Booyah!

So, I'm back, dearest digiblips, from a wonderful long trip in the underbelly of the world *shrug* what can I say, I fell off the edge. Very super short update?

- even if it's still spring, it's actually summer. fleas and ticks, and pollen, and it's a jungle out there
- reading, reading, reading like a maniac
- still no government in poor old Belgium, while politicians are still at it, beating the zombified horses
- the world remains a scary place, even if Al Qaeda lost its sugar daddy: North Africa and the Middle East are on fire, causing bewilderment in Europe, while the massive emigration movement causes cracks upon the cracks the banking crisis left; the Big One or his little brother caused a nuclear disaster in Japan, just in time for Chernobyl's anniversary; and it's okay to shoot bad people if it's in another country than your own; God's own vacuum doing overtime during a super tornado outbreak, and it's not even 2012!
- I quit the job, because that certainly was not working for me
- fencing-wise, I've been engaging my medial shin muscle in excessive amounts of eccentric muscle activity, and now I've got periostitic shin splints, yay!
- I got tired of getting lost with the car when I don't have my flesh-and-bones tomtom along and bought a GPS. I changed the voice settings (the default chic and smart Flemish or Dutch "named" voices are annoying, sounding too much like *I* am the idiot). Now it talks like a robot woman with half a brain, and who can't decide whether she's from Holland or France. Which is just poifect to my Belgian senses!

Oh, and while I haven't been talking much to the Cow Watcher, I've got this funny feeling he's decided the solution to the Barynn (monster) trilogy is actually simple: make it FOUR books *headdesk*
*mumbles* and I wasn't even working on B *headdesk*

Spring means the return of the fleas, and other things

Did some rewriting of DoCS this week, mostly adding/tweaking scenes I'd made notes about since last summer. Needed to really break in the netbook I bought a while back. About thirty percent of what was in the notebook (the pen and ink scribble scribble kind of notebook) was actually already in DoCS, which goes to show that I least remember some of the things I write*, and also that you do not actually need your notebook (the metal & plastic electrodigital kind) to revise a novel. Ha.


The reason I bought the netbook (ASUS eeepc) had more to do with the incompatibility of WinXP with Win7** networks*** than me needing a replacement. My trusted MSI Notebook might look like it's all duct tape and loose screws, but it still performs admirably for a well-traveled, all-banged-up "old" (about 6 years I think) notebook, but the batteries were simpering out again and those don't come cheap.
So: [ new batteries]+[win XP > 7 update]≈ [ASUS eeepc], et voilà.

So far it's turning out an okay thingie, though I still have some peeves I need to either overcome, kill, or learn to steer around.
It really freezes up Word a long time while saving, which isn't so bad when I decide when it saves. But 5 seconds is long when you're in the middle of an amazing sentence and the things starts autosaving. On the other hand, disabling the autosave is not an option for someone who writes.
I really miss the Numpad and dedicated keys like Home and End and Page Up. The limited space on the keyboard means they have been demoted to "function" keys (which makes me wonder whether it are only indjut writers like me who use them). Half the time I'm ending up at the start of the novel (ctrl+fn+home) when what I meant to do was select everything from cursor to beginning of the line (shift+fn+home), and I was drawing looks on the train yesterday while trying to select everything above the cursor right up to the start (a cat-spastic: shift+ctrl+fn+home) for deletion.
Something else I obviously did not give enough thought during the buying: arrows. On normal keyboards arrows reside in an upside-down T constellation (seriously, that was already the case in C64 days). On the eeepc they are reduced to the space of 3 keys in a row, with Up and Down being half-keys, conveniently placed underneath Shift. Imagine: you intend to go up a few lines, find yourself going down (not really a case of sausage fingers, but half of a tiny key is even tinier, okay?) and try to restore the error by tapping the correct key (obviously above the one you were), you end up tapping shift 3 times and wake up some annoying "helpful" key-shit proggie (Dorothy boobytraps I call those because they do sort of work like "click your heels three times" and before you know it you're standing in some field in Kansas and you did not want to go to Kansas at all, okay?). It means serious retraining of fingerspitzengefühl. Changing keys around like that, tch.

Nevertheless, today I did some more work on the second UTA novel, mostly plotting and choreographing, since it is going to be a complicated dance: I've got background stories about Conway's past, then 3 consecutive story arcs, and they all need to get mixed up and taken out of their chronological order and put into some phantaspasmodyllic roller coaster of a storyline. It's starting to look like doable, instead of "what the hell did you think when you thought up this mad scheme?"

Also bought some more books today, mostly because last week I was hit by a spell of friendly idiocy and allowing The Heroes to go with a friend since I was still finishing reading Loups-Garous which, of course, I finished within two days and since I'm not sure The Heroes will be back tomorrow... Mainly bought sequels: Jemisin's Broken Kingdoms (because I'm just so much in love with the woman's voice), Asher's Brass Man (because Line of Polity was not of the same level as Gridlinked, though the writing is good enough to give his agent Cormac another chance), Tchaikovsky's Dragonfly Falling (because even if Empire in Black and Gold didn't get me in an obsessive reading trance I could do with knowing how things evolve), and Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, mainly because it got onto the to-buy list, and it still looked good, or even more so, in the flesh. Erm, paper. And in sticking links to titles I notice that I paid too much in Waterstones, and could  even have had them delivered to my door for even less. The things you do to support your local bookstore...


*seriously, sometimes when I'm reacquainting myself with one of the books I wonder who has added a scene here and there. The wonders of writing in bits and pieces and hopping between stories I guess. That and writing on the train after work like a zombified meatpuppet.

** I'm not a total dweeb with computers, yet it has cost me some study to figure out how to KILL homegroups, but even then no talk between the dysfunctional family members. Besides, with MS every step forward is two steps back. Our USB printserver is also not compatible with Win7, and I refuse working with wireless [don't ask me why, perhaps part of Laumer's Long Twilight (yes, the one that ultimately led to a movie called Highlander) planted a seed in my brain about stuff being beamed through the air, and Walter Jon Williams' Metropolitan probably didn't help either] so currently I email my hubby the shit that needs printing, but hubby don't print because he is a lousy secretary. Good thing I'm not his employer because he would be so fired.

*** the mobile writing desk gets to link and update often to the immobile one, as back up as well as making sure all versions are the same. NB: I bought a GoodSync licence for that and it's still one of my most beloved programs ever.°



° talking about helpful proggies: about two months ago I managed to get confused about whether I had updated the shit, and had 2 different versions of a document. Not something you want to happen when you're talking about 100K+ text, and not quite knowing *what* had been changed between the two. Snagged a program called Diff Doc from the web which was great help, though working through such a shitload of words was still painstaking and long.

meep meep

haz work changes: roster will change to 3 days a week, since it's no use going for a half-time job and sitting the other half of my time on a train or in a station waiting for one. yay!

done some writing on train/lunch break. with pen and paper !gasp! and also a bit on laptop. editing Barynn 1 to make voice and shtuff fit with Barynn 2. this might be a never-ending-cycle, digiblips. thought about that while thinking of some ideas I had to fiddle a bit with Dreams of Cold Stone, and realized editors must be like cameras: it's only when the manuscript passes through their lenses that it becomes immutable, capturing the moment.

started Palmer's Version 43, stuttered. He does annoying characters a bit too well.

picked up Abraham's 2nd omnibus Season of War and breezed through that instead. hooked hubby on Stross, hubby went out and bought all the Stross he could find. now I need a ladder to tackle my to-be-read pile. methinks whenever vampire/Moscow nights runs out of steam, there will be Laundry universe waiting.

hubby also bought all the Le Carré he could find for rereading. keeps telling me I really should read some. I eye the TBR pile and make non-committal noises, or mumble something about him really needing to finish the beta-reading of Tiger of Opal and trying not to sarcasnap about how Le Carré is the new Pynchon in the house.

it snowed. thawed a bit. snowed some more. and some more. making that going to work thing just that little bit more interesting.

some of the flux (not work) imploxidated all over the place. my head turned itself inside out and is now in a much better place. picked up Version 43 again. and finished. note-to-self: need to put a cnepur backup on laptop so I can prep the blog on train (or in station).

started Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief. like the story sofar though it took a while for the narrative to hold my attention, in spite of all the interesting new words, because you see, I don't like your similes, sir, no siree, don't like them at all.

meanwhile still no new government in Belgium:

• good point: apparently not having panicky egos at the helm helped to stabilize the economy, though they keep telling us that's a fluke, an illusion that won't hold until tomorrow, don't believe the hype pretty please
• good point: since the ship doesn't sink, it dawns on the sailors that maybe they don't really need that many captains, mm?
• bad point: during the slow but steady negotiations (they're talking about really big reforms, so give them time and space) it becomes more and more apparent that Europe is like a nirvana and all the serious, experienced politicians of this small but confusing country have transcended the last couple of years leaving only the idiots in this quagmire of communities, languages, and egos. we're left with the dregs, damnit
• bad point: some minor routine stuff running afoul, for instance the signatures needed to hand social institutes the money they've been alotted in budget need to come from areal/ full government. so some governmental social institutes had to loan money from real banks to pay the needy (at stellar rates of course, like as if society ever did something for the banks, innit just so?), meaning said institutes will have less to hand out to the needy, or need more of my tax euros than foreseen which I would be okay with if it wasn't simply to hand some more tax money to the banks. they've already got their fair share for the next century or so, I'd say.

In all: all Belgium seems to need is a Harry Tuttle.

Shtuff

Alrightie, finished reading Sykes' Tome of the Undergates. Did laundry, cleaned windows. Filled 3/4 big weight salvage bag with crap from the garden and shed and whatnot. Got one non-review up.
Now gonna cut the last grapes off the vines and perhaps round up some apples, and then I think I've been quite productive enough for an asthmatic person disabled by a cold-that-simply-won't-break-through-but-still-festers-in-the-airways. 

Wish Cow Watcher would stop chasing real devils and having imaginary conversations with real people, and occupy itself with stories and fantasy people.

Last of the Summer Wine

Good news: I'm not a drunk!
Turns out I mistook the beginning of a sinusitis for a hangover. Haha, ain't that funny.
See I'm laughing, so I'm neither as depressed as I thought I was.

Anyways, I figured I'd tackle this sinusitis thing before it swamps my head with all kinds of snot by being productive. First I went and plucked the last of the blackberries. It's not much, but they're real ripe and juicy.

 And then you can go here for a non-review on Midwinter.


I considered being so productive as to post a thoughtful comment over at Mark Newton's Forgotten Tomes post, because, you see, I am terrible with books. I think it has to do with the way my brain makes stories. Finishing a book is to my brain as much catharsis as a nice dream with a solid ending. And then *poof* the story goes. When the stories are good, stuff sticks around. A name or two. A really good scene. Atmosphere. But nothing solid enough to be able to give someone a recap of what the book was about.

But since I've now written all I really need to say on the subject, why should I bother, dear digiblips? Reread the previous paragraph if you're addicted to my usual logorrheic self. Me, I've got a kitchen to clean, preserve pots to get up out of the cellar, some more fencing club stuff to sort out, and a ton of grapes to process. No really, I think I've still got 2 more tubs on the vines, but these will keep me busy all evening as it is:

Monday came and went

and there was no post.

Now I fully comprehend that you don't really care, beloved digiblips. But I do, so I've punished myself for being late on a promise I never made and by making myself write up two not-reviews.

How's that for woman's logic, 'ey?

In the meantime my last spending spree at the Bookdepository has materialized, which means it's a good thing the end of subsidy stress is in sight so I can finish the last book of the previous spree (Kiernan's Red Tree) and get on with that fresh mountain of books.

word up!

I gave my insomnia-induced review of City of Ruin some more thought. Then I thought some more on all the books I've been reading lately. Then I figured I might want to keep track of some of my thoughts on the things I read. That's a whole lot of thinking thunk, my dearest digiblips! Then I thought (even more!) on the way to do this without spending too much time writing full reviews, because that's not Ze Plan.
And so then this happened: Ceci n'est pas une revue. Ze Plan is to have a bit on every title I've bought over the last months, which are listed in ... The List.

Well then, all that thinking has left me short of time. Subsidy deadlines still looming and Belgium is on the verge of destruction. I need to do some real work, hence I leave you with another Loire trip piccie, this time from the castle of Blois.

Stonebiter

PS: yes, it is quite possible I'm addicted to creating blogs.

Spending money

Ahah! Finally the credit card cycled clean.
Immediately charged an obscene amount on it for books, and what did I buy?


Philip Palmer's Red Claw because if you read A, you should read B

Stephen Deas' The Thief-taker's Apprentice, because if you read A, and you can't refrain from B, then you should also read A'

Sam Sykes' Tome of the Undergates, because if you read from A's hand, and you read from B's hand, you should read from C's hand. And because I checked him out in Watertstone's where I decided I wanted to read it but the tome was far too pricy in Brussels (without taking in account the cost of the train ticket). Turns out I can have it delivered by the mailman straight from the UK for 75% of the price, go figure.

Natsuhiko Kyogoku's Loups-Garous, because they waz on the list yo.

Pablo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl just to prove I don't really live under a rock, no siree.

Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief, because I can't not believe the hype y'all.

And then I nearly forgot, well no, actually I did forget so I had to log back in and make a second order for:

Neal Asher's Line of Polity, because I hadn't had so much fun reading an SF thriller since Hamilton's first Greg Mandel book. Just finished Gridlinked and 't was like dreaming of Mandel while watching the end of Akira on repeat and munching on Science and Technology Studies articles laced with LSD.

Confession

I didn't like City of Ruin, sequel to Nights of Villjamur.

I read it, beginning to end, no skippage. But I don't like where MCN is going with this, neither style-wise nor plot-wise.

And this, my digiblips, makes me feel like an alien.

Paradoxically, in a bid to prove I'm not an alien, I might have proven I am: I spent the last 10 hours writing down what I didn't like, why I didn't like it, from the point of view of the wannabewriter trying to figure out why the reader was disgruntled. That's far too much time, dudette.

It's saved in my posts list as is, but seeing as how this started out at an insomniac 4 a.m. and it's now 2p.m., it might be over 3000 words of crap. So, instead of posting it right away, I'm going to sit on it over the weekend and see how it looks on Monday or Tuesday. Especially since I'll be gone for the weekend, and I don't want to make grown men cry and then let them stew in it without a chance for ripostes. Because that would be impolite. This ain't fencing after all.

But still I did not like it.


So! On that little note I wish you all a nice weekend, and I leave you with a very appropriate picture. An example of the cute little gifts Pipsqueak leaves us, now August is coming to an end. Usually at the bottom of the stairs in the living, between the cat-hair tumbleweeds and dirt, or worse, in the bathtub...

And along came a cat...

YAOK or NOYAOK?

Stephen Deas is looking for YA readers and will throw free copies at them (not literally; the exact reasons and manners can be read on his blog) in a search for the essence of YA.

While I have yet to read the Thief-taker's Apprentice (damned maxed out credit card!), I think Deas makes an excellent point about how subjective the picking of a hero is, and that our childhood heroes are often completely different from those we pick as adults. All you have to do to confirm this is reread a couple of your favourite childhood novels, and you'll easily find that your beloved hero turns out to be a naive git, and that the boring guy is a far more intriguing character.

Only yesterday, whilst conversing with the hubby on *issues* (or -isms as they are or are not present in books or movies; this mainly prompted by our processing of Newton's City of Ruins), we came upon the subject when he reminisced on having heard about heroes and examples in popular culture from his 18y+ students. A bunch of worldly-wise, free and outspoken young women amongst them nominated Druuna as their female heroin and champion. Seriously, if you have no idea who Druuna is, click on the link and you'll see how this is a quite baffling choice for emancipated women to make. NB: I am not judging the choice here, only illuminating that it really is not as easy as it seems.

So I think Deas is engaging in an interesting experiment here. I know I've always been confused by the many ways you can define a genre, and in the end it *is* marketing that decides (as Adam Christopher wonders in his comment), for the same reason that readers of Dark Romance are considered (by marketing dudes) to feel more at ease standing close to the Thrillers and SF&F section than the mainstream Romance.

I'm one of those crazy kids who was reading adult fiction of all genres by the time I was 13, and most of the YA novels I continued to read were either emotionally quite hefty and thought provoking, or SF&F, where the only difference with the adult stuff was the difference in language. And as it happens, one of the definitions of YA zones in on the language used (as in the actual grammar and words) and whether it is on a YA level, which is already pretty vague if we're trying to define a box, if you ask me. Yet, it's the only definition I've found that holds up cross-genre (fiction, thriller, SF/F,...).

I regularly check reviews or comments about YA books, since I'm not averse to reading a YA book once in a while. But I often wonder why adults find a story more easily not-YA-okay (NOYAOK) when it's SF&F YA (based on the -isms or violence or dark and disturbing stuff the story deals with). As if SF&F for teens must always deal with cute ETs and nice unicorns, while mainstream YA fiction can go further without its YA-okayness being questioned.
Well, unless you're asking your Catholic schoolteacher if you can read Aidan Chambers' Now I Know for your book report. Ah, if only she had known that I was also reading  and working through Dante's Divina Comedia, verse by verse, as my serious lecture that year. Ah, good times, good times...

Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?

Slowly picking through the far too many pictures taken during the France trip and that need cleaning up (pictures: oui, flash: non), a pack of work I have to do for the fencing club (deadlines looming for subsidy dossiers), and of course the gazillion posts my feeddemon had on offer upon my return.


Below my less concise response to Mark Newton's most recent post in which he comments on a NYTimes article "E-Books Make Readers Less Isolated". Let's start off with a song quote (title comes from the same song):

                                                     The thoughts of all the lonely people

                                                     Makes you cry

                                                     Cos you're lonely

                                                     You're lonely too inside

                                                                ~Poison Girls

The act of reading and the act of having a meaningful conversation cannot exist at the same spot in space and time, that's about the only thing I can agree with in that article. The rest is all wild tangents about how the e-reader will rehabilitate a supposedly ostracised group.

Having a shiny new e-thingummy people want to ask everything and more about might lead to some socialising, granted. But the point should be made that while you let others fondle your e-reader, you are very certainly *not* reading. I myself find the price of an e-reader still too high to use it as a conversational icebreaker. And having been a Lone Reader in public for years: people certainly do approach to ask about what you are reading, usually people who are Lone Readers themselves but currently out of books to read. Just as the *e*mproved Lone Reader will mostly be approached by people thinking about getting an e-reader (not to ask him out for dinner or engage in a thoughtful and meaningful discussion). Or am I to believe e-readers are enhanced with special pheromones to attract people?

Same goes for the Lone Reader who can now connect online from his corner table (as if he couldn't before through laptop or phone if so desired). The question is, can we still consider the Lone Reader a Reader if he's not reading but having a conversation (in the physical or the digital world)?

Aha, I have unearthed a dark and devilish plot! This is merely propaganda for a so-called miraculous piece of technology that will supposedly change the social habits of the Lone Reader. The Lone Reader, who with his strong attention span and ability to read, has not yet succumbed to the addictive lure of social networking. But now the internet will be slipped into his book, cunningly like a Trojan horse, and Lone Reader will stop reading and start chatting away, and then everybody will finally be equal: unable to read more than 500 characters at a time. Muhahaa!

Also the unknowns who are allowed to declare for or against how socially cool reading whilst commuting/travelling is are both completely beside the point. People do not get onto plains, trains, busses and undergrounds to socialise. They do so to get from point A to B, and most of them, especially when it's a regular commute, look for things to occupy their minds so as not to have to stare at each other like idiots for the duration of the trip (especially the same idiots every day).
So they read (newspapers, books, some stuff for work they forgot to read in the evening,...),  listen to music, do their nails, watch a movie, tap away on their iPhones at lightning speed and connect (with people probably sitting in another train), count cows, sleep...

I'm sure that if they ever invented an e-reader that would watch traffic for you while you read a book or browse the internet, to use on bicycles and cars, you'd really see the sales shoot up.

Damned never-shrinking reading lists

So the hubby come home with another addition for the to read-pile, though I highly doubt it will get there. Between you and me, however enjoyable Debatable Space is, nothing beats MPD Psycho.

The Void strikes back

Mark C. Newton had a comment inspiring post today, where he thinks about writers thinking about gender- or racefail issues.

There are those pro-female-emancipation warriors that feel all women must stand up for themselves, walk all over men in doing so (how else show that you're strong and independent), and in doing so also walking all over other women. But hey, you can't win them all, besides they are intelligent and strong, so they know best. Shut up. Also, they preferably look pretty while doing all this. Or not, but then they need another great character trait like be super generous, unbelievable handy, or of course be supernaturally smart. Which is a far more balanced view on women than the stereotypical serving wench and whores.

See, sometimes things are what they are. Me, I like to cook but got nearly expulsed from French discussion class in high school for saying so aloud. This first encounter with Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc. certainly left a mark, seeing as how it has spurred my bullshit detector to grow a specialized antenna for female emancipation crap. And I learned that some women can certainly do with some less emancipation, especially when their emancipation infringes on my rights and freedom to be the kind of woman I am or want to be. (Or, as was suggested in the comments of Newton's post: the kind of fiction I want to read).

In the minds of those emancipated chicks, the world would be a better place when women are like them: free, big mouthed, usually short sighted, with little empathy for anything outside the One Thing that matters. In my mind, the world would be a better place if they weren't all so sensitive to one single issue. I'm not for female emancipation, I'm for emancipation, the end. To me the issue is not limited to gender, but goes into the same box as homosexuals, immigrants and other people from other races, sweatshop kiddies, and even battery chickens. That sounds disrespectful, doesn't it? Well, just suck it up, wimp, because in my world those things are the same: issues that need special attention and special action, but with care not to disrupt the world surrounding the subjects. You can't change reality overnight, not because reality will fight back, but because there will be plenty of other issues crawling out of the woodwork as soon as you magically fix the problem. And most of those new issues you'd never thought had any link with the first issue. 

In the end, if you go through life swinging a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. The discussions always dreg up Conan, but nobody mentions Tolkien. But seriously, what do female hobbitses do all day except cook, clean and produce more hobbitses? Damned misogynist of him, if you ask me!

And now I have this terrible urge to reread Cerebus again. All of it, especially the "terribly misogynist" parts. Ah good times.

But first finish cleaning (and especially putting order into the mess) my study, reading Palmer's Debatable Space (my God is that a fun story) and Newton's City of Ruin (which will have arrived by then).

Edited to add: aaah, digital blips *le sigh*

To blog or not to blog: questions of POV

So, another one of those: I'm going to take someone's quote and formulate my answers here and not in the original blog because I stray off-topic or some such and anyway, I'm just a digital blip and what I say here is more interesting to me than to you. And if that makes you feel all-important, remember: you're only a digital blip too.

Marshall Payne wrote (28th June):

First person narratives have their own problems. Have you ever noticed (and I'm sure you have) where the overuse of the word "I" snakes down the page like a testament to the Me Generation? Often you have to accept this as a convention of first person narrative, but as a writer it's something I try to watch out for.

I haven't, because most books out there aren't 1st but 3rd person, preferably multi-headed because in this day and age of internet brainshrink, nobody seems to be able to stick to one head.
N.B.: everybody now blames the internet for the brainshrink, but I remember the early 90s when the internet was still far too clunky to influence young brains and Google wasn't even invented: everybody blamed TV, couch-potato zap-culture and MTV's blitzkrieg on young minds (incidentally this is also before neo-R&B or urban pop or whatever you wanna name it made music channels, videos and artists uniform. It was a real blitzkrieg, like Celine Dion followed by Metallica => *head explodes*). And I still think US-styled advertisement littered television holds more responsibility in brain-fatigue issues than the internet. From experience I know that when I haven't watched BBC or a rented DVD for a while but stuck to whatever's on the tube, I notice an increase in brain-fatigue while watching a movie ("where's that damned ad break?"), and the added quirk of a conditioned bladder ("dude, pause this shit because I really have to pee").

Now, back to that remark on 1st person: As a writer I feel more at ease with 1st person than 3rd, I don't like the limitations and the choices you have in 3rd. I understand that you can do 1st person badly (and I'm certainly not saying that I do 1st person particularly well, or write well at all), but considering the "I vs. s/he ratio" in published stories/novels, for every one done badly in 1st person I can show you three done badly in 3rd person (where probably the same error, of overusing "s/he", pops up).
Now one of the main difficulties of 1st person is the need to establish your character's identity separate from the reader's identity, while or just because a reader naturally identifies with your main character. This might require some more "I" than a 3rd person character would demand. Another difficulty is that reading being an individual business, the reader is geared to the self. So if the 1st person ticks off the reader's internal critic (who'll become confused between the real and fictional "I") your story/novel is screwed. That's the problem this new main character that popped up for my new project poses: 1st person and extremely unpleasant. That's gonna be real difficult.

As a reader I like 1st person, even done badly, better than 3rd person. It's one of the reasons that kept me glued to Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms:
  a) the first 1st person I've stumbled across in a long time
  b) it was done well
  c) I really liked the voice

and a + b + c = love on first page

I'm certainly no fan of multi-POV, because in most instances it's used as a simple device to create tension, switching heads per chapter and having cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger. It's good for one book, maybe two, then I tire of the carrot. Which is one of the main reasons I've fallen out of love with Peter F. Hamilton: too much carrot, not enough real content. Still read him, though, sort of like thinking fondly about the good times you had with an ex.
Multi-POV is also overused, in my opinion, because it is what sells in this brainshrunk market, which means stories that do not even need the reader to be inserted from different angles or different places into the story use multi-POV. Sometimes it is done well, usually when the rigidity of structure goes.

For instance, the first head-switch in Newton's Nights of Villjamur had me frown my annoyed frown and sigh my annoyed sigh (over the last 15 years, I've seen a surge in the use of multi-POV in the genres I tend to read, so it's become some sort of nervous tick). But by the second switch my nervous tick had gone to sleep, and by the end of the book I was under the impression of having read a single POV, which is how multi-POV should work: tell one story, highlighting different angles or places, but stick to one story that flows nearly continuously. Don't be tedious and have the different heads do stuff simultaneously unless it has a function ("Oh no, dude's gonna be in the corridor that other dude's about to blow up!" Agony! Tension!). And keep those instances short. Why?
Well, long chapters with different heads all running around doing stuff (near) simultaneously ("Dun dun dun!     Meanwhile ...") work the first time you read it. Next time you pick the book up, you skip everything you know wasn't either super pivotal to plot, or described or characterized extremely well.
Or maybe that's just me. But there's this choir of extras in my mental background ready to yell "Oh get on with it" whenever I even come close to thinking "'Oh no, we're switching to that stupid git/annoying twit again". I can't help it. Tad Williams and Peter Hamilton love to work with this kind of multi-head tale, and somewhere during the reading I always get this feeling the story gets subjected to the rigorous structure they've set up.
I've reread everything of Hamilton a few months ago and must say there was much skippage once past the Mandel stories. Same for Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I've been toying with rereading Otherland, but then I figured I could better keep my forces? patience? for the rest of Shadowmarch.
And I do like rereading and finding new nuggets of beautiful language or ideas or themes that I glossed over the previous read. I don't like rereading and having to plough through superfluous pages and go SKIM! and SKIP! And I believe most of those superfluous pages are created by using another head when it's completely unnecessary.

Another recent multi-POV that I was extremely pleased with as reader was Stephen Deas' The Adamantine Palace. The slightly more structuralized POV-switching certainly had the potential of making this a wall-collision book (as in "Not again! Harrumph!" and book colliding with wall), but Deas made it work by keeping the reader's interest on what might happen with characters while you're not following them, instead of trying to write up every little bit that happens to them MEANWHILE or working with explicit cliffhangers. If I remember well (and see, now I'm thinking of rereading a book I read only a few months ago, how about that?), he even plays around with the POV enough that you're not really head-switching: you're camera-switching, and sometimes following one character, then another, in a particular setting/group. And right up till the end I was sort of wondering/hoping/fearing (all confused) that the next switch back to the mercenary, the scene would be one with the mercenary absent and the dragon belching.

I'm having difficulty with finishing Eric brown's Necropath (I still have 5 chapters to go). The mystery is solved, what's left is a bit of thriller loose end (will Vaughan manage to find the Vaith before his nemesis finds him?). The set-up with the multi-POV has kept Vaughan at a distance, and it is clear that the nemesis will find Vaughan through Sukara, so I don't feel particularly involved in the resolution. The only reason I push myself to finish the read is because I want to find out if there is anything in the ending to justify the use of multi-POV. Up until now I have the feeling the story would have been better and stronger when told simply from Vaughan's POV. I'll come back to this when I do finish the book.

Edit 5th July: So, to conclude my reading of Necropath, I stay with my initial opinion: the story would have been stronger if Brown had stuck to the 3rd person POV.

Gobble

One of the books I picked up in Waterstone's in the last batch, Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was amongst it. I started reading yesterday evening, and I'm done now. I haven't read like that since mmmmmm Latin class. That long ago. Finishing a novel under 24h is exhilarating. Wish I could stay longer and describe what and where and how this novel worked for me, but Cow Watcher is banging on drums, acting like a spoiled brat. Must go before more unmarketable novels are cooked up. Lord save me from myself.

Note to self

Dear self,


I'll agree 3 books in 1 is a bargain, but next time you think that spending a week with a book of 840g sounds good, think of your body craptastic, and remind yourself it's no way to help your shoulder recover from saber season.

Rejection Rant

And then some; the subject is the nth iteration of the Famous Rejections, and the repeated remarks/comments they get.  It started out as some thoughtful responses, I swear.

Rejections build character!

Rejections build character?
Serious *snort* now!

I'm not averse to character building. I suspect that forced revisions and editing (AIIEE MUTILATION OY SHARP KNIVES CARVING THE FLESH FROM MY SOUL!) will be far more character building than an impersonal note from either editor or agent. I frown upon the idea that being denied something that you want and know you should have because you are worthy should be seen as character building, how the hell did those people ever get past their fifth birthday? That ever first no I had to swallow as a toddler prepared me well enough for: no, nyet, nope, nada, nix, nougat-balls, and just because, you figure it out.
It doesn't help finding it not fair (oy Calimero) that my genius is denied; it's not like I can wait until mommy leaves the house and sneak into the cupboard and take the cookie I so deserve.
An explanation would help making me bristle less at the no--we all have that same child still with us, and as everybody knows, some children are louder or more stubborn than others; I must confess to having a very headstrong and petulant child within, but I cope nowadays without pouting and stomping my feet and crying in public. But my character was built enough way back when to deal with an unexplained nope (mind you, not until I figured out that mommy notices cookies disappearing and it would do me no good ignoring that no). I'd like an explanation, but I can live without. But without explanation you don't have anything to build whatever with.
Now, if an agent would send me some flaring remark (what kind of drivel is this, you idiot, with which you disturb my most exalted thoughts?) I might not be happier, but at least I'd have something I could call character building.

I look at the digital stack of impersonal form rejections (stack, pfeh, let's not be overly dramatic: I only have like 9 or 10); I accept why these must be such, though I'm not fully convinced by the arguments (see later). But since I don't have to do that work, who am I to object? No is a no, and stomping my foot ain't gonna get me cookies.
Now, said digital stack of rejections first and foremost remind me I'm a storyteller, nay storyfinder. I can't look at them and not have Cow Watcher award those impersonal words voices, give them faces, and have them speak in a certain tone. When another incarnation of the List popped up on the Rejectionist's blog, I commented that at least those rejections are personal. My digital impersonal stack simply make me feel like a leper trying to sell skin lotion. Thank you but no thank you and have a nice day! Leper moves away from door, with difficulty negotiating the two small steps to the path, then the flagstones towards the street. Before reaching the next door, arm drops off... Oh no, whispers the lady in the next house, Quickly children, hide behind the couch. It's that leper from last year again!

But honestly, I was looking for a short explanation of my feelings when making that comment. What the stack really does is make me feel like a girl scout making her cookie-selling rounds and getting met by kindly smiling faces and a chipper: "Sorry! Not today!" and "Oh how awfully sorry, but I can't."
Brave Girl Scout will not be persuaded by a little adversity like that, but after wandering through many streets, she grows weary with the chipper folk. More and more she has to bite down on a slightly evil grin so as not to blurt out "You're awfully sorry, I know. Bye!" as soon as the door opens.
Surely there are better ways to use/lose time, she feels. It's such a lovely day, and if nobody wants these cookies, what's she trying to prove? But no, she's committed, she's hard working, she'll do this, the right way. So she soldiers on, no matter that her feet hurt.
But Girl Scout is also mere human, and hence prone to petulant inner monologue. She knows slinging cookies through people's front windows will not help the sales, but wouldn't it at least make her feel better? Her fingers are starting to hurt from knocking on doors and pressing doorbells, and pain is hard to bear if you cannot see its reason.
Being somewhat paranoid of nature, Girl Scouts ends up wondering if those chipper folk are all too kind to mention they bought cookies from another Girl Scout, and well, lovely as the cookies are, people have to think about health and diet and money these days. What she would not give for someone to say: "Oh no chocolate, I can't have any says the doc." At least then she would know that the cookie-selling-route-snatching-bitch-that-spoiled-her-day is only a figment of her dark side.

Another recurring remark/sentiment is the one that states it's a rite of passage. I find that one even more disturbing. At least a tribal rite of passage has rules for the ceremony that are clear, or I should say, that clearly state what they're about. In preparation for your rite you won't be told you need to show courage during your test, and then dropped unprepared into a pit with a hungry lion. No, you'll be well warned that you'll have to fight a hungry lion to show courage. To say those two things are the same would be showing a lack of intelligence, or of common sense.

A comment in Bransford's post on the list mentioned that every failure is a step towards success:

a reminder each time, that you are a submitting writer ever one step closer to your goal.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret that. Failure can teach you many things, but failure itself is not getting yourself any closer to whatever goal you've set. And without a teacher, a mentor, a direction or even a glimmer of an idea what causes the failure, how can you learn? Or should I cherish impersonal form rejections for another reason? Is this person perhaps hinting at the greatest secret in the publishing industry there is: might there be some wizard, some AI out there, that counts my form rejections, and if I reach the right number without blowing a fuse or letting slip a petulant remark, the doors of heaven will open and I will be taken up amongst the Angels of the Art?
Well... Crap on the Holy Cow. If only someone would have told me that years ago...

Bransford gives his reasons for finding fault with such lists; I'm slightly disappointed that all remarks and comments in whatever blog on the subject so rarely point out that comparing those rejections with current ones is comparing apples with pears. Why will nobody of our shepherds say out loud: those rejections have nothing to do with how the business is run nowadays. Why not slap down comments like "rite of passage" and "character building" like the fluff they are? Instead their silence only reconfirms the mantra: queries are the pain you must suffer, the ablutions you must do before being deemed worthy to the inner circle of the craft. So, write some more, it's good for your character, it's good for your soul.
You know, carrots are also good for you, but I'm no donkey, and I know when I'm strung along.

Those dear shepherds of the wannabe-writer masses pussyfoot about while they'll write page after page of detailed and thoughtful advice on queries. However, they won't say that the business has changed over the years, that their business has changed along with it, and that while they would love to find the next great artist writer they won't get his books sold. Perhaps even worse, that while they would love to find the next great artist writer, they no longer look for him.
Craft, they mutter, you must learn the craft. But it's not craft, it's not the potter forging beautiful dishes. The publishing industry is about factories copying the design and cranking out as many they can. Nay, it's not craft you must learn, it's industry. It's neither good or bad, but it is what it is and I feel more should be said about it.

Craft? Piffle. And this does not come from my frustration as querying wannabe-writer, but as reader. There's good stuff being written, but in the field of SF/Fantasy I haven't seen the likes of great storytelling like LeGuin's, or Zelazny's yet. Doubt we'll ever see something like him again and this makes me sad; I'll steer clear of questioning they would have broken through nowadays (which is like trying to argue whether aliens will like us or kill us when they come). No, honestly, I'd rather buy and read the next Zelazny than get my own stuff published. The system isn't broken because you need to rack up piles of form rejections, the system is broken because it fails to mention time and again it's first and foremost about selling copy nowadays, and less and less and even less chances are taken. It's sensible, logical, but not quite talked about as much as how it is about style and voice and craft.

It's not about writing, and it's not about craft, but about whether you can carry a platform. Will you go out and talk and do things having nothing to do with writing, and everything with selling? Will you humor fans? Do you understand what makes this business tick? Will your title sell enough within a short amount of time (and too short an amount of time to make a success of most of those writers mentioned in those lists), to make it worth it? I was just about wondering whether it might come to big boops being assets in getting published, but then this happened making it all too clear what the industry is about. Oh laugh at it, mock it, sure, but me, I'm laughing green, because I understand quite well who this particular joke is on, and illustrates so well why I'd better give up now. It's not about writing, it's about the person. And instead of giving me hope and courage, strengthen me in the idea that I simply must have an agent, simply must have an editor, simply must have a publisher, to do this the right way, they make me question if this is the right way. I'd like to get famous and rich overnight just like the next person, or whatever approximation I could ever dream of befalling me, but I'm not sure I want to pay the price. I just want to tell my stories, whether the world will buy them in masses, or not buy them at all. Just like proving courage and being chucked to lions or doing it the other way around, there's a difference between editing geared to making a manuscript into a better novel, or into a more salable novel. It is what it is, but is it what I want?

One of those things that makes me bristle when the shepherds speak of queries is the advice to personalize. I get that when thanking people when you do get published, you name the people that have helped you, whether they were paid for it or not. It's only polite, and makes perfectly sense. Just like writing a story is more than stringing words into sentences, jobs done with heart and good effort are more than something you can pay for with money.
I also understand the need to get a name right, the genre, and perhaps the preferences too. But why should I agonize over personalizing what should be an objective polite request to a stranger, while the addressed is perfectly aware that whatever I say is just a sugar-coating ploy. Something small, like "I like your blog!" or "loved that book you sold" in my weird head always get said in that immortalized tone of: I can see Russia from my house! Surely such fake sentiment will not help my book getting published? Couldn't we just go all out then and turn this show into America's Next Bestselling Author?
Another test of my character then perhaps: can I lie and fake interest in their person even if they promise their response (being 90% to 99% of the time the negative kind) will be an impersonal form rejection?

It annoys me and then some. I'm not a great people's person. Especially when strangers are involved. I pick and fuss over my words, lay awake at night wondering about certain glances, certain expressions I noticed. I HATE making telephone calls if it's my business, but I'll call to wherever if my job demands it, no problem, and I'll be polite and outgoing and not such a bad people's person but it's mostly FAKE. Why do I need to pretend to like strangers if they do not show me the courtesy they expect from me? N.B.: only a third of my rejections use my name in the response. And that simple little effort, an objective polite courtesy asked and returned, makes me feel less like a leper or a Girl Scout who can't get rid of her sodden cookies.

So all in all I'm wondering hard and deep now, reminded of the promise I made myself over Dreams of Cold Stone. I'll wait till summer and then we'll see...

The Unbearable Lightness of Detail

My sinuses no longer feel like I've been eating grenades all night, so I should stop reading blogs. Blogs keep me from doing real work, because they tickle my brain and then I'll just have to write some shit about a subject because I like to hear myself talk, especially in an empty room. Seriously, enter a single person and I'll shut up.

The current spark comes from MCN's blog: on tie-ins, so there, I'll ramble a bit and pretend I'm alone in this room.

I've never read a tie-in, or fanfic, or whatever. They have intrigued me over decades, but I never got round to picking one up, and not always because there was a snooty friend with snooty remarks standing right next to me. The thing withholding me from reading tie-ins is twofold:
1) it's a series, and when I read A, I know I'll just have to read B no matter what the quality of writing/storytelling/worldbuilding/yadda. Or, more wearying, if I read K, I'll want to read L *and* A. Choices! [sigh] I'm not good with choices. And no, even if it are separate stories strung out through time and produced in no specific order I must have some sort of order (no order equals more choices!), either chronological in written time or chronological in write time.
2) most of my series-quota goes to television series. Not that I watch tremendously much television, but I do have some series I follow. And when there's not enough television series, I'll go on a DVD binge and say watch all of BSG in a long weekend or some such. Because A=> B => C until my brain shuts down. It's sort of like giving me a box of delicious cookies and I'll just have one. Ha. And another. And then another to unlearn the bad habit. And well, that one just looks lonely now...

Both points together make that: to go on a binge I need to have everything on hand and in order. Believe me, you did not want to see me after my BSG-thon where I realized I had to wait for Season 4! Like, a whole summer!
So before I open the tie-in can of worms, I think, I should read Pratchett. Yes, he's one of my gaps. And since I put the library in order yesterday, I know exactly how big a gap it is.

As to writing tie-ins: when I was young I made up fanfic for Les Chevaliers du Zodiaques (Saint Seya for ye English types). I invented new characters, made sure every little detail matched up or was accounted for. It was fun and immensely gratifying, even if I never wrote down more than three sentences (all the rest is still stocked somewhere in a dark recess of my brain).
And when ST:TNG and more came along, Cow Watcher started churning out cool story lines, even if I would not hear of it because I was into *serious* literature then. No, no tie-ins! By the time I thought like it might be fun to try anyway, there were already walls filled with ST:TNG tie-ins and the idea became too daunting.

Daunting because we're talking fans as a reader base. And we all know where the word fan comes from. Add to that: fans are alien creatures to me, because I completely lack the gene for fanaticism. Sure, the dude knows how to make music and I'll probably buy every CD he cranks out, but why would that make me interested in his favorite food or make me want to have his babies? Simply incomprehensible.
Daunting in no lesser way because it must be a tremendous job to write a tie-in, with all the little details you have to take into account. Unless it's your particular geek-world, I'm thinking lots of hours of studying, and editing and re-editing. And then editing some more. Somebody out there might go "The Death Star's thermal exhaust port's above the main port, numb-nuts" and the core of your superb action finale comes crashing down.

But then, looking around on the web, you even get crazy fanatics like that if its your own original fiction, and not only in the hard SF section of readership. I fear it. It scares me, how do you deal with stuff like that?

And then I take a big gulp of air and realize that whatever hairsplitting nitpickers might throw at me (once I do get published, and do get readers that might harbor one of those creeps), it's my party and I do what I want to. The thermal exhaust port's above the main port, you say? Well, *I* am using the Empire's revised designs from Return of the Jedi, nana nana naa naah! (Every time I see that Buffy scene it makes me cringe with fear and cry with joy at the same time).
It is the sort of problem solving that's inherent to the writer's toolbox, I guess, and it makes excellent subplots (well, sure, you'd think it's impossible for this guy to survive, but what you don't know, dear reader, is that he's part Frugnithal, and those aliens have yadda yadda...). Or changes to the basic plot (which is usually somewhat more annoying a problem than weeding out a splurge of subplots).
You solve the problem by giving the reader something to help suspend belief. Okay, the real die-hard nitpickers might not be so easily swayed, but they can and will be challenged to a saber fight.

See, back at the time I was watching reruns of reruns of Les Chevaliers (and Goldorak, Albator, Capitaine Flam, Dragonball) I also watched the one soap that will not die. Yes, I used to be a closet The Bold & the Beautiful watcher. I exhausted the excuse that I was a serious couch potato and simply could not help myself staring at the box with the little people in it, that I was waiting for Dragonball to come on, or whatever. Not only was I ashamed to admit I enjoyed watching this ... pulp ... people scorned me (gently) for it.

Only years later I realized that a lot of what I know about storytelling (especially concerning emotional yanking of chains and cliffhangers) I learned from watching B&B. They perfected the Art of Belief-Suspension. Studying how they fooled and lured me as a watcher was a great school. When done well, suspension of belief is a magic trick, because, seriously, how many times can she miraculously return from the dead to seek revenge on Stephanie Forrester? You make sure your reader is "in" your story, i.e. emotional involved *and* invested, and the reader will go and instantly forgive&forget whatever needs to be f&f'ed.
But then, also, suspension of belief only works as long as your audience is immersed and emotionally invested. When the TV goes off, and your audience goes: not her, not again? Where's Buffy when you need her? you might want to consider that particular horse dead and flogged.

Alright, end ramble. Need food.

New and old

So a while ago I ordered a pile of books from overseas to fill the void of words inside. I ended up with a 50-50 split of fiction and non-fiction, and I'm up to my last fiction book. If I manage to read it by the end of next week (though I really have a ton to do) I'll have read 5 books in 4 weeks. Seriously, I haven't done that in ages. And then I do mean ages. Without checking, I think Zelazny was still alive back then, and Peter Hamilton had only one or two titles to his name.

I was apprehensive about the experiment, because normally my MO for buying books was pretty much: I like his/her writing, so whatever he/she touches I buy and read. New stuff = bad stuff, unless I can ... smell it. Feel it. Read it.
But then my favorites all died, if they weren't dead already, and this made me sad. But then there were treasures found in the vault, books published postmortem, and I was happy again. For a little while. A very short while.

The idea of buying only what you know is not fully my own choice, because see, if you read English in a non-native English country, you'll find your choices are limited anyhow. Back in the days the only way to find SF/F in English was by:

a) browsing secondhand shops
This exposes you to lots and lots of different things (authors, genres, styles,...). Back in the days a copy would cost you the equivalent of 50 eurocent to 1 euro, which was the price of a beer! If that's the cost, the book you buy doesn't even have to be particularly good. If it turns out the story sucks or the style is not you or non-existent, you can use it to prop up your desk, give it away or toss it in the recycling bin and not cringe or feel guilty for wasting money.
But secondhand bookshops have gone the way of regular bookshops: unless part of a chain, most of them had to fold. And that means the lowest you can get a decent copy for is 4 euro ('decent' meaning: still glued together and cover not eaten by someone's dog), and it has nothing to do with a beer now costing 2. These4 euro will buy you a book no one really likes because they have twenty copies who were owned privately (not remaindered, because different wear and tear, names scribbled inside,...) Obviously 4 euro will buy you a book you'll want to toss in the recycling bin. So let's not.
I get to know some authors that way, who were not available in the library, English or translated: Alfred Bester, Colin Kapp, and Tim Powers (who was too new).

b) taking a train to Brussels (which you don't do every day or week) and browse W.H.Smith and Sterling, and sometimes the small selection at Fnac. But WHS has become Waterstones and now carries a less ... adventurous range of SF/F. Sterling seems to do the job with more heart but alas far less room than Waterstones (SF/F/H all crammed together). Fnac has a smaller selection of what you'll find in Waterstones. These days, you always see the same books, whether in Fnac, Sterling or Waterstones. Duh, of course, best-sellers are best-sellers and will be in your face. But it's more... Only big sellers. Only big houses. Only no risk. It makes the shopping-for-books experience boring and bland.
We had a bit of thrill when the American Book Center opened a store in the city where I live. They were a godsend! No more train to Brussels, and they had a great selection of SF/F, not just the frontlists ofthe big houses, and also a great collection of secondhand books. But alas, they had to fold after a few years, so buying books became boring again.

So, how do you get to know new stuff then? With all my favorites dead or silent, I was in urgent need of new blood. And it was not because there was nothing out there. A trip to the UK always manages to put something new before the hubby and I, but then, oversea trips are even less common than going to Brussels for the sole purpose of shopping. And covers do matter, because between a series of all-polished-to-look-like-the-next-one covers the hubby lifted Abercrombie's The Blade Itself from the shelf. I would probably have done the same, if it hadn't been like 4 shelves over my head. But we need more. Mooooorrre, I say!

So I was becoming aware of another fact: I've never bought a book on a review alone. Half the time I can't read more then a paragraph of review anyway. I've never went to a movie based on a (printed) review alone either. I have a stubborn streak like that, always want to make up my own mind. I read the dazzling praise on the blurb, and my inner-reading voice trails off into " and blablablabla". I don't trust other people I guess.
More of the same problem: there are many authors I have not read, because everybody keeps telling me that his books are amazing and I "must simply read them! You'll love his books to bits!"
Inner-voice: "Must? Must I now? We'll see about that!" and then the books don't get read. Iain Banks used to be there, but one day everybody just shut up about him, and he was so kind to leave enough time between two titles for me to find the peace of mind to actually start reading.
It's a weird problem, isn't it? This is the main reason why LOTR was not read until after the movies. The ice was broken after the first movie, but I held off reading so I could keep my perspective on the movies. After all, I was the only one of our rpg-group that hadn't, and as long as the trilogy was unwinding on screen, we had interesting discussions on what worked or not. I mean, everybody had almost endless gripes about this interpretation, that character too prominent or not present. I, as non-LOTR infected, had only one moment where Jackson failed utterly and unforgivably, and that's the great battle: you have your well trained, daring, nimble cavalry and you send them into a head-on collision with giga-elephantors? Suicide, anyone?
Oh, now I got side-trackede.
Anyways, the books I sent for through the internet were chosen solely on samples, either through Amazon, the publisher's or the author's website. And it worked, and I still have a list for a new order.! New favorites added. Hopefully enough to keep me from pining for mooooooorrre! And hopefully those new favorites will keep doing what they're doing, because sometimes that too is the sucky part of trying something new. Sometimes great new things you like, just vanish into nothing.


Epilogue:
Since I've worked for a book distributor, I've learned about two very important persons in the book publishing business that usually aren't mentioned in the blogs, but that I know are immensely important to getting a book on the shelf:

1) the middleman, being either a distributor's or the publishing house's own salesperson. This is the person who gets to talk the shop owner or 'chef de rayon' (as they say in French; the person who does the buying for a certain range/category, Wikipedia won't help me translate) to actually put your title on the to-buy list. Especially if you're from a smaller publisher, who cannot offer those great percentages and total return policies the big houses can.

2) well, the Chef de Rayon himself, of course, because most bookshops are too big for just one human to handle. They come in all fragrances, these people, and it is very important to have someone who is interested. Back in the days, it must have been a really good guy managing the SF/F list for the Fnac, because they had a very broad range of publishers and some quirky stuff too. It's where Sterling still manages to make a slight difference.