Quod Scripsi, Scripsi... But Is it Copyrightable?

 "What I have written, I have written," (and by implication, I will not revise it behind the scenes in order to please critics).

Earlier this week, I was reminded of what Pontius Pilate--incumbent of the least coveted diplomatic posting in the Roman Empire at the time-- said when some community leaders objected to the wording of a notice that he had posted.

In my case, as a volunteer, I'd written some Minutes for a small company, and someone --who had not been at the meeting in question-- asked for the .docx so she could revise my Minutes.

I responded with a slighly less disobliging version of "Quod scripsi, scripsi" and I did not have to get into the weeds of whether what I had written was copyright-protected.

For any reader interested in Board Minutes, here are some excellent links.

https://www.boardpro.com/board-meeting-minutes

 

And

https://conferences.law.stanford.edu/vcs2020/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2019/10/8-Things-to-Know-About-Board-Meeting-Minutes-_-Resources-_-LathamDrive.pdf

However, I did wonder about whether or not Board or Annual General Meeting minutes are in fact copyright-protected.

https://copyright.psu.edu/copyright-basics/fair-use/

 "Work is factual: In contrast to use of a creative work, use of a factual work is more likely to be fair. Facts themselves are not copyrightable. Factual works that are on the fringe of copyright, such as meeting minutes, have thinner protection."

Thinly, apparently.

Laundry lists, shopping lists, recipes, personal letters may all be copyright-protected, depending on how creative they are, and how much unique expression goes into the sharing of non-copyrightable lists of factual information.

For writers who become famous, the letters they pen may one day be very valuable indeed. Remember that copyright belongs to the writer, not to the recipient of a letter. Therefore, in your estate planning, decide who should own the copyright of any letters you have written... just in case.

Had I been an employee, say of a Management Company, my Minutes would have been done in the course of my employment, as part of my job, and the Minutes would have been "work for hire."

Legal bloggers for Venable LLP (one of my favorite blogging law firms), Armand J. (AJ) Zottola and Benjamin J. Myers are writing in two parts "Understanding the Work Made For Hire Doctrine."

Read Part 1 (of Understanding Work Made For Hire) here:

https://www.venable.com/insights/publications/ip-quick-bytes/understanding-the-work-made-for-hire-doctrine

Part 2 will focus on specially commissioned works, but Part 1 explains the doctrine and defines who is an employer, who is an employee, and why and when the copyright of works created by an employee in the course of employment belongs to the employer.

Of course, the "Work For Hire" doctrine does not just apply to the written word. If one were a designer working for a car company (drawings), or a coder working for a tech business, ones work product would also belong to the company.

Legal blogger Paul Matenaer of the Michael Best law firm discusses trouble within the entertainment industry (not a new topic, but always entertaining) when it comes to sequels and remakes, especially when the original author of a screenplay is not employed or compensated for the spin-off works, even when the original author (or the passage of time) might have terminated the original contract or grant of copyright.

 

https://insights.michaelbest.com/post/102j94p/road-house-another-80s-remake-another-copyright-brawl#page=1

 

Follow the link for the yet-to-be-resolved story. And, for any author whose book (or books) have been optioned, or may be optioned in the future, take a lesson from the current state of the law and the major players attempts to cut out original writers down the road... and don't cut corners on legal help with Hollywood or Amazon contracts!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson

by Karen S. Wiesner

As soon as I finished reading (and reviewing in last week's Friday post) The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, published in 1969, I moved directly into reading the sequel, The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson, published in 2019. In fact, the story within the sequel is set 50 years after the previous events. This publication also marks the 50th anniversary of the original release.

In the time following The Andromeda Strain, in which an extraterrestrial microbe nearly caused the catastrophic end of the world, Project Eternal Vigilance has waited and watched to ensure the mutating microbe doesn't reappear. With the project on the verge of being shut down for lack of activity, abruptly a Brazilian terrain-mapping drone detects the signature of the lethal microparticle. A team is assembled and sent to investigate, ultimately tasked with attempting to prevent another potential annihilation of all humankind from the latest Andromeda Evolution.

As the previous story did, this one is presented as a classified government report. While there are many characters, it's hard to really define any of them as the main character. The closest is James Stone, son of one of the team members who saved the world in the original book. In this way, the story is heavily plot focused. However, that doesn't mean readers weren't drawn into the lives and situations of the many players involved in this highly suspenseful, race to save the world tale. In particular, I was moved by the relationship between the native Amazonian boy Tupa and James Stone. Early on while reading this book, I wanted to see a character or two from the original cross into this story, and I was pleased to have my hope rewarded. Additionally, the author mirrored Crichton's ability to create such realism, I could easily believe this story was based on actual events.

One of the most interesting parts about reading these two books back to back was seeing the advances made in technology and space travel in the 50 years between them. In fact, the author has stated his intention while writing was to acknowledge "the travel and advances made in space exploration since the 1970s".

I read the last third of The Andromeda Evolution over the course of little more than two hours. I couldn't put it down until I discovered what would happen with the evolved microparticle spurred on by a deranged, short-sighted villain, as well as to the self-sacrificing people working to prevent it from spreading and destroying the Earth as we know it.

A movie adaption doesn't seem to be in the works, despite that the original was made into a miniseries in 2008 and the plot in The Andromeda Evolution could easily comprise a thrilling second season of it. The ending of the book made me long for yet another sequel to see where it would all go, since it concluded on a bit of an unresolved angle. Though there's no indication that it might ever happen, if a follow-up does make an appearance, I certainly hope it doesn't take another 50 years.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Do Spoilers Really Spoil?

The latest issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER includes an article exploring whether advance exposure to spoilers actually makes the experience of reading a book or viewing a movie (the author mainly discusses films) worse, neutral, or better:

Savoring Uncertainty

The author, Stuart Vyse, starts by analyzing the difference between stories that provide a "clear resolution" and those that end with ambiguities unresolved. He notes, "Given the chaos of everyday life, it’s understandable that people are drawn to stories that make sense and provide closure." He links this tendency to a wish to believe we live in a just universe, offering the TV series LAW AND ORDER as a typical example. There I think he's absolutely right. The traditional detective novel is the most moral of genres. It promises that problems will be solved, questions answered, justice served, and criminals punished. In rare cases when the criminal escapes the grasp of the law, it's because the detective has determined his or her crime was justified. Vyse contrasts the traditional formula with the "noir" subgenre, in which ambiguity reigns, morality comes in shades of gray, and justice is far from guaranteed.

He then discusses the connection, if any, between enjoyment of ambiguity and tolerance of spoilers. He also goes into the definition of a spoiler, which can vary according to the individual experiencing it -- e.g., someone who's naive about the particular genre, such as a small child -- and to what extent the information constitutes "common knowledge." We'd all probably agree that the prohibition on spoilers has run out for mentioning that Romeo and Juliet die at the end of the play, for example. For a century or more, certainly since the first movie adaptations came out, everybody has known Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inhabit the same body. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has become proverbial. When the novella was first published, however, that secret came as a shocking revelation near the end. Upon the original publication of DRACULA, readers who ignored reviews could have picked up the novel without suspecting the Count's true nature. Nowadays, even elementary-school kids know "Dracula" equals "vampire."

Vyse cites research on whether spoilers decrease appreciation for a work, increase it, or have no effect. Results of various studies yield different answers. I've noticed tolerance for spoilers ranges from the zero-tolerance of fans such as one of our children, who avoids even book cover blurbs if possible, to my own attitude, sympathetic to a comment I read somewhere that a story capable of being "spoiled" by knowledge of what happens isn't worth spoiling. I admit exceptions of course, such as knowing the killer before the big reveal in a murder mystery (on first reading, at least) or works in which the climactic twist is the whole point of the thing, such as THE SIXTH SENSE. I don't at all mind knowing in advance whether a major character will live or die; in fact, I sometimes sneak a peak at the end to relieve the stress of wondering. When the series finale of FOREVER KNIGHT aired, I was glad I'd read a summary before viewing the episode. When I actually saw the devastating final scene, having braced myself for the worst allowed me to feel it wasn't quite so bad as other fans had maintained. Having reread many of my favorite books over and over demonstrates that foreknowledge of the plot doesn't bother me. With that knowledge, I can relax into the pleasure of revisiting familiar characters.

In one of C. S. Lewis's works of literary criticism, he declares that the point of a startling twist in a book or any artistic medium isn't the surprise in itself. It's "a certain surprisingness." During subsequent exposures to the work, we have the fun of anticipating the upcoming surprise and enjoying how the creator prepares us for it. In a second or later reading of a mystery, for example, we can notice the clues the author has hidden in plain sight. We realize how we should have guessed the murderer and admire the author's skill at concealing the solution to while still playing fair with the reader. (Along that line, I was astonished to hear Nora Roberts remark at a convention that she doesn't plan her "In Death" novels written under the name "J. D. Robb" in advance. How can anyone compose a detective story without detailed plotting? She must have to do an awful lot of cleanup in revision.)

Learning the general plot of a novel or film prior to reading or viewing doesn't "spoil" it for me. I read or watch for the experience of sharing the characters' problems, dangers, and joys, discovering how they navigate the challenges of the story, and getting immersed in their emotional and interpersonal growth. Once the "narrative lust" (another phrase from Lewis, referring to the drive to rush through the narrative to find out what happens next) has been satisfied by the first reading or viewing, in future ones we can take a while to savor all the satisfying details we didn't fully appreciate the first time.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt

On Your Face

Given the potential copyright issues if you use a photograph taken by someone else for your professional portrait, it's not a bad idea to take the shot yourself.

If someone else takes the photo that you use in the "back matter" of your books, and on your author websites, and on your social media pages, that's fine. You simply need an assignment of the photographer's copyright, in writing.

Here is a very good guide to the basics, provided by the US Copyright Attorneys of the Sanders Law Group.

https://www.uscopyrightattorneys.com/professional-agreements/assignments-and-photographer-agreements/

 

For self-portrait-taking newbies, Box Brownie has a very helpful article explaining how to take your best head shot by yourself.

https://www.boxbrownie.com/b/how-to-take-a-cost-effective-professional-headshot-yourself

They also have a special offer of up to 4 free, professional photo retouching edits for new followers.

Talking of special offers, Blurb.com -which I consider a go-to site for creating coffee-table books and scrap-type books for limited publication- has a great sale going on until June 20th: 30% off sale using the code SUMMERDAY30.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner

The Andromeda Strain was the first book Michael Crichton wrote under his real name and one of the earliest techno-thrillers to become a bestseller when published in 1969. Wikipedia describes this genre as "a hybrid…drawing from science fiction, thrillers, spy fiction, action, and war novels. They include a disproportionate amount of technical details on their subject matter (typically military technology)... The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines…are thoroughly explored, and the plot often turns on the particulars of that exploration." Crichton and Tom Clancey are considered the fathers of modern techno-thrillers.

With almost documentary-style precision, the crash of an unmanned research satellite is chronicled after it returns mysteriously to Earth and lands near the small town of Piedmont, Arizona. Every human being in Piedmont dies, save two--and old man riddled with health issues and an infant. From there, the world's first space-age biological crisis unfolds as the lethal contamination by an extraterrestrial microbe is investigated by leading scientists. In the initial acknowledgement that begins most of Crichton's novels and gives almost a "true story accounting", he says, "This book recounts the five-day history of a major American scientific crisis. As in most crises, the events surrounding the Andromeda Strain were a compound of foresight and foolishness, innocence and ignorance. Nearly everyone involved had moments of great brilliance, and moments of unaccountable stupidity." Well, so much for heroes! 

As usual, right from the beginning of this book I read more than a decade ago and recently re-read, Crichton made me believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that this work was based on real-life events. The author states that he got the idea for the story after reading the spy novel, The IPCRESS File (so named for the undesignated protagonist's personal report to the Minister of Defense) by Len Deighton. That story describes Cold War brainwashing, a United States atomic weapon test, as well as the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. In The Andromeda Strain, Crichton attempted to "create an imaginary world using recogniseable techniques and real people".

The point of view characters in this story are varying scientists and military personal, but all are almost beside the point. From start to finish, the dispassionate, mutated Andromeda is the clear focus, neither protagonist nor villain--simply a lifeform striving for survival at all cost. I've always been drawn to fiction that contains extreme examples of verisimilitude such as this one, of alien creatures testing the bounds of what humans are capable of--both good and bad. It's difficult to imagine what those striving to save humankind from a threat beyond what any has ever experienced before go through in this effort. On one hand, they're forced to rethink everything we know as fact, to employ creativity and leaps of faith in the face of sheer ignorance and uncertainty, but also deal with the moral quandary of destroying something that may simply be acting and reacting in an attempt to survive, devoid of anything more than instinctive motivation and not actual evil. In that, an alien--virus, evolving microorganism, or something else altogether--is no different than any of us. How can we blame it for its existence and innate impulse to exist? But how also can we not fight back when we're threatened, as the entire world is in this novel, by Andromeda breaking free and destroying everything in its single-minded quest to endure?

This book was made into a movie in 1971 and a miniseries in 2008. An authorized sequel, The Andromeda Evolution, was written by Daniel H. Wilson in 2019, 50 years after the original release and eleven years after the author's death. This is definitely a golden oldie you might want to read or re-read.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

The Romance Genre Today

Here's an article about the evolution of the romance fiction market:

Romance Novels Have Changed

This discussion seems directed to people who don't regularly read romance and have stereotypical, outdated ideas about it. From my perspective of having picked up occasional category romances as far back as the era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I'm amused by the frequent assumption that "romance" equals "smut." Sensual, steamy, and outright graphic romance novels are a relatively recent development. When I first started dipping into the genre, "closed bedroom doors" were the default. Kathleen Woodiwiss's 1972 historical novel THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER, celebrated as the first popular romance to feature "onstage" sex scenes, was an iconoclastic sensation upon its release. And haven't any people outside the field heard of inspirational and "sweet" romance, still thriving subgenres today? Also, this article refers to the types of paperbacks that used to display Fabio on their covers as "erotica," whereas the steamy content they're talking about in no way rises to the level of erotic romance (much less pure "erotica") as defined by publishers and editors. Again, though, the essay does seem oriented toward a general readership.

From that angle, it offers a balanced, lucid explanation of recent trends in the field and how it's changed since the 1960s and even the 70s. As the author puts it, not only has the genre itself evolved, so has "the romance reading community . . . . being a romance reader now is all about fun -- even when the characters are morally gray." On the subject of "community," the article discusses online and in-person connections, including conventions, among authors, readers, and booksellers. Thanks to the internet, it's easier than ever to find exactly the type of book you want, even in very narrowly defined niche categories. Diversity in readership as well as fictional content and characters is celebrated. The article lists some subgenres or "microgenres" that have been around for decades as if they're fresh and surprising, but the relatively new emphasis on topics such as consent and "healthy relationships" is also highlighted. Time-honored tropes still appear in contemporary stories, but often with a twist. The question of distiguishing between romance novels and fiction in other genres with romantic elements is also explored. The trendy term "romantasy" comes up; I haven't yet seen a definition that describes it as anything other than paranormal romance renamed.

The essay is worth reading for a respectful and inclusive overview of the romance genre in its current state.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Mostly, Thou Shalt Not...

Ethics and the Internet have long parted ways.

Over the last decade, legal blogger Peter S. Vogel of  Foley & Lardner LLP  has written some fascinating blog articles about supercookies tracking cell phone users, the legitimate right of a court to subpoena gmail correspondence, worsening cyber crime, whether or not employers can prohibit employees from adding Biblical quotes to their sig files... and The Ten Commandments of internet ethics.

Here is a link to the latter. There are 8 "shallt nots" and 2 "shalls".

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b4df8b15-48ee-4397-89f8-9716fa2d064d

 

It probably boils down to, "First Do No Harm". There's an interesting blog about that, The Impossible Oath, by Spyros Retsas.

 

From the UK law firm of Brabners, and penned by solicitor Oskar Musial and property litigator Helena Davies,  there is an enviable discussion of whether or not drones can trespass over private property. By "enviable", I mean that I wish something similar were in the legal works where I live.

https://www.brabners.com/insights/litigation-disputes/can-landowners-prevent-drones-from-trespassing-over-private-property

I like the judge's reasoning.

 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

 

Karen S. Wiesner Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Alex Hunter Adventures - The Arcadian by Greig Beck

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Alex Hunter Adventures - The Arcadian by Greig Beck

by Karen S. Wiesner

The Alex Hunter Adventures includes some ten plus books and all feature Captain Alex Hunter, code named The Arcadian (modified to be something more than human--the ultimate super soldier), and his highly trained, elite team of commandos called HAWCS along with some ancient horror they're sent to investigate. I stumbled across this Australian author years ago while looking for my next horror fix, and this series has always delivered from one book to the next.

  

Beneath the Dark Ice, the first in this series, was Beck's first novel, and it was (and possibly one or two of the subsequent were) released in mass market paperback (2009) by a major publisher. I haven't always been able to find print editions of the later books in the series, published elsewhere, which is frustrating, and when they are available, they tend to be shockingly expensive. I'll add that the stories contained in them are worth the price, but only just. Books that aren't hardcovers shouldn't be so pricey, but that's the inevitable limitation of POD.

The characters in all the Alex Hunter stories are complex with internal conflicts that are just as richly weaved and spellbinding as the action-packed plots. There's a lot to love with hidden horrors and/or fascinating, labyrinthine locations submerged, unearthed, and set free. Without Alex's modifications, could anyone survive what the team is put through in each exciting installment? This is a series that's been around for a while, but it's only getting better. A new book was released in 2022 with another coming in 2024. Note that the publication order isn't the same as the chronological order, which is listed below:

Prequel (0.5), "Arcadian Genesis"

Book 1: Beneath the Dark Ice

Book 2: Dark Rising

Book 3: This Green Hell

Book 4: Black Mountain

Book 5: Gorgon

Book 5.5: "Hammer of God"

Book 6: Kraken Rising

Book 7: The Void

Book 8: From Hell

Book 9: The Dark Side

Book 10: The Well of Hell

Book 11: The Silurian Bridge (forthcoming)

Worth noting that Beck is the author of many series and standalones with a supernatural slant. His website at www.greigbeck.com is well worth a serious gander if you're looking to satiate your own horror fix.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

Leave Them Wanting More?

Here's an essay by Cory Doctorow about fiction, movies, and games giving audiences what they need instead of what they want, or think they want:

Against Lore

Writers hijack the reader's "empathic response. . . . A storyteller who has successfully captured the audience has done so by convincing their hindbrains to care about the tribulations of imaginary people." Part of accomplishing this trick consists of drawing the reader or viewer into collaborating with the creator, so to speak. Our minds ruminate on what might happen next, how the fictional crisis will be resolved, and how the writer will pull it off. The tension builds, to be released when the outcome fulfills, exceeds, or subverts our expectations in a satisfying way.

"Your mind wants the tension to be resolved ASAP, but the pleasure comes from having that desire thwarted. . . . You don't give the audience what it wants, you give it what it needs." What fun would a fantasy roleplaying game be if every monster could be killed in one blow? Who would want to know the killer in a murder mystery in advance (on first reading, at least -- I've read many detective novels with pleasure over and over, because the enjoyment of a well-written mystery lies in more than learning whodunit)? Readers of romance know the hero and heroine will find fulfillment in a happily-ever-after conclusion, since that's inherent in the definition of a romance, but we want to remain in suspense until the end as to how the writer will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of getting them together.

On one level, according to Doctorow, writers, stage magicians, con artists, and cult leaders are all doing the same thing. "Getting us to care about things that don't matter is how novels and movies work, but it's also how cults and cons work." They "leave blanks" for the audience (or mark) to fill in. They don't tell us everything; rather, they privide gaps for our imaginations to work. Horror mavens often note that the monster in the reader's mind usually exceeds anything the writer or filmmaker can reveal on the page or screen.

According to Doctorow, the skilled creator or performer "delights in denying something to the audience, who, in turn, delights in the denial. Don't give the audience what they want, give them what they need. What your audience needs is their own imagination." As far as that statement goes, I agree with his analysis. He makes lots of cogent points. I emphatically part ways with him, however, when he presents an argument against supplying too much "lore." Why do "series tend to go downhill"? First off, he states this alleged problem like a universal truth. To the contrary, in my view, many series just keep getting better, as the format allows for expansion and exploration of the fictional world. Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January historical mystery novels offer only one example of several I could mention. He applauds the fact that, "The first volume in any series leaves so much to the imagination" and the background elements "are all just detailed enough that your mind automatically ascribes a level of detail to them, without knowing what that detail is." No real argument there. If the author does a good job, we're eager to learn more about the setting and characters, and our minds are "churning with all the different bits of elaborate lore that will fill in those lacunae and make them all fit together." But Doctorow proposes that an author's filling in those "lacunae" is usually a bad thing.

He insists, "A story whose loose ends have been tidily snipped away seems like it would be immensely satisfying, but it's not satisfying –- it's just resolved," and "Lore is always better as something to anticipate than it is to receive. The fans demand lore, but it should be doled out sparingly. Always leave 'em wanting more." Well, a fictional work literally following this principle would leave me feeling cheated. When I start a new Barbara Hambly mystery, the first thing I do is flip to the back looking for the author's afterword and am slightly let down if there isn't one. I've reread the appendices to S. M. Stirling's alternate history PESHAWAR LANCERS more often than I've reread the novel itself. I want the monster to be numinous and enigmatic for much of the story, sure, but by the end I want a clear look at it. I want to know its origin, strengths, and weaknesses. I enjoy the detailed description of Wilbur Whateley after his death in Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." In an SF story, if there are aliens I want to know all about their biology and culture. Politics aside, my major gripe with J. K. Rowling is her failure to deliver that guidebook to the Harry Potter universe she kept promising. Her worldbuilding appears sloppily ad hoc, a problem the snippets on the Pottermore site didn't fix.

Maybe this tendency on my part comes from having begun my professional career in literary analysis rather than fiction? (I started writing, though, as an aspiring horror author. Does any teenager, no matter how bookish, aspire to be a literary critic? But I DID always want more backstory, more delving into the mind of the "monster.") Or it could be just a quirk of my personality. How do you feel about lore? Do you avidly read guidebooks to your favorite authors' series? Or do you prefer some facets of the stories to stay unexplained?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Clearly Copyright

The bold and the fearless sounds like a soap opera... it's not easy to get a touch of romance into a blog about copyright law... but there you go. There is a law firm with Bold and Fearless descriptors. It is the international law firm Harris Sliwoski. I have not written about them before.

One of their Intellectual Property lawyers, Elijah Hartman, has written one of the best explanations of copyright and the fair use defense that I have seen in quite a while.

https://harris-sliwoski.com/blog/united-states-copyrights-and-the-fair-use-defense/

If you are new to all things copyright, or wondering in how many ways you might or might not have been ripped off by a book pirate site, Elijah's blog post might be helpful.

You might also consider signing up for a free, creator membership of the Copyright Alliance.

Whether or not you join, you should check out their copyright compendium, which is a thorough guide that informs the Copyright Office (.gov), and also creators, lawyers, and even judges.

https://copyrightalliance.org/copyright-law/copyright-office-compendium/

Also, the copyrightalliance has a neat table of links to the most important copyright decisions, or pending cases, that either have affected copyright law or may do so in the future.

https://copyrightalliance.org/copyright-law/copyright-cases/

One of the most interesting examples on the page is the one where the Internet Archive claimed fair use for its copying and publishing publishers' copyrighted works, and was roundly rebuked.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

by Karen S. Wiesner

Note that this book is also published under the title The Lost Book of Salem. I was drawn to the cover of this book when it first came out in 2009 (see it below, though the reproduction is washed out). The cover you see below the original is a newer version. The first edition, in tones of brown, doesn't include the girl on it. The original, I feel, is such a beautiful cover and the back cover blurb on the slipcover leaves of the hardcover was equally compelling.

I took a chance and purchased it when it first came out. I was very pleased with the wonderfully written story with deep, complex characters and a thrilling mystery. The main character, college student and daughter of the university president, Connie Goodwin, is working on her doctoral dissertation. She's spending the summer clearing out of her grandmother's cottage so it can be put up for sale. While there, she comes across a parchment including the name of one of her ancestors--Deliverance Dane, an accused witch from 1692. From there, Connie hunts for Deliverance's spell book, The Physick Book, and in the process discovers her own, previously unimagined power. (Incidentally, physick--pronounced fizz-ick--is what medicine was called in those times, usually implying herbal remedies.)

I personally love books that are set within halls of academia and scholarly research. (Favorites of mine include Charlie Lovett's books--which have little or no supernatural elements--and are similar to this, just as fascinating.) This one is intertwined with 17 Century witch trial narrative, another fascination for me. Combined with danger and nail-biting suspense, you really can't go wrong. If you've already read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane once upon a time, it may be time for a second perusal. In the course of writing this review, I discovered there was a sequel called The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, following Connie's adventures as an expert on America's witchcraft history, which I intend to pick up and possibly review here at a later time.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Grumbling About Adaptations

The second season of the current INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE series has begun. I'm ambivalent about this project. It has lots to admire. The series format allows far more delving into and expansion on the novel than the movie did. The TV version restores the subplot of Louis's religiously devout brother, replaced in the movie by a simplistic premise of "my wife died young, so I have nothing to live for." Presenting the interviewer, hardly more than a boy in the book, as an aging, sickly, cynical veteran journalist revisiting his youthful conversations with Louis to set the record straight impresses me as a stroke of genius. Among other things, this technique cleverly justifies discrepancies between the novel and the new adaptation.

I dislike two major changes made by the series, however: First and less critical, the aging-up of Claudia from a little girl to a 14-year-old. Of course, the metafictional reason is obvious. A child actress would outgrow the role too fast, whereas Claudia is supposed to be frozen at the age when she was turned. But making her old enough to pass for late teens or even early twenties (though we haven't seen her do the latter) loses both the horrifying and tragic dimensions of an adult mind potentially stuck for centuries in a child's body. The preview of next week's episode, though, does show her exploiting that frightfully perverse situation as an actress in the Theatre des Vampires. She wears a frilly baby-doll costume and introduces herself as a murderous vampire trapped in the shape of a little girl.

More importantly, I was disappointed by the time shift. Sure, early 20th-century New Orleans has exciting possibilities as a setting, but so does antebellum New Orleans from the original source. Although the producers claim they didn't think audiences would find the early 19th century interesting or relatable, I suspect them of being too lazy or stingy to recreate the period. What, TV audiences didn't embrace GAME OF THRONES (medieval-style fantasy world) or OUTLANDER (mid- to late-18th century Scotland and America)? Antebellum New Orleans had a thriving "free colored" population (as richly portrayed in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January historical mystery series). I would have loved to see Louis as a free Black businessman in that era. A fantastic opportunity wasted, in my opinion.

I recently read FRANKLY, MY DEAR, a film scholar's in-depth analysis of GONE WITH THE WIND, mostly the movie but with cogent comparisons to the novel as well. As epic movies go, this one mostly sticks about as close to the source material as could reasonably be expected in the allotted running time. A miniseries version, which would allow inclusion of the subplots left out of the movie, would be highly desirable -- except that it's hard to imagine a convincing new Scarlett with Vivian Leigh lingering in the audience's mind's eye. Not to mention Rhett Butler. (I didn't mind the replacement actress in the sequel, SCARLETT, because she's older there than in most of the novel, so it's believable that she would have changed some. Rhett, though -- to me, Rhett IS Clark Gable.) The censoring of language, required by the film code of that era, is more amusing than annoying. It's not as if we don't know what they really mean, and the director doubtless had to make concessions to earn Rhett's final "damn." For instance, Prissy can't say she'd be skinned alive for entering a "ho house"; she has to say something like "Miz Watling's place." The prudishness rises to a level of absurdity, though, when Scarlett banishes Rhett from her bedroom. In the book, he tells her, "Keep your chaste bed." In the film it's, "Keep your sanctity." A mention of chastity was considered obscene? LOL.

The one major change I disapprove of is the omission of Scarlett's first child, the boy fathered by ill-fated Charles Hamilton. We don't miss her daughter by Frank Kennedy, who's little more than a cipher in the novel anyway. But Scarlett's first pregnancy helps to explain how she could get through Melanie's rough delivery with only the dubious help of Prissy, who notoriously doesn't know anything about birthin' babies. In the real 19th century, well-to-do women often provided aid to poor families during occasions of sickness or childbirth, as Scarlett's mother does in GONE WITH THE WIND. Unlike Marmee in LITTLE WOMEN, however, Ellen O'Hara apparently shelters her daughters from such activities. So Scarlett's first pregnancy serves a plot purpose in the book, and its omission in the movie leaves her relative competence in the Atlanta childbirth sequence unexplained.

While I reluctantly realize that fiction and film are two different media and no movie or TV adaptation can capture everything in its source material, for me the book is always primary. When viewing a film version of a book, I want as faithful a rendition of the original as possible. For example, ROSEMARY'S BABY is practically perfect in that respect, and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS comes close. The miniseries versions of WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE (available on DVD) do an impressively good job, not surprising with a script written by the author of the novels, Herman Wouk. If the producers and directors of an adaptation don't really like the story as it comes to them, why do they bother making a movie or series of it? (Such as the travesty of STARSHIP TROOPERS, which lifts the title and superficial plot elements from Heinlein's novel to construct a script that leaves out the most important scenes of his book -- the flashbacks to the high-school ethics course, one fragment of which is included but twisted to convey the opposite of what's meant in the novel -- and directly contradicts its core message.) So the first thing I look for in a book-to-film transformation is respect for and maximum feasible fidelity to the author's story. After that, one hopes for all the other elements to be good, too.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

What The LLC ?!

Working writers, and even retired writers, need insurance. For many of us, putting ones writing pursuits under the umbrella of an LLC.

Legal blogger Dave Griswold of the law firm Wolters Kluwer shares helpful insights in an article explaining the ins-and-outs of Limited Liability Companies.

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/how-to-form-an-llc-what-is-an-llc-advantages-disadvantages-and-more

Of course, an LLC should have its own bank account, and assets should not be co-mingled. If you co-mingle your assets, you might endanger the protections. It's called "piercing the veil". 

As of this year, there's not much to the "veil", because one must file a Beneficial Ownership Information report with FinCEN. For more information about the BOI, see here:

https://www.fincen.gov/boi

One also needs insurance. Maybe you assume that you have it, but it might be wise to check on that every few years.

Last week, legal bloggers Scott P. DeVries and Torrye Zullo for the Hunton Insurance Recovery blog owned by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, shared a drily fascinating analysis of a new trend in insurance coverage relating to social media activities: Defence Coverage.

https://www.huntonak.com/hunton-insurance-recovery-blog/social-media-and-insurance-coverage-the-next-emerging-trend#page=1

The trouble with some insurance is, it may cover bodily injury but not mental injury, or it might cover both types of injury. One need to check ones insurance. These days, there are increasing numbers of lawsuits from plaintiffs who are concerned about epidemic-levels of social media addiction among young people.

Apparently, reading something "distressing" can cause physical harm.

"Some courts have held that a mental injury, accompanied by physical manifestation, qualifies as “bodily injury.” Physical manifestations have included weight loss, hair loss, fragile fingernails, loss of sleep, headaches, stomach pains and muscle aches."

The focus is on insurance protection for the wealthiest of social media companies, but they do refer to "influencers" and advertisers, too. It is unlikely that a lowly author would be worth suing, and one does not want to put ideas into anyone's head.

One can take that last clause in more ways than one!

Happy Memorial Day to all American readers!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com

http://www.rowenacherry.com 

 

Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Diaries of the Family Dracul Series by Jeanne Kalogridis

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Diaries of the Family Dracul Series

by Jeanne Kalogridis

by Karen S. Wiesner

The author also writes under the pseudonym J.M. Dillard, and many will be very familiar with those works, as they include novelizations of popular movies (The Fugitive, Star Trek), and many episodes of Star Trek (including the original, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise). However, it was this series with a ton of advantages that made me snatch them up when I first saw them. The first book in the trilogy, Covenant with the Vampire, takes place fifty years after the events of Dracula, and focuses on Dracula's great-nephew, tasked with the inheritance of managing the family estate (and, consequently, his great-uncle's appetite)--and there's a threat that if he doesn't bring the count victims, those he himself loves will be in danger. Each book in the trilogy is written in diary form, which I adored in the original and that manner of conveyance really worked here.

These books can only be read compulsively. They grabbed hold of me immediately and were very hard to put down. I segued from one to the next almost without pause. Written even more sensuously than Anne Rice's vampire tales, with myriad taboos shattered, there are some very disturbing scenes included that aren't for the faint of heart. But don't let that put you off. The author's passion for her topic is blatant and lush, exploring every aspect of this haunting, horrifying, unforgettable legacy.

If you love Dracula, you'll want to visit the same world in the compelling further adventures of Prince Vlad Tsepesh, as told from the point of view of a descendant touched by good instead of evil.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Fantasy Trope What-Ifs

Peter S. Beagle, author of THE LAST UNICORN, has just released a fantasy novel titled I'M AFRAID YOU'VE GOT DRAGONS. What if dragons weren't huge, majestic, terrifying beasts, but household pests the size of small lizards (at least as far as the characters know to start with)? The protagonist doesn't hunt dragons with armor and sword; he cleans them out of walls by the dozens or hundreds like mice or cockroaches. Of course, what he and his friends know at the beginning of the story isn't the whole truth, and things soon get much more complicated.

Fairy tales, myths, and legends, having countless traditional variations anyway, lend themselves especially well to rewritings from different viewpoints, imaginative re-visionings, and "what ifs?"

Snow White returns to life from a deathlike state in a glass coffin. What if she were a vampire? In Tanith Lee's "Red as Blood" and Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples," she is. What if the allegedly wicked fairy in "Sleeping Beauty" had an excellent reason for keeping the princess in suspended animation? Read T. Kingfisher's novel THORNHEDGE to find out. There's also at least one pulp-era short story (I can't remember the title) that presents Sleeping Beauty as a vampire. What if Maleficent in the Disney SLEEPING BEAUTY animated film wasn't truly evil? They made a movie proposing that alternative themselves. The more we ponder the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, the less sense it makes. If he can create gold, why does he bother accepting bribes of jewelry from the heroine? Why does he want the baby? If he plans to eat it, couldn't he snatch random infants rather than going to all that trouble to get a queen's firstborn? How could he be careless enough to proclaim his secret name in song? The six stories in THE RUMPELSTILTSKIN PROBLEM, by Vivian Vande Velde, attempt to answer these questions in deviously inventive ways.

The characterization of the boy who doesn't grow up in James Barrie's original PETER PAN includes hints of darkness -- absent from the Disney adaptation, naturally -- that blatantly invite speculation and re-visioning. What if Peter had a complex agenda for bringing abandoned or abused children to Neverland? THE CHILD THIEF, by fantasy artist Brom, explores the shadowed forests of Neverland through the lens of such a motivation. What if Peter was outright evil, as in the TV series ONCE UPON A TIME, which deconstructs numerous other fairy tales as well? What if he returned to the mundane world, grew up, and forgot his magical past? In the movie HOOK, he does. What if he were transgender? In Austin Chant's heartrending YA novel PETER DARLING, Peter is Wendy or vice versa.

Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms series, beginning with THE FAIRY GODMOTHER -- what if Cinderella became a Godmother instead of marrying a prince? -- rings a multitude of changes on familiar stories. Any fantasy author searching for plot ideas can find a bottomless treasure trove in traditional folk tales, as illustrated in the long-running anthology series edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling, beginning with SNOW WHITE BLOOD RED, still available on Amazon.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Much More Than Blurb

When I lived in Germany, I belonged to an ex-patriate group whose name I forget, but it was nothing at all like Real Housewives of the Taunus. They had a DIY ringbound cookbook which they published among themselves and probably to a wider audience, but this was well before the internet.

It was called Much More Than Mushrooms, and it was very helpful for Brits and Americans who were living in a strange land, and cooking with strange ingredients (including the morel mushroom that looks like grey, thoroughly chewed chewing gum) and an unfamiliar system of kitchen measurements.

I cannot find it through a quick Google search, although I did find a lot about magic mushrooms, radioactive wild mushrooms and game. Some of that radioactivity could have come from Chernobyl...

That cook book is the inspiration for the Much More Than part of my title.

Blurb is not only the promotional prose that we writers craft with great precision and care, and then refer to with a term that sounds self-deprecating. 

Blurb is also a rather good, DIY publishing platform and bookstore that I would say works best for scrapbooks, hobby books, project books, memoirs, special event commemoration, coffee table books with lots of illustrations and so forth.

I've helped my husband put together six or seven car-related books using Blurb for our own private enjoyment. So that is the preamble.

Recently, I have been thinking about selling books, though not for myself. Lizi Dorney, the daughter of a dear friend, asked me to take a look at a marvellous little children's book that she has written called Rainbow Lane.

https://lizi-dorney-art.sumupstore.com/

Lizi is an incredible artist, and you can find out more about her on Facebook or Instagram, but one has to log in to those sites so see what's what.  Here are some helpful articles from Blurb "influencers" that I have shared with Lizi, and am sharing today with you.

One of the most interesting points made by Dan Milnor is the importance of newsletters. He cites a Kinsey study that claims that using email (for instance for newsletters) is forty times more effective than promoting your books on social media sites such as Facebook or Instagram.

How to Sell Your Book with Dan Milnor

Dan uses the example of a birding book, and starting to interest and involve a birding audience before one even starts to write. IMHO, his article is well worth a five minute read.

Simon Batchelar blogs for Blurb about ethical marketing, which is a refreshing concept in today's frenzied, and often-of-putting marketplace of hyperbole and desperation.  

Behind the Book with Simon Batchelar

Simon's is a longer piece, but in a Q and A (interview) format, that includes a three-step plan and excellent advice involving charting. It might be worth bookmarking!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Wendy Ward Series by John Passarella

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Wendy Ward Series by John Passarella

by Karen S. Wiesner

A bit of an explanation: Wither, winner of a Bram Stoker Award for First Novel, was written by the authors John Passarella and Joseph Gangemi (writer of Inamorata) under the pseudonym J.G. Passarella. The rest of the books in the series were written by John Passarella alone. Wither was his very first book, and it was intended to be a standalone. Passarella might be better known for his media tie-novels from the series Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Grimm.

Wither follows Wendy Ward a college student who's a white witch living in the fictional town Windale, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Wither is a late 17th century witch who, with a murderous coven of witches, terrorized the town. Now she's reawakened and intends to find a human host for herself and her most faithful.

Wendy was an engaging character along with Abby, an abused eight-year-old, and Karen, a pregnant professor. Wanting to see them succeed became more and more intense as the story progressed and on into the follow-up stories. There was something slithering about this series, starting from the very first installment. The terror crept up until all I could do was jump, bite back a scream, and then hold on with clenching fingers. I found a used copy of it, but, before I'd even finished, I rushed out and purchased the next two books in the series, Wither's Rain and Wither's Legacy. Both were equally enjoyable. Additionally, a collection of short stories in the series is published under the title Exit Strategy & Others, but most of these stories are also available in other anthologies as well. According to his website, the author is currently working on a fourth Wendy Ward novel.

   

If you like supernatural terror combined with characters that you can emotionally invest in, this is a great series to read nonstop over the course of a stormy weekend.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Why Is the Internet Getting Worse?

In Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column, he analyzes why everything on the internet is in his view "(suddenly, simultaneously) getting (much) worse."

The Villain of Their Own Story

He begins with how online platforms decay -- in the sense of no longer working to the benefit of users -- and proceeds to the questions of why they do so. He summarizes the "progression of the disease" thus: "First, companies are good to their users. Once users are lured in and have been locked down, companies maltreat those users in order to shift value to business customers, the people who pay the platform’s bills. Once those business users are locked in, the platform starts to turn the screws on them, too." The process sounds like the decline from a Golden Age or the fall from a primal Eden. Not that I suppose Doctorow claims the internet was ever perfect.

This essay focuses on his explanation of why it's all "suddenly, simultaneously" getting worse at the present time. According to Doctorow, it's not because the companies changed from beneficent providers of services and content to greedy Scrooges. They've always used algorithms to "twiddle" the figurative digital dials in the direction of the maximum profit to themselves. It's just that there used to be "constraints" on this strategy that no longer exist or at least not to an effective degree. The essay lists the principal constraints and explores how they've been weakened or eliminated in recent years.

As Doctorow puts it, "No one is the villain of their own story." Not even mega-corporations. "The tech bosses who once made good products told themselves they did so because they were virtuous, but much of that virtue stemmed not from their character, but from the consequences of failing to deliver good products at fair prices under ethical conditions." With the eviscerating of the consequences, as he sees it, the "virtue" built on pragmatic foundations has crumbled.

What, if anything, can consumers do to ameliorate this situation? We're left with an apparent scenario of inevitable decline -- a rather depressing prospect.

Doctorow elaborates on this topic in a more technically detailed post here:

Algorithms

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.