Vampires Rule

I recently read a novel with an unusual slant on a world ruled by vampires, DAY BOY, by Trent Jamieson. It takes place in a rather dreary post-apocalyptic world. The narrator is a teenage "day boy," a vampire's mortal servant. These vampires suffer from the movie-invented disability of helplessness during the sunlit hours, so they can't get along without human helpers. One thing I admire about this novel is the realistic treatment of predator-prey ratios. The narrator's small town harbors only about five "Masters" (vampires). While they don't normally kill their donors, they still exercise caution about expanding their own numbers.

It's listed on Goodreads here, with reviews, including mine:

Day Boy

Books and films about vampire-dominated worlds too often portray societies overrun by the bloodthirsty undead, with ordinary humans as a small, hunted remnant. There's no way that model would be sustainable unless the vampires can survive on animal blood and/or a reliable supply of bagged blood. For the latter, they would still need human victims to "donate" unless a synthetic substitute has been invented, as in the Sookie Stackhouse series and its TV adaptation, TRUE BLOOD. And even with the artificial blood supply, in that series the undead remain a minority.

S. M. Stirling's Shadowspawn trilogy, beginning with A TAINT IN THE BLOOD, features a subspecies of Homo sapiens who combine the traits of vampires, werebeasts, and sorcerers, with the power to warp reality in their close vicinity as well as control human minds. They aspire to restore the prehistoric Empire of Shadow, when they openly treated the human majority as livestock and slaves. The vampire-shapeshifter species is a tiny minority of the total population, though, as apex predators should be. For instance, in the present the principal antagonist reigns over her own private village where she's the only resident Shadowspawn. Its human residents are well treated, a few supplying her with blood in regular rotation, while most serve her in other capacities or just keep the town running. The blood donors ("lucies") have to endure only one downside to their pampered lifestyle, their mistress's cheerfully sadistic personality.

A 1991 anthology, UNDER THE FANG, collects a variety of original stories on the theme of vampire-dominated societies, including a collaboration between Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Suzy McKee Charnas in which Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain and Charnas's Professor Weyland meet in unpleasant circumstances. You can find copies of the book here:

Under the Fang

Considering that vampires are typically envisioned as solitary predators, it seems likely that if they did take over the world, they wouldn't bother with the day-to-day business of ruling. They would probably control human officials who'd do the actual work, while the structures of society would function much as usual, aside from the obligation of catering to the needs of the vampire lords. As Stirling's evil Shadowspawn princess asks in A TAINT IN THE BLOOD, "Do I LOOK like a bureaucrat?"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

NetGalley And Small Publishers

NetGalley And Small Publishers

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In 2012, I signed up for NetGalley when they were a startup, just garnering a list of Traditional Publishers they could supply reviewers for. ( https://netgalley.com )

They have grown and grown and become a staple of the reviewing industry.  Their rules are a little complex and involuted for qualifying for free ebook copies of forthcoming titles. They have time-limits (which I don't like) and they want a review posted on their site, as well as wherever you actually review or discuss books.

As readers, we discuss books everywhere -- and these days there are a lot of everywhere -- LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and on and on!

Recently, PenguinRandomHouse, which has been supplying NetGalley copies for convenience, has shifted to emphasizing NetGalley as a source, so I refreshed my profile on NetGalley and drew down a Kindle copy of C. J. Cherryh's new Foreigner novel DIVERGENCE.

We'll discuss that soon, but it is Book 21 in a (terrific) Series, so if you haven't caught up, you have some time. Start with FOREIGNER -- jumping into the middle of this series can be confusing.

Today, I just wanted to alert you all that I'm using NetGalley as a source, and it has changed as the publishing industry has grown and diversified.

There are publishers from a number of different countries, and divisions of the large publishers.  There are publishers you've never heard of (possible markets), and early alerts on popular books.

They have a list of most-requested titles.

They let you "favorite" publishers to get sub-sets of titles.

They have sub-sets by genre.

And publishers get to pre-approve you so you can grab a title as soon as they post it.

I like reading paper books (a lot), but I also enjoy having Kindle editions I can resize the type, make notes, drop bookmarks, and store massive amounts of books without bookshelves collapsing.  I don't think the Netgalley title, even as a Kindle, will let my notes be "shared" in the Goodreads social networking platform.

I still don't like Kindle's filing system - I lose books in the huge list. Putting them in groups is extra work.

Downloads from NetGalley in Kindle format can be "sent to Kindle" but end up in "Documents" instead of the list of books -- I expect I will lose track of titles I want to discuss here because of that awkward filing system nobody likes.

But publishing has changed - so we change to match.

Here's what has not changed in publishing.

It is still a horse-race.  It is all about speed.

Whether a title or series survives the brutal speed test to become a "classic" depends on getting lots of reviews up FAST - right during the few weeks after publication.

Without the limits of paper-book-shelves-in-stores (slots), there is no REASON for this anymore. It's an archaic artifact of Traditional Publishing which will likely disappear in the next few years.

It's all about ripping your attention away from whatever you want to do and getting you hooked on paying attention to what they can make a profit from.

What publishers (and their editors) add in value, that you pay for at $10 for a Kindle edition, is the publisher's ability to sort the slush pile, and resort the surviving titles into genres, creating sequences of books that are "the same but different" -- giving you the anticipation of a guaranteed good read.

So beyond editing for consistency, continuity, clarity, and beyond copyediting for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and homonyms - improper word usage, and punctuation (especially of dialogue) - publishers get paid for sorting a few precisely similar items from a whole pile of dissimilar items.  It's a lot of work.

NetGalley also connects reviewers profiles to Goodreads and Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn.

They are building a high-tech sorting net that will, one day, enable readers to be certain they are not wasting money on a title they just won't like.

Long way to go, but I think it is happening right before our eyes.  I'm impressed with what they've done in just 8 years.

I can imagine where the new "reviewer" tools industry will be in another 8 years.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Who's Got Your Authorial Back?

While not every authors' organization is as helpful as helpful can be, here are a few:

SFWA has a sample DMCA generator online.
https://www.sfwa.org/2010/07/sample-dmca-generator-for-authors/

SFWA has also been taking on trolls on Goodreads... with some success.
For authors who have given up on Goodreads because there seemed to be no recourse against anonymous persons who launched personal attacks on authors, or wrote "reviews" that appeared to be intended to harm the author, rather than genuine reviews of the book, things may have changed.

Help in the case of plainly egregious behavior may be forthcoming from support@goodreads.com.

SFWA members can receive help from SFWA in cases of doxxing, fake reviews of books that are not yet available, obvious targeting of entire series etc.

The Authors Guild has posted sample DMCA notices along with some useful information about Open Library (which some would say is more like a pirate site than a true library.)
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/update-open-library/

It's worth sending a TakeDown notice.

Savvy Authors is a great resource for advice and workshops.
https://savvyauthors.com/

Finally (for now), the copyrightalliance has a very helpful blog, most recently explaining :The 5 W's of Copyright Registration".
https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/5-ws-copyright-registration/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=E7Cx1

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

Splatterpunk and "DRACULAS"

What does "Horror" have to do with "alien romances"? Not much! However, some Horror straddles other genres, such as speculative fiction, particularly if it involves vampires-as-aliens.

Draculas ("a novel of terror") by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson doesn't involve aliens --although images from the Sigourney Weaver movies are used as comparisons-- but it does offer an interesting and heroic reinterpretation of Vlad The Impaler's motives.

Is an alternative historical fragment of backstory sufficient to reinvent "Splatterpunk", and confer upon it the same respectability that "Steampunk" and "Cyberpunk" enjoy?

Splatterpunk—a term coined in 1986 by David J. Schow at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island—refers to a movement within horror fiction distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence and "hyperintensive horror with no limits."^[1][2] It is regarded as a revolt against the "traditional, meekly suggestive horror story".^[3]

^{Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatterpunk}

Splatterpunk may also been called "Gross-out" or "Gore" Horror or "Extreme Horror" but not every horror aficionado agrees that the terms are synonymous.

I googled "splatterpunk and Konrath" just to see what I'd find, and found this on The Pontifications of Maurice Broadus:

Maurice asks: What's the difference between splatterpunk and extreme horror (or even gross out), and why is that sort of approach making a comeback?

JA Konrath: If the goal is to cause fear, it's straight horror. If the goal is to make you gag, then it's extreme horror. Or extreme something. It's possible to write a disgusting scene without blood or violence.

The written word is provocative. Always has been. If used properly, it can make people laugh, cry, think, get angry, or get ill.

As a species, we're fascinated by disgusting things. As writers, it's our jobs to make our readers feel something. Put the two together, and some writers are bound to go for the gross out.

 In the front matter of Draculas, JA Konrath warns the gentle reader:

"…And it's going to freak you out.

If you're easily disturbed, have a weak stomach, or are prone to nightmares, stop reading right now. There are no sexy teen heartthrobs herein.

You have been warned…."

  No romance, then. Expect extreme gore. Since Jeff Strand and JA Konrath are involved (Konrath uses his splattery alias, "Jack Kilborn" as a red flag), expect levity also.

I recommend watching this book for two reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with its literary merit. Horror isn't really my cup of tea, (humor, however, is) and I may have been sent an ARC because I joined a particular GoodReads group. Or, it could have been because I reviewed "Afraid".

FWIW, I joined Horror Aficionados to support my online friend Guido Henkel in a discussion of e-book piracy.

Joe Konrath is well known for being tolerant of e-book piracy and copyright infringement.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/05/steal-this-ebook.html

One of his collaborators, F. Paul Wilson, is rather less tolerant.

http://trueslant.com/fpaulwilson/2010/05/06/word-thieves-ii/

I will be fascinated to see whether and when this book is upped to the pirate sites, and who --if anyone-- writes DMCAs that are posted on Chilling Effects, and who --if anyone-- publicly learns from whom.

The other reason is "Draculas" groundbreaking response to pirates' exhortations that authors should not only write better, faster, cheaper, but should also add plenty of extra content. This ebook does it all. Well, almost all. I didn't see that it was "enhanced" in the sense of containing moving illustrations or sound effects.

Another caveat: I don't know if it is exactly "better" than individual works by Blake Crouch (www.blakecrouch.com),  J A Konrath (www.jakonrath.com),  Jeff Strand (www.jeffstrand.com), or by F. Paul Wilson  (www.repairmanjack.com), but from the timeline and transcripts in the back matter, this book does seem to have been written in about four months, and it is selling at the pirate-recommended price of $2.99 on Kindle.

Approximately half the book is bonus material, with free short stories, interviews, transcripts of the emails exchanged between the four co-authors as they plotted and edited the developing book, deleted scenes, and more. It's fascinating stuff, and I predict that it will one day be added to an academic syllabus somewhere.

As I wrote in my requested review, 

"DRACULAS" is worth its weight in gold for the bonus material alone.

FWIW, below is my review, which was solicited, and was written to satisfy a quid pro quo agreement (free read for review written and posted on amazon, goodreads, facebook, blogs).

DRACULAS by J.A. Konrath

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Upping The Ante On Nasty.

In the beginning, Joe wrote these words (among others)
"…And it's going to freak you out.
If you're easily disturbed, have a weak stomach, or are prone to nightmares, stop reading right now. There are no sexy teen heartthrobs herein.
You have been warned…."

I do have a weak stomach, I am prone to nightmares, and I don't enjoy fainting. But I also have a strong contrarian streak, so when Joe Konrath warns me that I'm probably not going to want to look at his collaborative effort with Jeff Stand, Blake Crouch, and F. Paul Wilson, curiosity will impel me to look.

But, I started cautiously at the back. Worth the entire $2.99 by themselves are the bonus stories, one of which begins with the awesome line, " The hardest thing about killing a hitchhiker is finding one to pick up."

“DRACULAS“ is worth its weight in gold for the bonus material alone.

Curiosity, killed cats, and other red herrings aside there's another reason to devour every bit of this exceptionally well-written, highly entertaining and disturbing book.  Joe Konrath hangs ten on the crest of the most powerful waves and this book could be the way authors write faster, add extra value and thrive.

Here's how. Four first rate spec fic and occasionally hilarious authors put their heads together to horrific effect. Each chose their own hero/victim/evil-doer from a cast of characters, and each dashed off a parallel novella of approximately 20,000 words, then they sliced and diced and cobbled each author's bits together into the literary equivalent of a Frankenstein's monster. Only, it's Freddy on steroids. It gives a whole new dimension to sucking face, and not a nice one.

The dedication --"For Bram Stoker, with deepest apologies"-- is a perfect foretaste of what to expect from “DRACULAS“. Irreverence. Dark humor that is so wry, it's twisted. Offensive stuff, and indeed there is a scene involving bowels and a clown who likes to make rather different balloon animals…. Lots of "wet work", and they maybe ought to have offered apologies of some depth to Clint Eastwood, too!

The prologue (not that they call it that) contains the mother of all hooks.  Erroneously, I imagined the conversation those 4 bad boys of grim *might* have had, before I looked at Joe's generous back matter, and learned how it really was. Their conversations make entertaining reading!

"Let's dig up a head."
"Let's make it really old…"
"And evil. It must be evil."
"Let's attach something nasty to it. What?"
"A curse."
"Wicked teeth."
"Maybe we make those teeth like… like Sleeping Beauty's spindle."
"Dracula's deadly prick…"
"We need sex…"
"You can't have sex with a severed head…"
"Oh, yes you can!"
"Look, we'll call the person who gets hold of the head More Cock."
"And we'll give him an incurable disease."

The foregoing is my imagination. This conversation did not happen… but the gentle reader should remember that Joe Konrath aka Jack Kilborn once wrote a Christmas story about an amnesiac werewolf who discovered that his midnight snacking habit was abnormal after he noticed buttons and coins in his poop.

These "Draculas" have the compassion of hornets, the dentition of sharks, the voracious appetites of shrews and no respect for garlic whatsoever. If you can contemplate a rabid, blood thirsty Edward Scissorteeth in a maternity or pediatric ward, using a severed artery as a drinking straw, or lashing out among the blind… go for it, but with your eyes open.

Do not pay $2.99 merely to find out what's in “DRACULAS“ (and don't go looking for it on the pirate sites, either). There's more than enough in the free sample chapters to give you an accurate idea what to expect.
Here: http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-...

Know before you buy that you're going to be ambushed by some of the grossest, sickest, most disturbed, politically incorrect and indiscriminate bloodlusty slash fest that four insensitive guys can think up.

Disclaimer. This is an author review. 4-stars is as low as I go.  Five Stars!

View all my reviews

 

For those who like promo tips, did you know that you can now cut and embed your GoodReads review wholesale with illustration and links to blogs and websites?

Apparently, you can.

Also good to know is that Amazon now does "teaser" pages before Kindle books go on sale.

Blake Crouch instructed friends:

ON OCTOBER 19, please post your review onto Amazon’s DRACULAS page:

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B0042AMD2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1284569826&sr=8-1.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY THE BOOK TO POST A REVIEW ON AMAZON, you just need an Amazon account. If you want to review the book on Amazon on the 18^th, you’ll have to post it to the DRACULAS teaser page, which is here:

http://www.amazon.com/DRACULAS-Chapters-Upcoming-Release-ebook/dp/B0042ANZBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1287179930&sr=8-1

Another  promo tactic they are using is to have a special website for the launch:

The DraculasTheBook.com website will also feature all reviews, as well as a forum, which is now open….please stop by and say hello! Blake, Paul, Jeff, and Joe will be visiting frequently.

To our knowledge, this type of marketing experiment has never been attempted on this level. What is the power of a couple hundred reviews all appearing on the same day, and on Amazon? Is it enough take DRACULAS viral? To debut high in the Kindle store? That’s our hope.

  They resisted the temptation to make a "make a splash" pun with their splatterpunk novel of terror. So, I just did. Keep an eye out....

Groan!!!

Where would you put Tarzan?

Where would you put Tarzan... if you were a GoodReads Librarian or a bookseller? I'm talking genre and category.

To check him out alphabetically, I plan to walk up the hill to my local library when the rain abates to see if he's shelved under Rice or Burroughs.

Is Tarzan Of The Apes science fiction? Fantasy? Romance? Or something else? There has been a very interesting discussion of the book and its sequels on GoodReads

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/112650.Tarzan_of_the_Apes

I was asked to weigh in on the Romance. In my view, it's not a Romance, because the noble Tarzan doesn't end up with Jane at the end of the book. Some would argue that a Romance does not have to have a HEA.

Then, there's Edgar Rice Burroughs's command of the language of Romance. The "smothering" of Jane's "panting lips" with masculine kisses.

Apparently ERB did not enjoy the attentions of his editors, and it seems, he successfully resisted them.

The discussion there (on Goodreads) has been wide-ranging, from cannibalism, morality, kissing, nature versus nurture, the Frenchman's idea of a civilized drink. So I won't rehash. I simply thought that some of our group might be interested.


And now for something completely different, and random:

The April issue of DISCOVER magazine arrived this weekend. It contains articles about manipulating chicken embryos to grow new little dinosaurs, about infrared bats, and money. And much more.

Money. For those who love the small of money, here's why. There's more cocaine residue on US paper currency than on any other nation's promissory notes. There's also staph bacteria and fecal matter. Maybe you could get C-difficile from the bank!!!!

Hmmm. Who handles cash? People who are worried about their credit. Who prints money? The government. In an alternative universe where unscrupulous people might be in charge, they could impregnate cash with superbugs, put it into circulation, and solve all manner of problems.

There's an article about brain boosting drugs, and a suggestion that India or China might gain a competitive global advantage if they allowed their workers to use it. One headline "Drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline"..."can increase creativity."

Some of the music and poetry from the Flower Power years was pretty good. Weren't there quite a few modern authors "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree" etc who felt that they did their best work when we would have pronounced them unfit to drive?

Artichokes aren't an illegal substance, so I freely admit that I think I write better when I drink artichoke tea. And, I have wilder dreams when I eat cheese last thing at night. Other authors swear by chocolate, or Pepsi.

Final thought. One of my family members is very keen on watching "It's Me Or The Dog", a program featuring dog trainer Victoria Stillwell (whose sartorial style reminds me of an off duty, very classy dominatrix, but that's another issue, and I hasten to say that she never, ever does anything cruel. Most of her discipline involves the giving or withholding of food treats, toys and praise).

Last night, Victoria recommended a combination of carrots and rice in the diet (of a stressed Weimeraner) to help it cope. I wonder whether carrots and rice at night would have a mellowing effect on us?

I may not get a chance to post next weekend. I shall be at the Amelia Island concours d'elegance.

Barbara Vey is celebrating a week of genre-based romance on her PW Beyond Her Book blog
http://www.publishersweekly.com/BeyondHerBook

Monday 9th is Paranormal/Futuristic day.

I heard (sorry, I did not memorize the link) that there is an editor on Twitter who announced yesterday that she is looking for a complete paranormal in a hurry as she has a sudden space to fill. I think it's Osbourne. Maybe a Tweet Beep, or #query would find it.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Space Snark (TM)