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Bloom County 2015

Since I was a kid, I’ve been a fan of Berke Breathed’s Bloom County. Over a dozen years ago while on vacation in San Francisco, I visited a number of used bookstores and completed my Bloom County book collection. I own every Bloom County book published, including the collections and the Library series. I even bought the Humble Bundle a year or two ago to re-purchase everything digitally so I can view it on my iPad.

So when Mr. Breathed brought Milo, Opus, Steve Dallas and the rest of the gang earlier this year as Bloom County 2015 I was through the moon. I took a picture of my stuffed Opus with a collection of my books and tweeted out my excitement.

I don't know who is happier today, Opus or me. #bloomcounty

A couple months after re-launching the comic strip, a store was launched to buy signed copies of the daily strips, merchandise and more. A daily strip costs $110 and a Sunday strip in color costs $150. It’s a steep price, but each strip is signed and Breathed also personally draws a pencil sketch of the character of your choice on the strip.

One of last week’s strips sealed the deal for me and I pulled the trigger and bought it today. Bloom County 2015 #76 features Cutter John trying to avoid the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer due to spoilers. Bloom County and a Star Wars reference together? These are two of my favorite things! Like Cutter John, I had successfully avoid Star Wars spoilers for the new movie… until the trailer came out and I read a scene by scene breakdown of the trailer with all the spoilers.

It will be a month before my personalized comic strip arrives. This will be a perfect addition to my new office in the new house.

  • in Books
  • 3 min read

Larry Elmore: The Complete Elmore Artbook

The Complete Larry Elmore

If you played Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s, read the Dragonlance novels published by TSR or played Everquest, chances are you have seen artwork by Larry Elmore.

Just about a year ago Mr. Elmore launched a Kickstarter to publish most of his painted art from the last 40 years, and it was successfully funded on New Year’s Eve of 2012.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when the US Postal Service rang my doorbell and delivered my Kickstarter package. The Postal Service delivering on a Sunday?! (My wife is guessing that our local Post Office is running behind this year and may be working overtime to deliver on Sundays to catch up).

The book is absolutely gorgeous. Almost coffee table sized, I was expecting just his artwork, but it’s thankfully not. Filled with stories, remembrances, backgrounds on some of the paintings, and more.

The Complete Elmore Kickstarter

Also included were the stretch goals: a Black and White Sketchbook (pictured above) and a number of 8×10 reproductions of the original Dungeons & Dragons box set and Dragonlance book covers (pictured below).

The Complete Elmore Kickstarter Stretch Goals

I’ve only had a chance to briefly flip through the book, but I’m looking forward to spending some quality time going through it in more detail. This was $49 well spent and in his last Kickstarter update, Mr. Elmore has hinted at a future Kickstarter featuring a matching hardback of his black and white art:

I am planning other Kickstarter Campaigns later on, some special books, like a NEW color Snarfquest graphic novel, and we are working on card games and board games, which I am greatly involved in. One of the most important projects, that may go up on Kickstarter next year, will be a large hardback black and white book. I wanted to get all my black and white work in this book, but there was no way…the book would be TOO thick. So, I want to do another hardback of all my black and white art, pencils and inks. The black and white book will be a matching book to this hard back color book. If you have purchased this color book and you purchase the black and white book, you will have a matching set of hardback books that cover around 95% of my life’s work.

I’ll definitely be buying that one, too.

  • in Books
  • 2 min read

The “Last” Science Fiction / Fantasy Meme

SF Signal, the most recent Hugo award winning fanzine, posted a meme on Saturday with a “last” theme.  Here we go:

  1. The last sf/f book I finished reading: Shift Omnibus by Hugh Howey
  2. The last sf/f book I did NOT finish: Perdido Street Station by China MiĂ©ville (I loved The City & the City but just could not finish this one.  It’s very rare for me to not finish a book.)
  3. The last sf/f book(s) I bought: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
  4. The last sf/f book I bought that I already owned: Reamde by Neal Stephenson (I buy all of his books in hardcover and Amazon had the Kindle version for $2.  Couldn’t resist).
  5. The last sf/f book I shared with someone: A Game of Thrones (a co-worker is sucked into the TV series and wanted to read the books.  He agrees the books are even better, as good as the HBO series is).
  6. The last sf/f book I raved about: Ancillary Justice – I just started reading it this weekend and am already raving about it.  We’ll see how the end is.
  7. The last sf/f book I did not enjoy at all: There Goes the Galaxy by Jenn Thorson.  It was another Kindle deal for free or a buck.  If you look at the reviews, it has 33 5 star reviews and 21 4 star reviews (54 out of 61 reviews).  It was trite, the writing wasn’t all that great and you could see the end coming a mile away.  It tried way too hard to be in the vein of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and just didn’t pull it off.

If you’re not reading SFSignal, you should be – it’s worth it for the daily round-up of links to discounted and free eBooks alone.  There is a very good reason they won the Hugo for best Fanzine this year.

  • in Books
  • 1 min read

Godspeed Mr. Banks – 1954-2013

[Iain Banks - Cambridge - April 2012][1]

Iain Banks, one of my favorite authors, was diagnosed with cancer this past April, which I [previously wrote about][2].  He [passed away yesterday at the age of 59][3].

[Charlie Stross][4] and [Neil Gaiman][5] each share their thoughts on his passing.  Their words far surpass anything I could write.

Godspeed Mr. Banks.

 

 

Photo by Chris Boland under a CC NC-BY-ND 2.0 license

[1]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisboland/6928964406/ "Iain Banks - Cambridge - April 2012 by Chris Boland, on Flickr" [2]: http://www.paulcutler.org/blog/?p=2333 [3]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22835047 [4]: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/06/fuck-every-cause-that-ends-in-.html [5]: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2013/06/iain-banks-with-or-without-m.html
  • in Books
  • 2 min read

Iain Banks

I was sad to learn this morning that Iain Banks shared that he has terminal cancer and probably only less than a year to live. I first saw the news via Charles Stross’ Twitter account and a number of other people have shared the news this morning.

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

The first book I read of Iain Bainks was his Culture novel, Use of Weapons. He writes his science fiction books as Iain M. Banks and his fiction books as Iain Banks. Use of Weapons is still by far my favorite book from the Culture series – and when the protagonist makes a cameo appearance years later in a different book, I was thrilled (don’t worry, I won’t spoil which one!) The Culture books are one of the most imaginative and unique universes ever created. I can’t do justice trying to explain it, but Wikipedia has a detailed page about all things Culture. One of my favorite things is the names he gives the ships / AI in his books – how he came up with these names is beyond me, but they’re hilarious and stunning at the same time.

Years later I would dive into his fiction as well. The themes of his books, whether fiction or science fiction, deal with the human condition and how we interact with family, friends and the groups we belong to and are a part of.

I can’t recommend his books enough and I’m thankful I’ve been able to share in his imagination.

Alan Moore & the Guy Fawkes Mask

Alan Moore talk to The Guardian about V for Vendetta and the use of the Guy Fawkes mask he created for V for Vendetta and its use by Occupy.

It is an irony noted with relish by critics of the protests – one also glumly acknowledged by many of the protesters – that the purchase of so many _Vendetta _masks has become a lucrative little side-earner for Time Warner, the media company that owns the rights to Moore’s creation. Efforts have been made to avoid feeding the conglomerate more cash, the Anonymous group reportedly starting to import masks direct from factories in China to circumvent corporate pockets; last year, demonstrators at a “Free Julian Assange” event in Madrid wore cardboard replicas, apparently self-made. But more than 100,000 of the ÂŁ4-ÂŁ7 masks sell every year, according to the manufacturers, with a cut always going to Time Warner. Does that irk Moore?

“I find it comical, watching Time Warner try to walk this precarious tightrope.” Through contacts in the comics industry, he explains, he has heard that boosted sales of the masks have become a troubling issue for the company. “It’s a bit embarrassing to be a corporation that seems to be profiting from an anti-corporate protest. It’s not really anything that they want to be associated with. And yet they really don’t like turning down money – it goes against all of their instincts.” Moore chuckles. “I find it more funny than irksome.”

Oh, poor Time Warner and your moral dilemmas.  If only that was the least of your troubles.

  • in Books
  • 1 min read

Ready Player One is the best book you’re not reading

If you grew up in the 80s like me, especially as a teenager, Ready Player One is a book for you.

For fans of retro arcade games, 80s music and movies, MMOs, cyberpunk, roleplaying and early computers like the TRS-80, it weaves them all into a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I can’t do it justice, so read the summary here.  And then buy it and read it, you won’t be disappointed.

eBook Readers & the Publishing Industry

I’ve been wanting an eReader for a while. When the Kindle first launched, I was in awe. I quickly sat down and calculated the number of books I buy in a year and compared that against the cost of a Kindle and the savings of buying an e-book for $10 vs. the hardcover price. Let’s just say there wasn’t much of a savings. I finally got to touch a Kindle at GUADEC this summer, and my mind was made up that I had to have an eReader in the near future.

I love tech gadgets and am an early adopter. I also love content and media, and own hundreds (if not over a thousand now) music CDs, hundreds of movies (including Blu-Ray that I bought over 2 years ago), and tons of books. My bookshelves are full to bursting in my office, and I have boxes of books stored in my closet without room to display them.

I’ve waited patiently debating an eReader. I travel once or twice a month for work, and having an eReader would definitely save space. This week, my flight was delayed hours on Tuesday, and then canceled later that night. I had finished the book I had brought an hour after getting to the airport, and then bought another one swearing in my head the whole how I wished I had a an eReader.

The good news is that when Barnes & Noble announced the nook last month that I pre-ordered one. As much as I love Amazon (I buy almost everything there now – movies, music, books and electronics) I found the nook more aesthetically pleasing as well as it was running Android, and the formats they’re using seem a bit more open than the Kindle. (My nook is supposed to ship tomorrow, still crossing my fingers with all the delays they’ve had for the last week or two!)

But now comes word that the publishing industry doesn’t get it and is fears change and the changing financial models. It’s rumored that Amazon loses $2 per eBook bought, and now we are hearing the publishers want to delay new releases 4 months after the hardcover comes out but before the paperback comes out. When will content companies figure out that not giving consumers what they want is bad for business?

There are authors (Iain Banks, Chuck Palahniuk, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman) that I will always buy the physical copy. I want to continue to build on my collections and there is a tactile difference in having a physical book. But I will buy many more books once I have my nook. I’ve already been adding to wishlist on bn.com for the moment my nook arrives. I have dozens of posts tagged “books” in my RSS reader that I want to buy. The fact that they’re slightly cheaper as an eBook and no shipping is nice, but having immediate wireless delivery right to my eReader is even better.

So the publishers are worried that Amazon (and to a lesser degree Barnes & Noble) have set a pricing ceiling of $9.99 per book. We’ve been through this argument before – the record industries felt Apple had set a similar ceiling that songs were only worth $0.99 and now we’ve seen new releases and popular tracks increase to $1.29 this year. And that’s ok. I worked in the retail industry for 15 years and have been through anti-trust training a couple of times. The publishers can set their price and the retailer can sell it for whatever they want.

If the publishers are so worried, why are they not raising the cost of the books? If Amazon is losing $2 per book, that means the cost to Amazon is $12. If the publishers raise it to $15, it will make the retailers re-consider whether losing more money is acceptable. While the publisher can’t dictate the actual retail price sold, they do have options. And lowering the cost after it’s been released a while happens all the time across all retail categories. There is no reason that months after the release the cost comes down and the retailer can re-price, at say, $9.99. This is seen all the time in the movie space, though rarely in music. Now that we are starting to have competition in the eReader space there are all kinds of tricks the publishers can do to partner with the retailer to save the retailer money on the back end as well, including marketing development funds, sell through credits and more.

But for the publishers to flatly state “We won’t release an eBook for 4 months” won’t make consumers happy. Nor, in my opinion, will it make consumers buy a hardcover once they’ve invested $200-$400 in an eReader. I’ve learned this lesson – I rarely buy a movie on new release day for $20-$30 when I subscribe to Netflix and know if I wait 3-6 months I can probably get it for $10-$15 on sale (I just got Watchmen on Blu-Ray for $10 last week!).

At this point, it’s difficult to read the future. These statements from the publishers could just be posturing as they dig in for negotiation with the retailers. But I’m not hopeful. There are plenty of lessons for content providers to learn from in the music battles of the last 10 years. And if there is one lesson they should employ, it’s to extend and embrace the new models rather than try to prop up a dying business model. Change is hard – and if consumers want to buy more books because they have an eReader, it’s in the publisher’s best interest to figure out how to do that, rather than making it harder for consumers to buy from them.

  • in Books
  • 1 min read

Gregory Mcdonald, RIP

Gregory Mcdonald, most famous for being the author of the Fletch series, has died at age 71 from cancer.

I’m not a big mystery reader, but due to Kevin Smith‘s praise for McDonald’s dialogue in his novels, I picked up one or two of his books, and then quickly bought them all a number of years ago.

You thought the Fletch movies (well, at least the first one) were funny? Each and every one of these books will have you chuckling and laughing out loud at some point, and the mysteries weren’t half bad either.

They’re light, quick reads, and the next time you’re looking for a book to read, I highly recommend any of his books, including both the Fletch and Flynn series.

Via John Scalzi

Philip K. Dick

I mentioned a few weeks ago a link from Total Dick-Head, a blog dedicated to all things Philip K. Dick. Today’s post covers the new Library of America release of four of Dick’s most original novels that is released today in one hardcover edition. The novels are:

  • The Man in the High Castle
  • The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Ubik

The Library of America’s mission is to _“preserve the nation’s cultural heritage by publishing America’s best and most significant writing in authoritative editions is as strong as ever.”

_

Their goal is to publish books to last the test time:

  • The paper is acid-free and meets the requirements for permanence set by the American National Standards Institute; it will not turn yellow or brittle. The books are bound with the grain of the paper to ensure that they open easily and lie flat without crinkling or buckling.
  • The binding boards are flexible yet strong and make the book light, easy to carry, trim in appearance, and a pleasure to hold.
  • The page layout has been designed for clarity as well as elegance. The typeface, Galliard, is exceptionally readable and easy on the eyes.
  • The binding cloth is durable woven rayon, dyed in the thread for richness of color. Handsome endsheets match the binding cloth and add to the visual unity of the series. The books are Smyth-sewn for permanence and flexibility, and each includes a ribbon marker.

Apparently the street date for the book is today. I actually picked this up almost 3 weeks ago in Milwaukee at a local book store. The book is gorgeous – it came shrink wrapped, and the paper quality and presentation is top notch. I own a lot of Dick’s short fiction, and look forward to reading some of his early novels.