Views from Medina Road

As just posted on yesterday’s New Books page, in the freshly installed WordPress Monitor blog:

Beginning August 2011, Monitor listings will be based on publisher schedules and availability on Amazon, rather than on confirmation of physical publication (i.e. via purchase, review copies, or sightings in bookstores). As before, titles are listed only once they are published; we do not list galleys or advance reading copies.

In addition, some titles (especially latter volumes in ongoing series) will be listed at the bottom of each page, without description.

Locus Online will endeavor to list, with or without description, all significant titles from the principal SF/F and mainstream publishers (omitting for the most part YA, horror, media and gaming ties, and self-published books). Publishers are welcome to alert Locus Online of scheduled titles, but such notice does not guarantee listings; and again, galleys and ARCs are discouraged.

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I alluded to this change in my last post here, as a direct result of the closing of Borders bookstores and the consequent dearth of physical bookstores to browse and try to verify that scheduled books have actually been published. With Borders gone, there will be two Barnes & Nobles near me, in Woodland Hills and Calabasas, and then… I’m not sure how far to the next physical bookstore (let alone independent bookstore). There are B&Ns in Santa Monica and West L.A., each 12-15 miles away; independents are Book Soup in West Hollywood and Vroman’s in Pasadena, 15 and 20 miles away…. And that’s about it. In a big city. Times, they are a-changing.

I have never gotten over the joy of browsing books, in physical bookstores. To this day, at least once a week, I visit either of my local Borders or either of my local Barnes & Noble (there aren’t any other physical bookstores left), to see what’s new and to catalog them for listing on the various New Books pages of Locus Online. For over a decade now, my policy for listing books on those pages has followed the policy of Locus Magazine — I only list books which I have physically seen copies of. Either I purchase them (almost always from Amazon), or am sent them for review, or I see copies of them on bookstore shelves (the majority of what gets listed).

That has become increasingly difficult. For several years now, B and B&N have become stingy about stocking books. It’s become difficult to spot copies of all new titles even from the major publishers — Tor, Ace, Baen — since, apparently, those bookstores no longer stock even single copies of every new title from those publishers. So my New Books pages are increasingly occupied by small press and even self-published volumes, as long as they send me copies [my standing offer], but not always the significant books from the major publishers… (I should clarify that I do not ask the major publishers for review copies, as Locus Magazine does, since of course Locus Online does not post independent book reviews.)

Things change. Amazon has cut off its California affiliates, including Locus Online, in a dispute over collecting sales tax, which removes a secondary motive for my posting as many newly published books as possible each month. With Borders’ passing, the difficulty of spotting all significant new books for posting is about to increase, since no one chain or individual store can be counted on to stock or display everything worth noting.

I enjoy my weekly strolls through physical stores; I have ever since I was a student at UCLA, and went exploring through Westwood, to College Bookstore and Westwood Books and several others — as well as A Change of Hobbit, at first in the village above a laundromat and later further down Westwood Boulevard, before it moved to Santa Monica. (All of them gone now.) As always, you see things browsing in physical bookstores that you would never think to search for on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble or any other website.

I am thinking now that it may be time for a policy change. (SF folk are supposed to *welcome* and accommodate change.) Perhaps my policy for listing books on the site — which will continue despite affiliation or lack thereof with Amazon.com or any other site — could become more virtual. That is, not rely on physical confirmation of published copies. If, say, a title is available on Amazon and/or B&N, couldn’t I safely consider it published and list it on Locus Online? In a way that might correct the sampling flaw that has long existed with my current postings — they’re dependent on what I happen to see, mostly, on my weekly bookstore visits, and often do not include significant titles that are available via online sites even if not stocked in physical bookstores. There would be extra effort involved on my part, perhaps, to track Locus’ forthcoming books listings, to check which titles are available from online sites, and as long as they are indicated as being in stock — well, that would be the e-equivalent of spotting physical copies in stores.

I’ve always intended the Locus Online listings to be announcements of books that are newly available, and do not list books until they are available for sale — I’m always perturbed by reviews of books that are published before the books themselves are for sale. That’s still my intention, and I will adjust with the times, as need be.

Here’s news that’s on the front page of today’s Los Angeles Times — Amazon fights California sales tax requirement — and which made NPR’s national Morning Edition show this morning– Amazon Cuts Ties With Calif. Affiliates To Avoid Tax — that directly affects me, and Locus Online. The latter title tells the story. California just passed a new budget that includes provisions for collecting sales taxes from online vendors, such as Amazon.com. Amazon has retaliated, as it has done in other states where such laws have been passed, by simply cancelling their contracts with their affiliates, in order to avoid the provision in such laws that apply to online vendors with a ‘presence’ in such states.

I have had a affiliate association with Amazon.com for a decade or more; all the links on book titles and covers on the Monitor and Directory pages go to Amazon, so that if you click on them and subsequently buy those items, or anything else for that matter in the same Amazon session, I get a percentage commission.

These commissions are typically $200-300 a month. Nothing like living wages, but enough to cover my personal book expenses, in most months.

That will now all go away. I can see the state’s position; it should collect sales tax where applicable. I have a bit of sympathy for Amazon, who if compelled by such laws to forward sales tax to states would have to set up some elaborate system to keep track of which state each order comes from, and the applicable state sales tax laws; complicated, no doubt, but surely no more complicated than all the tracking and recommending functions built in to every Amazon search. I’m less in sympathy, obviously, with Amazon for simply cutting affiliates, cutting off their nose to spite their face — they will lose sales from affiliates who longer bother to link to them. And the state too, is not necessarily in a winning position; they think they will gain sales tax revenues, but they will lose the income tax revenues from affiliates like me — and 10,000 others, according to those articles — who did get 1099 forms from Amazon to report their income to the IRS and pay appropriate taxes.

Not sure if there’s any clear resolution. I’ll continue to post Amazon links as I generate new pages, as much to avoid the work of re-coding my databases than anything. One solution would be to move to a new state. Or rehost the website’s affiliation in some other state, somehow. Hmm.

Not sure if anyone would notice, or care — but I have now gone a full year with daily posts to Locus Online. In sickness and in health, at home and on vacation (including while on a Hawaiian cruise). And I’ve just posted my first 2012 cover image (in support of the Saladin Ahmed interview excerpt post).

Now, if only I can also catch up on my reading…

On Sunday I saw Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE.

This is the most abstract, philosophical, visionary movie I’ve seen since (as far as I can remember) 2001: A Space Odyssey. I knew enough going in, from glancing at (though never reading thoroughly) the reviews, to know that this was *not* a typical Hollywood plot-driven movie, that it included abstract, special-effects-driven scenes depicting the origin and fate the universe, in addition to a personal story about growing up in a small Texas town in the 1960s.

No doubt some audience members did not quite know what to expect, perhaps seeing only ads for the new Brad Pitt movie. Quite a few folks walked out in the first 20 minutes.

I was delighted and moved by the visuals and by the music, and to some extent by the story, and to a lesser extent by the philosophical conclusion, such as it was.

(As an aside — the entire theater complex — the Arclight in Sherman Oaks CA — experienced a power outage about 1/3 of the way into the film — just before the birth scene. Ushers came in to advise us that it was being worked. Power was restored, and the film recommenced, about 15 minutes later. Sorta broke the mood, though.)

I have always been highly influenced in my appreciation of films by their music. I understand the problems music afficionados had with the use of classical music in 2001, but since I saw that film at age 13, it didn’t bother me, and in fact cemented into my consciousness that particular use of that certain music (e.g. Strauss’ Blue Danube) and introduced me to music (i.e. by Gyorgi Ligeti) I might never have otherwise heard or appreciated, but which with that exposure became a lifetime taste.

Of course as I’ve become exposed to more classical music, the use of it in films has become more problematic and distracting for me; for a while Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” turned up with annoying frequency. OTOH last year’s BLACK SWAN managed a glorious interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s music (by Clint Mansell), and I would add THE TREE OF LIFE as one of the best filmic uses of existing standards — you can’t get much more standard than the opening of Smetana’s MOLDAU, which nevertheless worked beautifully in certain scenes (and in the trailer).

Other highlights: the first classical cue in the film is over a death scene, and it’s the opening bars of Mahler’s 1st symphony — music which in the context of the symphony is like a dawn, an opening which soon blossoms into full expression. In the performance used in the film, it had a markedly different tone, much more ominous, and much more interesting. Mahler’s 1st is ordinarily my least favorite Mahler symphony, but I tracked down the list of music used in the film and ordered this recording.

Also: happy to hear one of my favorite unknown composers, Zbigniew Preisner, used prominently in a couple of the origin-of-the-universe sequences. The Respighi sample was elegantly appropriate. Other music I was not familiar with I’m happy I can identify via that link above, though apparently there’s no recording of the film’s source music — the soundtrack album is just the music by Alexander Desplat, and to give him credit, his music blends expertly with the classical cuts to the point that you’re never sure what music is his, and what is some source music you just can’t identify.

About the film — I thought the film’s subject, its intent, was fairly obvious: what is the significance of an individual human life in the context of, well, everything – the universe. (And to a secondary extent, with some slight SFnal appeal, about the wonder of discovering the universe as you are born and grow up.) You see long blocks of spacial imagery, to emphasize how vast the universe actually is, compared to the tiny human life. The POV character, Sean Penn, seems to reach a conciliation at the end, and the final images are of doors, of bridges — of the sequence of generations. That’s fine. There was a tad too much religious undertone for my taste; I sympathize with characters looking to the sky, asking questions that are never answered about the meaning of it all. Yet the beach scenes near the end were a bit too reminiscent of naive images of heaven, when everyone you’ve ever known will gather together for…endless strolling? Other films have done this — I recall LONGTIME COMPANION, with its gathering of characters who had passed; and wasn’t there some similar scene in a Sally Field movie..? — but those seemed more symbolic than literal. Still, I appreciated the film’s relative non-insistence of any meaning — other than that endless cycle of generations.

Anyway, it’s a film to see more than once. Rich and thoughtful, and beautiful.

I am actively working, for two months now, a big new project along the lines of the big project I’ve been alluding to on and off for the past ten years. I’m mentioning this partly to explain why upkeep of the main site may have seemed less than comprehensive lately, though I have been maintaining daily posts. But some of the book and magazine/website listings have been shorter than usual the past few weeks.

Project expected to take several more weeks.

It’s Sunday morning after the close of this year’s International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, in Orlando, and I have just enough time before heading for the airport to type up a quick summary.

The theme of this year’s conference was “The Fantastic Ridiculous”, with guests of honor including Connie Willis and Terry Bisson. Highlights included the Thursday luncheon with speaker Connie Willis, whose talk was entitled — here it is: “Dorothy Parker, Primeval, Little Nell, Robert Heinlein, Emma Thompson, Reports of My Death, Shakespeare, and Other Thoughts on Literature” — and addressed, in Connie’s usual inimitable fashion, the reasons comedy is usually not considered as ‘serious’ or respectable as drama. Terry Bisson’s big moment was a Friday evening reading, introduced by Andy Duncan (actually the introduction was a reading by Andy and Terry of Terry’s viral short story “They’re Made Out of Meat”); Terry read a relatively new story, “TVA Baby”, the title story of a new collection, and which previously appeared on Tor.com.

The weather was perfect all weekend, mild and not too humid, no rain. The ICFA mix of academics and professionals and students moved through the hotel and lounged by the pool. in addition to numerous sessions where students read their academic papers, there were occasional panels, SF convention style, lots of readings, and the evening events. There are always guest-of-honor luncheons on both Thursday and Friday, the second day’s featuring the guest scholar, this year Andrea Hairston, who’s written a novel or two but is better known for theater work and scholarly writing. She’s a lively, enthusiastic presence, and kept the banquet audience enraptured for nearly an for a talk that ranged from Nigeria to District 9 and why popular entertainment can never ‘just’ be stories with no cultural significance.

Even before her guest of honor talk, Hairston appeared on a panel Thursday evening with Connie Willis, Terry Bisson, and Andy Duncan, which attempted to define ‘ridiculous’. There are few people who can hold their own on a panel with Connie Willis, but Andrea Hairston is one of them.

I barely left the hotel all weekend; the furthest I got was a stroll to a nearby BBQ joint for dinner on Friday, led by Jay Lake, with a crowd that also included Joe Haldeman, Russell Letson, Graham Sleight, and Karen Burnham. The Saturday evening banquet went well, though there were few surprises among the awards, since most of the winners had already been printed in the program book, and the biggest award, the Crawford for best first fantasy book by a new writer, had been announced several weeks prior– Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo. The big unannounced award was the occasional, fifth-ever, Stephen R. Donaldson Award, for contribution to the IFA by a non-member, which was given to Tom Doherty for his long-time support in supplying books to the conference.

The most interesting panel I heard all weekend was on Saturday afternoon, with James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Ted Chiang, Rob Latham, Nalo Hopkinson, and Gary K. Wolfe trying to define ‘genre’. Key points were Gary’s observation (reflected in the title of his latest book, Evaporating Genres) that fantastic genres are by their nature unstable, while stable genres (the English village murder mystery, for example) tend to become self-referential. There was discussion if a post-genre world could ever exist, when someone like Pynchon would not look out of place on a Nebula ballot, or the Booker Prize committee would get past their assumption that all genre novels are by their nature formulaic.

And now I need to pack and head for the airport…

I’m in Orlando this evening, for this year’s International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, which I manage to attend roughly every other year or so. This year’s guest of honor is Connie Willis, who seems to be a particular draw — just as I was checking in this evening, someone came by the registration desk to say that the Thursday Guest of Honor luncheon — with Connie speaking — had been sold out. I seem to have gotten the last ticket.

Allow me to whine for a moment about how United Airlines somehow lost all of my seat reservations, for all four legs of my outbound and return itineraries. Still, on both legs to Orlando (via Denver), they managed to find window seats for me after all.

In other news, it’s not a secret I guess, but I’ve been one of the judges for the Lambda Literary Awards, in the SF/F/H category, and our decisions were announced today among all the other categories… works by McDonald, Lee, Berman, Adams, and Fletcher. Winner tbd.

That portion finished, I’m now commencing reading for *another* award for which I’ve been invited to nominate…

Apparently lots of folks were annoyed by the lack of Kindle ebook displays that referenced only something called ‘locations’ rather than the page numbers of the corresponding print edition. I’m sympathetic with the notion that page numbers are a relic of now-outmoded print books, and something new and better might take their place. But ‘locations’? The percentage complete bar is nice, but instead of locations, why not just display the number of words? (E.g., 15,000 out of 120,000.) That would have been something lots of folks, at least writers and publishers, were already familiar with.

In any case Amazon has bowed to consumer demand and installed page number displays in the latest version of Kindle software, which I installed last night. It works, sorta. But you have to press the menu button in order to see the page numbers (and location numbers) for any given screen display. Otherwise is just displays the percentage complete bar. It should be an option — display them all the time, or hide until pressing Menu, etc. Should be easy to implement. Maybe next update.

2010 was a relatively off year; I think I may have read a couple dozen books altogether, over the course of the year. I’m not proud of this; I wish I could keep up more than I do, especially since I’m running a website all about books! I feel like a — well, you may imagine an appropriate simile here. I have at least updated the thumbnail cover images in the right sidebar here with the most significant books I read this past year. I hope 2011 will provide more reading time. Years vary; my gold standard is 100 books a year, which I’ve approached but not exceeded in… a couple decades now. That’s not to say I don’t *sample* many many books throughout the year… But like many others, I suspect, my to-read stacks greatly exceed my available time to read them through. I will find a way, eventually.