonish, it is distinct. But there was nothing wrong with the original covers by Greg Manchess. In fact, I felt like Manchess's covers were some of the best fantasy covers out there. I remember when Tor was proudly pimping the artistic process behind Canticle on Tor.com. How quickly we forget...

Original Cover Artist: Greg Manchess

Why create a distinctive cover style if your are going to change it after two frakking books? This isn't Stephen King's Dark Tower series where he went 15 years between books. The last book came out in November! Did you forget already? People aren't going to see the new cover and say oh look there is the sequel to Lamentation and Canticle. They are going to buy the book and then be confused when they realize it's actually the third book in the series. Maybe its some "brilliant" scheme by Tor to trick people into buying the third book (or rebuying the 2nd) and then being forced to buy the other volumes.

Shame on you, Tor. You couldn't leave well enough alone. And Steven Erikson wants you to let him know when you are done using his wolf...

Why fix something that was never broken? I might be able to forgive Tor eventually (they are still publishing good books), but my bookshelf sure won't. Can I at least have a custom dust jacket?

Macmazon Fail - The danger of mixing business with pleasure...

"Publishing is one of the few things that combines passion projects and financial ventures."

The above statement is unfortunate but true. Most writers (but not all) write because they love it. They love the art of crafting words into meaningful passages that evoke emotion and capture the imagination. They get up sit at the same old desk and stare at that same blank screen time and time again because they can't imagine being happy doing anything else.

The same applies for most editors. In order to process the dozens and dozens of slush pile manuscripts, the average editor really needs to enjoy that diamond in the rough. They need to be willing to shape books with potential but not polish and work with every one of us idiots who are convinced they are the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

But at the same time, publishing is a business. Units sold represent food on the table for thousands of people across the publishing industry from authors and editors to printers, booksellers, and agents.  Money is involved and that means everyone has their own interests to protect and ultimately, they must obey the bottom line. In some respects, it's no different than agriculture or manufacturing.

But books aren't apples or iPods. They don't grow on trees and they don't roll off an assembly line. Each book is unique, every author different. It's a strange blend of passion and product and it sometimes becomes problematic.

As was the case when Amazon and MacMillian decided to have a little staring contest this past weekend, I had mixed thoughts. Part of me understands that publishing is a business and that everyone is looking out for their own interests. Amazon wants to move product and make money. MacMillian wants to be able to publish books in such a way that they can pay the authors and the editors and everyone else and still have enough to present a strong quarter to their investors. I can't necessarily blame either party. The issue is that more often than not these normal business disputes end up hurting writers.

For your average author (i.e. not Rowling, Grisham, or Meyer) every book that gets sold is another dollar toward a mortgage payment, another meal for a child or two, and if they are lucky enough, a somewhat stable existence. And when anything happens that prevents books from being sold (like MacmazonFail) the authors suffer.

Amazon doesn't sell a specific publisher's books. The authors suffer.

A series doesn't sell well and the subsequent options don't get picked up. The authors suffer.
Publishing houses and magazines fold and go under. The authors suffer.

It sucks. It sucks even harder when the authors being hurt are people who we consider friends; something becoming exponentially easier with the internet. But it's inevitable where books and business collide. It's the risk of combing art and capitalism. And it's a risk that every author takes in exchange for doing something they love. It might be courage or it be insanity but its part of the territory. Unfortunately, I have a feeling this is only the first shot in a much larger war.

CoverFail or CoverWin?

Just playing Devil's Advocate here but with the latest CoverFail regarding Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass and Bloomsbury's subsequent apology and promise of new cover art, is this really a CoverFail for Bloomsbury? Or more of a strange CoverWin?

Now certainly Bloomsbury looked bad (especially after the Liar debacle which was handled similarly only a few months ago) but at the end of the day, what were the results?

1) New covers for Liar and Magic Under Glass
2) Tons of discussion and publicity for the two books and authors (that people actually read)
3) Bloomsbury apologizes and saves at least some face

How many people are now aware of Liar and now Magic Under Glass because of the cover controversy? I am certainly aware of the books, authors and content at a much deeper level than if there hadn't been such a controversy. Taking nothing away from Jaclyn and her work, I highly doubt that Magic Under Glass would have been featured on so many book blogs, publisher sites, and message boards if not for the CoverFail. [For reference, here is a site to with no less than 38 articles]

I'm not saying that it's on purpose (for every 1 book that gets highlighted for a CoverFail there are probably 50 that don't) but in the long run, Bloomsbury didn't come out so bad on the other side of this. They don't end up looking like the bad guy because they again admitted their mistake. I don't think that anyone is imposing a blanket boycott on Bloomsbury (or at least keeping it now that the book is being recovered). That particularly wouldn't be fair to the authors. Bloomsbury also got a lot of free publicity and coverage of their book in exchange for the price of some new book jackets.

Now misrepresentative covers shouldn't happen in the first place. Authors and cover artists should ALWAYS talk and collaborate on the cover art. How hard is it to e-mail someone a rough sketch or early draft? While the whitewashed covers shouldn't happen, CoverFail discussions are something that should and it's great when the debate produces a satisfactory conclusion. The only other option would be to ignore a CoverFail and that isn't an acceptable option for anyone.

But if Bloomsbury does this again in 4 months you can mark me as officially suspicious...

Release Date Rage Strikes Again!

I am a frequent sufferer of UKRDR. Unfortunately, my excessive and untreatable bibliophilia (which is troublesome in it's own right) if often exasperated by good authors publishing good books that are not available in the US markets. That doesn't stop British or Canadian book bloggers from talking about them. Mike Carey, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Richard Morgan... the list goes on. I get to read about the books, I just don't get to read the books. The only prescription (other than cowbell) is a little trip to The Book D(Free shipping, worldwide!) which has the negative affect of diluting US sales when the books eventually do hit the US market.

The latest flare-up of UK Release Date Rage was a recent update from Chris Wooding on his blog regarding the US release dates for his Steampunk/Firefly-esque hybrid series Tales of the Ketty Jay.

Gather round, gather round. I am very, very (times infinity plus two) pleased to finally announce that Retribution Falls and The Black Lung Captain will be released in the US by Spectra, a division of the mighty Random House. The intention is to publish them back-to-back in paperback in October and November 2011. Obviously that’s, like, way far from now and if you’re reading this in the US then you are no doubt already navigating towards The Book Depository with credit card in hand, appalled by the vast gulf of time stretching between you and the moment when said books are nestled in your sticky mitts. But I’m still very happy about it, so there.

October and November 2011? Really?!?! It's November 2009 right now and I know the first book is already out and the second is to be released next summer. Two whole years to do what? Does Wooding speak only in British colloquialisms? That's bollux.

Publishing schedules suck. Quit trying to make money and give me what I want now. I'm an American, dammit. (Ok so maybe I should just read other books until then, it's not like I don't have a reading pile the size of a small manatee).

But still, The Book Depository calls...

Can you trust Amazon?

Amazon just came out with their Best Books of 2009 List. Aside from the fact that it's only November and there are two months of books to be read the list seems to be a little questionable.

Where are the women authors?

Just kidding. The problem I found with the list is that 7 of the books came out within the last 3 months (Sept,Oct,Nov) with 1 in August and another in June. Aside from Catherynne Valente's excellent Palimpsest (February), the vast majority of the books came out in the last few months.

While it's certainly possible that all of the best books came out in the recent months and I have no reason to doubt any individual book on the list as I haven't read them all, I find that to be coincendentally advantageous for Amazon. After all, chances are someone is going to be more interested in a new book they haven't heard of before rather than one they may have seen and passed on earlier in the year or one they already read.

And it's not just SFF. If you look at the distribution of Amazon's entire Top 100 books list. There are 31 books (31%) that have been released in the past two months (16.6%) with 1/5th of all books on the list coming from September. While this isn't as horrible as the SFF distribution I believe it's still statistically significant.

So what's going on? Picking 10 good books is easy. You could easily take 50 books for a Top 10 list accross the genre and have no clear argument for selecting or not selecting any individual book of the lot. So why did Amazon pick these 10? If you choose a bunch of old books or 1 book per month, theres a higher probability that readers have heard of these books and already read them. For example, a book that's been out since January will have had 10 months of shelf time to get through someone's reading list, particularly if they have the quality writing and critical acclaim that comes with making these types of list. Translation: No New Sales.

However, if you load the list with new books, chances are that people won't have had the opportunity to read them. I can read the best book each month but if all 10 books come out in October, chances are I haven't caught up yet, even if I am aware of all of the books. If I'm trying to read the good books, I might find myself clicking the add to shopping cart button a few times.

It's also certainly possibly that the recent books were the most fresh in the minds of those people writing this list. But if they really didn't do their homework and look at the full years worth of books (instead just picking the 10 good books they read recently), how worthwhile is this list? Is it fair to the authors who published their fantastic books earlier in the year?

There's also coincidence which while possible, doesn't seem likely. Do publishing companies try and put out their best books during September? Is there a publishing pregnancy period where authors get most of their writing done during the winter (or NaNoWriMo!) and they finally hit stores 7-10 months later? Are their simply more books in September? I don't know.

In my mind there are 3 options:

1) Coincidence/Publishing Schedule (Improbable but not impossible)
2) The Editors have the most recent books they read fresh in their minds (Possible but suggests that the editors didn't put in their due diligence)
3) Amazon wants eyes on the newest books so that people will buy books rather than simply seeing books listed that they have already read. (Borderline unethical)

So what is it? Is Amazon unlucky, lazy, or just plain evil?

Why am I not surprised...

Currently, io9 is stealing quotes from my interview, and deleting my comments.

Over at io9 (see how easy it is to link!), io9 misattributes the interview to SF Signal, where I have been rerunning interviews the Monday after I post them here. I'm a big fan of John & Co over at SF Signal and I was more than happy to rerun the interviews there. I have more of a problem with io9 not linking SF Signal or more correctly, Stomping On Yeti, to read the full interview. They do, however, manage to link themselves just fine.

And it's not only the fact that they aren't linking sources appropriately. When I attempted to post a comment correctly attributing the quote (and suggesting that they link either SF Signal or, God forbid, the website on which the quote actually originated from), the comment was deleted under io9's "don't post things that we don't like" policy

Bad io9. Shame on you.

Jonathan Strahan must have a small rocket...

...because it looks like he's compensating for something.

I saw for the first time the ToC for Eclipse Three, an ongoing anthology series of new fiction.

The Pelican Bar, Karen Joy Fowler

Lotion, Ellen Klages

Don’t Mention Madagascar, Pat Cadigan

On the Road, Nnedi Okorafor

Swell, Elizabeth Bear

Useless Things, Maureen F. McHugh

The Coral Heart, Jeffrey Ford

It Takes Two, Nicola Griffith

Sleight of Hand, Peter S. Beagle

The Pretender’s Tourney, Daniel Abraham

Yes We Have No Bananas, Paul Di Filippo

Mesopotamian Fire, Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple

The Visited Man, Molly Gloss

Galápagos, Caitlín R. Kiernan

Dolce Domum, Ellen Kushner

Notice that 11 out of the 16 authors are women. (Also notice that the cover advertises Peter Watts but he isn't in the ToC but that's beside the point) That's an unusually high number.

Let's take a look at the original ToC for last year's Eclipse Two:

The Hero, Karl Schroeder

Turing’s Apples, Stephen Baxter

Invisible Empire of Ascending Light, Ken Scholes

Michael Laurits is: Drowning, Paul Cornell

Elevator, Nancy Kress

The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm, Daryl Gregory

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, David Moles

The Rabbi’s Hobby, Peter S. Beagle

The Seventh Expression of the Robot General, Jeffrey Ford

Skin Deep, Richard Parks

Ex Cathedra, Tony Daniel

Truth Window: A Tale of the Bedlam Rose, Terry Dowling

We Haven’t Got There Yet, Harry Turtledove

Fury, Alastair Reynolds

Hmmm... only 1 woman in the original ToC for Eclipse Two. And no authors that are clearly members of minority groups. Hey! Isn't this the same anthology that got criticized last year for not having enough women and minorities? Wasn't the ToC later revised to include Ted Chiang and Margo Lanagan? Boosting that diversity factor by 200%?


The covers are strange too. In Eclipse One the ratio of M:F was 9:7 but all 6 cover authors were men. In Eclipse Two, the ration of M:F was 13:2 and both women made the cover (after Eclipse One received some heat for that). Eclipse Three has 4 female authors on the cover, one male author, and for fun another author who isn't even in the table of contents! That's Jonathan Strahan just screwing with us right there. "I'll put 10 male authors on the cover but have all of the content written by female authors. Who's sexist now?"

Now I'm not suggesting that any one of these authors don't deserve to be in the anthology or can't write. That's not the case at all. I'm suggesting that the disproportionately high number of female authors gives the impression that Jonathan Strahan was purposefully trying to build an anthology around female authors. This is even more suspicious when you consider the criticism that was voiced around Eclipse Two last year. I know its counter intuitive but I think this does a disservice to the authors. To me the ToC says "I got in trouble for not having enough women authors last year, this ought to shut them up" instead of "Hey here are some really good SF&F stories, enjoy."

I realize I'm walking a fine line here but I feel like you can't react to Eclipse Two or The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF with outrage without at least raising an eyebrow at the make-up of Eclipse Three. Why does a book with an unusually high amount of men cause outrage but an unusually high amount of women slip by? Don't they both suggest that the editor might have been considering something else other than the stories themselves when it came to commissioning/selecting work?

Certainly, with any EditorFail you can't know for sure what the editor's intention was. Jonathan Strahan probably didn't realize that he had a lot of women this year, just as I'm sure he didn't realize it was mostly men last year. It appears he is leaning to more of a slipstream/fantasy feel for this anthology and maybe he had more female authors in mind for the style of stories he was looking for. I can't be sure if he did or not. You can only know what you personally interpret it as or what you think it could be interpreted as by someone else. And I can clearly see how some people could see this as an apology, as pandering, or as biased; even more so than last years. Unfortunately, there's also no clear right way to fix the problem. It would appear that the Jonathan Strahan's anthologies might be eclipsed by the stigma of EditorFails for years to come.

And why is there still only one author clearly representing a minority group? Not as easy spell that out on the cover? Are we saving that for Eclipse Four?

io9? More like ioLyin'

Bad pun aside, there appears to be some less than honest dealings going on over at io9.com

I became aware of this story (via David Moles's blog) which is being run out of the WrongQuestions blog (Abigail Nussbaum)

If you've visited io9 any time in the last week, you may also have noticed that on July 24th, site editor Annalee Newitz gave District 9, which she saw in an advance press screening at Comic Con, a rave review, and that on Tuesday, news editor Charlie Jane Anders, in an article ranking the con's biggest buzz generators, gave District 9 the top spot.

Commenter oliverkirby, who suggested, albeit not very diplomatically, that District 9 triumphed over James Cameron's Avatar in the latter article because of the advertising buyout, was told by Anders that "that's the most ban-worthy comment we've had in ages." I commented yesterday, saying that the film's sponsorship of io9's Comic Con coverage represented a clear conflict of interests. The comment appeared some time during the night, was replied to by commenter zenpoet, and has since been deleted (comment permalinks don't appear to be working. Click on 'show all comments' at the bottom of the page to see oliverkirby's comment and the reply to mine). Both user accounts are now banned from commenting on the site.

I never had a whole lot of respect for io9 but it was a semi-decent place to read about SF media news. I've got even less now. I've also removed io9 from my recommend sites.

FoxFail

Oh Fox. You just can't do something right, can you?

Give Firefly a shot, and then show the episodes out of order...
Renew Dollhouse but give Sarah Connor Chronicles the axe...

And now this?

Apparently, Fox is looking for new voice talent to replace Fry, Leela, and Bender among others. Seriously? You give us more Futurama and then chop out the soul of the show?

A casting call has gone out for voice actors for the roles normally voiced by John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West and Katy Sagal. Besides the big 3, their roles also include Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Zap Brannigan, Mom, and Kif.

Those are some pretty important roles that are responsible for the majority of the best lines. Not to mention all of the tertiary roles that the characters voiced, characters recognizable to the fans who've worn out their DVDs over the past few years such as Morbo or Robot Nixon.

The best result that can come from this is a show that looks like Futurama, sounds like Futurama, but doesn't feel like Futurama. The worst result is something that just doesn't work. Not to mention the voice actors losing their jobs.

If you feel strongly about this like I do, send an email to FUTURAMA@SCOTTMULLERCASTING.COM and voice your opinion.

Bad Fox. Bad.