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At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
In this near-future thriller portraying a severely drought-ridden Southwest, the fate of the region depends on three people — Angel, a Las Vegas water knife whose job it is to ensure his city stays flush; Lucy, a journalist; and Maria, a young refugee. Frighteningly bleak but a pleasure to read, The Water Knife is a [...]
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WorldCon 2015 - How inclusive of Latinos & Native Americans?
The world's biggest SF/F convention will be held in Indian Country of Spokane, Wash., next August. Since I participated in many "Spanish strand" workshops/panels in WorldCon 2013 in San Antonio, I've suggested they should continue the Latino inclusion and involve some Native American speakers on panels and workshops. Officially, I've received no response. The one move they made at changing their all-white, very-old/male speakers list was to add Tananarive Due. Questions about Latino and Native American author-inclusion and workshops remain.
The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) produces WorldCon. It's part of the long-running F/SF establishment that's dominated speculative lit for decades. Its old direction of good-old-boy club has changed somewhat to include women. Then blacks. Then Asians. But it's an uphill climb for them to change themselves into a group better reflecting 21st Century North American spec lit. How is it that Sci-Fi people are so retrograde conservative?
Another piece of that establishment is The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, SFFWA. Here's recent posts about them
"In the early 90s, I applied and was first denied entrance (I'm from Mexico, but still live here) until I argued that America is the whole continent and that Mexico is in America and thus I should be admitted to SFWA (I had done everything asked for). They eventually relented, letting me in as the first Mexican in SFWA, and a few years later managed to drop me when I was late paying my annual dues (by no more than a week). I agree: let´s do something new and multinational about it."
"I decided not to join (not based on this update)."
"I am definitely ready for a multinational thing."
Spec author Silvia Moreno-Garcia just posted this on FB: "SFWA sucks [something]. Sorry if you like it, but I am so bored with it…. Next year I'm spending my membership money on some other banal thing that brings me more joy. Like a fancy octopus plush toy."
I don't know exactly what Silvia is referring to. But there's NO reason that Chicano, Latino, Native American, black and other historically underrepresented authors should have to worry about anything other than creating their art. PERIOD. Exclusion, privilege, bureaucracy, chauvinism of any form have no place in speculative literature. Or much of anywhere else.
If you're thinking of maybe attending Sasquan next year, here's what they say about being included in workshop/panels: "Sasquan would like to hear from you if you’re interested in being considered as a panelist and/or a performer. We don’t know everyone and Worldcons always find a few good panelists/performers by encouraging volunteers to apply."
Remarkable Latino Children's Lit of 2014
Just in time for gift-giving season, here's one group's list of kid's books--some written by Latino First Voices--with Latinos as the main characters.
"Latinas for Latino Lit (L4LL) announces our annual "Best of the Best" children's literature titles written by or about Latinos. Selections include award-winning authors such as Duncan Tonatiuh and publishers ranging from household name New York presses to community-focused, independent companies.
"Why publish this list now? At the end of the year, "tastemakers" such as The New York Times and National Public Radio (NPR) publish their "best of" lists. Inevitably, their selections feature few, if any Hispanic authors. The L4LL Remarkable Latino Children's Literature of 2014 selections spotlight this glaring absence, rooted not in Hispanic authors' lack of talent. Rather, their exclusion reflects the tastemakers' significant professional blind spots and institutional flaws."
¡Ask a Mexican! Happy Birthday: Thoughts on 10 Years of Raising DESMADRE
History will decide the Chicano authors and their literature that should be called classic. But I don't know how history could omit Gustavo Arellano and his works. In the guise of humor and satire, el hombre has produced some of the tightest, most precise, chignón funny writing of our generation. Here's a message from him:
"This week marks the 10-year anniversary of this infernal columna—10 pinche years already! The Mexican is not much for retrospectives—that's a gabachothing—but I do want to take a moment to offer thanks to a couple of cabrones: former OC Weekly editor Will Swaim for giving me the idea for the column; VICE Media chingón Daniel Hernández for writing the Los Angeles Times profile that changed my life; Scribner for printing ¡Ask a Mexican! in best-selling book form; mi chula esposa for all her support and pickling my peppers (and that is not a metaphor); Tom Leykis for hosting a call-in-version of ¡Ask a Mexican! all these years (subscribe to his podcast at www.blowmeuptom.com); all the haters, whose vile words remind me why I started writing this in the primera place; my friends and familiafor the obvious reasons; the Albuquerque Alibi for being the first newspaper besides my home periódico to have the huevos to run the column; and, lastly but not leastly, ustedes gentle readers, whose eternal curiosity about Mexicans makes this weekly rant an eternally rollicking bit of DESMADRE. To the next decade or 50!"
If you'd like to send him best wishes, or another windmill for him to use his lance on and dissect, do so.
Should Latino/a authors do YA lit with la política?
If you're a Latino/a writer who thinks the political has no place in Latino kid's lit, that it can't be engaging to young people, that it won't earn good reviews, that such novels won't be successful, here's a Sunday NYTimes book review of Paolo Bacigalupi's new YA, The Doubt Factory. He's no Chicano, but he's got otras sangres that spice up his prose. Here's a snapshot of what he did:
"Paolo Bacigalupi [and Alaya Dawn Johnson] are attempting a path in their latest books, thrillers that don’t just marry the personal to the political, but exploit the fantastical conventions of genre to make a head-on critique of the contemporary political landscape.
"To be a teenager is to be acutely aware of power, in all its forms — by virtue of having so frustratingly little of it. Which means adolescent protagonists impose a limiting factor on political fiction. They turn to science fiction and fantasy and play politics to their heart’s content: There’s no believability ceiling to how teenagers in futuristic societies can change their worlds. Following up award-winning Y.A. dystopian novel, Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, an impassioned astonishment of linguistic ingenuity and innovative world-building, but also an attack on the politics of poverty and oppression.
"Now, Bacigalupi uses conventions of genre to attack a thoroughly unconventional brand of evil: the public relations experts and scientists-for-sale who conspire to replace certainty with manufactured doubt, nicknamed The Doubt Factory: “The place where big companies go when they need the truth confused. . . . The place companies go when they need science to say what’s profitable, instead of what’s true.” Tobacco industry lobbying, pharmaceutical companies’ manipulation of the F.D.A. — Bacigalupi doesn’t shy from indicting real-world doubt merchants by name and deed.
"In our proudly post-postmodern world of antiheroes and shades of gray, the value of nuance, in fiction and beyond, is almost axiomatic. To see the world in black and white is to see it through a child’s eyes. Bacigalupi is challenging this conflation of simplicity with naïveté, which makes for a somewhat flat narrative, but a stirring cri de coeur. Compromise, complication, doubt: These are his enemies. Maybe there’s nothing childish about moral clarity; maybe to understand that some stories have only one defensible side is what it means to grow up.
 |
| a VERY Chicano-political fantasy novel |
"In the end, this is the message for young readers: Wake up. Ask questions. Challenge authority. Form your own opinions. Fight injustice, no matter the cost. These days, suggesting that a book has an overt message is almost an insult, as if purpose is incommensurable with art. Maybe so: these are not perfect novels. But they’re bold and ambitious, unafraid to charge into territory too often avoided, their authors keenly aware: Some messages are too important not to deliver."
You can read the entire article and then decide whether you'd like your next kid's book to get a review like this. I wish it so.
Es todo, hoy,
Bacigalupi's counterculture take on the teen thriller turns what could be a by-the-book page-turner into a how-to for critical thinking and media literacy. A good stepping stone for teens who aren't quite ready for Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Books mentioned in this post The Doubt Factory Paolo Bacigalupi New Hardcover $18.00
With Chicano and Latino speculative fiction* blossoming, I and others believe its authors can blaze our own trails to not follow the paths of mainstream Anglo authors. This might sound like a risky way of succeeding as a writer, but the rewards go beyond book sales and personal income. All across the planet, writers advocate and practice this.
Cherokee author Celu Amberstone says of Indigenous speculative fiction: “Our fiction is alive with new possibilities inspired by our cultural heritage, fiction that can offer new insights to our troubled world. As Indigenous peoples, we understand that the specters of colonialism and corporate greed still haunt Earth’s future. It is our responsibility to offer humanity a new vision of the universe.”
An Australian aborigine from the Palyku people, YA spec fiction author Ambelin Kwaymullinais another. In a speech earlier this year, she said, "We are, along with speculative fiction fans in the world, the people who know. We understand the great promise and the great flaws of humanity; we have seen both writ-large across magical kingdoms and alternate realities and far off planets. So the question for us is not what the future will hold, because we’ve already seen a thousand variations of it. The question for us is, how do we create the futures of our dreams and not our nightmares? Like other spec fiction writers before me, I believe humanity is now living in the times that will define what is to come for our species."
American author Paolo Bacigalupi expects even more for writers of any nationality: "The real purpose of novels of Sci-Fi, apocalypse, dystopia, etc. should not be escapist. A spec lit novel that doesn't tell about the present moment is no more meaningful than a romance or tea cozy mystery. If it doesn't, then why did it have to be Sci-Fi to begin with?"
I agree with all of the above. More in my alternate-world fantasy novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams than in my short stories, issues of immigration and border "security," militarization of the police, gentrification of barrios, "Christian" intolerance have all played roles. As a Chicano in the U.S., when I write, the reality that we and others live pushes for inclusion. I can't imagine any other approach that would make my stories worth reading.
Here's an example of what I mean: French kids don't suffer weight problems, obesity, diabetes & hypertension like ours do. They get fresh and freshly prepared fruits, vegetables, fish and meat that are locally sourced; only filtered tap water for drinks. Three recess periods, a total of 90 min./day; and they walk or bike alone (if you can believe!) to school. No school on Wednesdays. All of this, U.S. kids are denied. It doesn't mean we're stupider than the French; we've simply allowed food corporations to victimize our kids. So what?
So how would a spec author include the junk food we're sold into a novel? How about the pink slime served in school cafeterias? Written into a YA zombie novel, with the two main, non-white characters, one the mexicano Miguel. Add racism and flash round-ups of undocumented workers. Sound like a stretch? Not so much, even after you realize that Paolo is not a Chicano writer.
In a podcast this month, here's what he said about learning the story and facts behind pink slime: "The politics makes you angry enough to write fiction--the company "ethics", and government "protection" [of our food]. The status quo doesn't see us being able to talk about the data surrounding us. I was a sci-fi reader growing up and spec genre held my interest. But lots of sci-fi books were dated and not relevant to kids. Zombiewas for my own joy, my own creativity, to feel passionate about. I knew that if I found something interesting, I could strive to make it interesting for my readers."
The publisher's synopsis of Zombie Baseball Beatdown: "In this inventive, fast-paced novel, award-winning author Bacigalupi takes on hard-hitting themes--from food safety to racism and immigration--and creates a zany, grand-slam adventure that will get kids thinking about where their food comes from.
"The zombie apocalypse begins on the day Rabi, Miguel, and Joe are practicing baseball near a local meatpacking plant and nearly get knocked out by a really big stink. Little do they know the plant's toxic cattle feed is turning cows into flesh-craving monsters! The boys decide to launch an investigation into the plant's dangerous practices, unknowingly discovering a greedy corporation's plot to look the other way as tainted meat is sold to thousands all over the country. With no grownups left they can trust, Rabi and his friends will have to grab their bats to protect themselves (and a few of their enemies) if they want to stay alive...and maybe even save the world."
The author didn't stop at publication. On the book's website, the political matters lace throughout the jokes, zaniness and funny, zombie madness. Here's a sample, and you might want to give the URL to your kids. (If you think this is violent, see the videogames kids play.)
How kids can prepare for a zombie outbreak in ten simple steps.- 70% of evil monsters come from nasty places like toxic waste dumps. 100% of documented zombie outbreaks originated from an infected food.
- Protect Your Head. To a zombie, your brain tastes like the best food ever.
- 9 out of 10 zombies say they prefer brains to any other food.
- The brain size of kids who like reading is 1/10 larger than that of kids who don't.
- On average zombies find bigger brains 33% more appetizing than small brains.
- 92% were easily able to bite through a single layer of clothing, penetrating the skin.
- 33% of zombies were unable to bite through 5 or more layers of clothing, and left to starve.
I recommend the book, even for some kids as young as twelve. Latino kids will sympathize with and enjoy Miguel, a main character. Politically, the book promotes investigation, exposing the facts gathered, organizing other kids, and the success of defending your beliefs about what's true, even when corporations and adults don't know or hide the truth.
Paolo is beginning to mull ideas for a sequel to Zombie. Not to critique, but to suggest ways I think a sequel could improve over the first of the series, I note the lack of major girl characters. To all spec writers: the boys-only legacy of old sci-fi can and should be discarded. Research show boys will read books with girl protagonists and more, if they are intriguing and well written. And we need to help boys break down whatever impedes their working and living well with the opposite sex.
Secondly, I think the climactic battle (obvious from the title, but most of this is spoiler) has two huge real-world, emotional and action gaps that the author could have used to heighten conflict.
The hero organizes his friends in the final battle WAY too easily. Anybody who's had or worked with boys knows--organizing them is like herding olive-oil-slimed pigs in the middle of a muddy field, away from their trough of amphetamines. The protagonist Rabi should have had to more realistically overcome those problems. Yes, I know it was the climax, and maybe the author didn't want to give his hero too much to overcome. Still.
The second, emotional gap that the author missed out on was the trauma of who the boys had to beat, hurt and kill to escape the zombie breakout. Their friends, siblings, parents and adults they knew. According to my read, none of the boys had much trouble beating down their family and community. Obviously, in the real world, this would be major PTSD. (That coming in the sequel?) Adding bits of scenes about this conflict would have extended the big battle, which might be why the author excluded it. I won't say how he might have been able to do it; he's the author. As a reader, the gap left me unfulfilled, pick-pocketed.
Read the, buy it and give it as a present, order it for your room or library. If you're a Latino author, read it and see if you can say that we Latinos can't do the same or even better at bringing politics into our spec lit. For our gente to learn and read and enjoy.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG, a.k.a. Chicano fantasy author Rudy Ch. Garcia
* Speculative fiction - spec lit includes fantasy, magical realism, horror, alternate world and alternate history, fables and science fiction, at the least.
by Addy Farmer
Peering through my spectacles this week, I spotted this interesting article in The Guardian. It examined the reaction to writer, Lynne Sheperd's piece in The Huffington Post in which she urged J.K.Rowling to stop writing and give other people a crack at earning some money. She says:
I didn't much mind Rowling when she was Pottering about. I've never read a word (or seen a
By: Maryann Yin,
on 2/21/2013
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The finalists for the 33rd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all their books below–some of the best books released in 2012. Here’s more about the awards:
“The winners of the L.A. Times book prizes will be announced at an awards ceremony April 19, the evening before the L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 20-21. Held on USC’s campus in Bovard Auditorium, the awards are open to the public; tickets will be made available in late March.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Can the pay-what-you-want model work for the publishing industry? With six days left to purchase, the Humble eBook Bundle has already raised $855,755.
The Humble Bundle team has offered a collection of digital books from writers like Cory Doctorow, Paolo Bacigalupi, Lauren Beukes, Kelly Link and more, letting readers pay as much or as little as they want. As of this writing, they have already sold 63,441 copies of the bundle, with the average buyer paying $13.49 for the bundle.
Here’s more from the site: “Separately, this collection of fantastic novels and comics would cost around $157. But we’re letting you set the price! These eBooks are available in multiple formats including PDF, MOBI, and ePub so they work great on your computer, eBook readers, and a wide array of mobile devices … Choose how your purchase is divided: to the authors, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Child’s Play Charity, and/or the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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Now that it’s been circulating around for a while, I thought I’d show off the gorgeous Diverse Energies cover right here, in case you missed it in the hundred other places people are talking about it. In other news, I haven’t had much time for blogging lately, but I am working hard on Awakening by Karen Sandler (Tankborn 2) and New Worlds by Shana Mlawski (spring books) as well as books for next fall that include Joseph Bruchac’s next book. Here’s the description we sent to Publisher’s Marketplace:
Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has bought world rights for Wolf Mark author Joseph Bruchac’s newest YA Killer of Enemies, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel with a steampunk twist, for publication in fall 2013 under the Tu Books imprint. Described as “space cowboys in the new Old West,” it retells the story of Lozen, the monster slayer of Apache legend, in a world where space dust has rendered digital technology obsolete. Barbara S. Kouts of the Barbara S. Kouts Agency did the deal.
Awesome, right? I’m SO EXCITED for it, you guys. And, without further ado, check out this gorgeousness from designer Ben Mautner. And the lineup? If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out after the cover.
No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. No one can doubt that cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge must lead to freedom of the mind and freedom of the soul.
—President John F. Kennedy, from a speech at University of California, March 23, 1962
In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful.
In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds. Take a journey through time from a nuclear nightmare of the past to society’s far future beyond Earth with these eleven stories by masters of speculative fiction. Includes stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, K. Tempest Bradford, Rahul Kanakia, Rajan Khanna, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken Liu, Malinda Lo, Ellen Oh, Cindy Pon, Greg Van Eekhout, and Daniel H. Wilson. Edited by Tobias Buckell and Joe Monti.
Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. You can comment here or there.
Ship Breaker Paolo Bacigalupi
In the future, global warming has creating Category 6 Hurricanes, City Killers. New Orleans is under water. As is Orleans II and large portions of the Gulf Coast. There are new energies and corporations rule all.
Nailer works light crew, scavenging the old oil tankers for copper wire and other light scrap for the corporations to recycle into their new ships. But after a major storm blows on the of the new ships onto an island, Nailer thinks he's found a goldmine, enough to buy him out of his subsistence lifestyle. The only problem is that the girl who owns the ship is still alive, and on the run. Nailer and Nita escape Nailer's father and Nita's family's rivals to try to get Nita to safety in a series of death-defying adventures.
So, even though I'm getting sick of post-apocalyptic adventure novels, I really enjoyed this one. I like the world Bacigalupi has built and how it's so different from our world, but still recognizable as the US. Also, I think it helps to have a post-apocalyptic on the run from those in power novel to be about a BOY instead of a girl. Maybe I just tend to read the ones about girls and there's a whole slew out there about boys. But, it was a nice change. I liked that there were still kick-ass girls (in fact, almost all (all?) of the girls kicked some ass in one way or the other) but the focus stayed on Nailer and the romance was there, but wasn't the main focus of the plot.
This did win a Printz this year and I'm not sure on this. I've read several books that I think that are better examples of literary excellence for teens (off the top of my head, Nothing, Time of Miracles, Finnikin of the Rock). Although this one does have teen appeal. But that's not a Printz requirement.
Overall, I'm not sure on it's Printz worthiness, but it was still a great read (so don't let the shiny medal scare you away?) even if you're more than a little over post-apocalyptic adventures (and frankly, who isn't at this point?)
Book Provided by... my local library
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The winners of the first annual Indie Booksellers Choice Awards have been announced.
The following five books were selected by independent booksellers: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books), The Instructions by Adam Levin (McSweeney’s), The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel (Unbridled), Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes (Grove/Atlantic), and Wingshooters by Nina Revoyr (Akashic).
The five winning titles will be displayed in participating independent bookstores throughout the country. Comedian David Rees hosted the awards ceremony at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York City.
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And here they are—the books I've been craving—all arrived at once. Mira Bartok's
The Memory Palace, Robb Forman Dew's
Being Polite to Hitler, Paolo Bacigalupi's
Ship Breaker, Kathryn Erskine's
Mockingbird, and Jacqueline Kelly's
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
Christmas, all over again.
Nailer’s world is bleak. He lives on the Gulf Coast, working on a light crew that salvages metal from wrecked ships. It’s difficult, demanding work, pays barely enough for Nailer to survive, but provides the best life he can hope for. Until, in the aftermath of a deadly storm, Nailer and his crew boss, Pima, find a freshly wrecked clipper ship.
The clipper ship holds more wealth than Nailer and Pima have ever seen before: silverware, china, gold rings still stuck on the swollen fingers of a girl. The rings won’t come off, and, believing the girl dead, Nailer is about to cut her fingers off when the girl blinks. She is still alive, and as she gains strength, she tells them that people will be searching for her.
The girl leaned forward, her face lit by the fire, her features suddenly cold. “If you hurt me, my father will come here and wipe you and yours off the face of the earth and feed your guts to the dogs.” She sat back. “It’s your choice: Get rich helping me, or die poor.” (p. 113)
But can Nailer trust Lucky Girl, as the girl with the gold rings was quickly named? And is she worth the risk? The clipper wreckage is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, while forgoing the wreckage and helping Lucky Girl will not only mean facing the dangers of Lucky Girl’s secrets, but the wrath of Nailer’s alcohol- and drug-addicted father, as well.
Nailer is the center of Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut YA novel. Bacigalupi, who recently won a Nebula Award for The Windup Girl, immediately immerses readers in the harshness of Nailer’s life, yet Nailer is not without hope and empathy. Nailer’s life takes a dangerous turn after the discovery of Lucky Girl, when what had already been a fast-paced, compelling story became even more thrilling. There are fights and chases and escapes, and through it all, Bacigalupi never loses sight of Nailer. He makes the reader care for Nailer, and this is partly what makes Ship Breaker so suspenseful and exciting.
The setting is also vividly and realistically depicted. Readers are given glimpses and hints of the larger world—in which oil is hard to come by, climate change has drowned cities, and genetically engineered half-men are belongings of the wealthy—but only when these details are relevant to the story. Despite this narrow focus, Ship Breaker’s dystopian setting is fully realized, the worldbuilding ingenious and frighteningly plausible. Altogether, Ship Breaker is a magnificent addition to dystopian literature and a fantastically readable book.
Book source: public library.
Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.
* If you’re intrigued by Ship Breaker, do read Gwenda’s SBBT interview with Bacigalupi. It’s extremely interesting (doesn’t an answer like, “I think the other thing that was going on was that I’d been getting poked at by a lot of people in science fiction because I write such grim stories. The typical comment was along the lines of: ‘After I read a Bacigalupi story, I want to slit my wrists,’ which I’m actually quite proud of–but I also wanted to play with emotional notes other than despair and fear,” make you want to read the rest of the interview?) and will NOT spoil your reading of Ship Breaker.
The majority of the books I receive from publishers and writers are, unfortunately, not ones that spark my interest. They find homes at local libraries, with more appreciative readers, etc. (unless really desperate for cash, I don't sell books I get for free).
The ones that do, for some reason or another, arouse my curiosity are still more plentiful than I have time for. Consider, for instance, two current piles of books I intend to do more than just glance at the cover and publicity materials for...
And that's just stuff that's arrived in the last few weeks...
Some of these are books I will definitely read -- indeed, one of them, Lev Grossman's The Magicians
, I read this past weekend. (Not sure if I'm going to write much about it anywhere, because I had exactly the response M.A. Orthofer had at The Complete Review, and I don't think I have anything to add beyond what he said. But we'll see.) I'm writing a piece for Rain Taxi on Wallace Shawn, so will be plunging into his
two
, as well as brushing up on all the rest of his books, this week. Beyond that, well...
I'm intrigued by each of the Night Shade books, but am most excited by Paolo Bacigalupi's first novel, The Windup Girl
, since I've had a few things to say about his short fiction in the past. I intend to read the others, but if I only get to one of them, it will be The Windup Girl.
The little book on top of one of those piles is an advance copy of The Original Frankenstein
from Vintage, and it's an interesting attempt to reconstruct the earliest manuscripts of Frankenstein. Editor Charles E. Robinson seeks to show the exact nature of Percy Shelley's influence on the novel, and makes what appears, at least at first glance, to be a strong case for Percy as a collaborator with his wife on the book. The collaboration is complex, though, and for anyone who has previously been fascinated by the changes between the published editions of Frankenstein, this volume will be essential. As a reading text of the novel, though, it's awkward, given how much the scholarly apparatus has to intrude upon the actual text, so it's not a book anyone will want to read as their first encounter with Mary Shelley's "hideous progeny".
I'm intrigued by Penguin's re-issue of Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's novel Who Would Have Thought It?
not only because I had never heard of it or because it is billed as the first Mexican-American novel, but because it tells the story of a Mexican girl raised by Apaches who ends up in New England amidst hypocritical abolitionists.I don't usually find a plot to be the most intriguing things about a novel, but that's a plot that intrigues me!
Finally, among the books you may not have heard of, sits my friend Caroline Nesbitt's horse novel, Ride on the Curl'd Clouds, which I am curious to read not because I know anything about horses (I don't), but because I've known Caroline and her writing for years. One of these days I'll get around to interviewing her about the book and about her decision to publish it via Lulu.com, a decision she and I talked about a lot -- Caroline had previously published a nonfiction book
in the traditional way, but we thought she might be able to have more success publishing her novel herself and marketing it within the equestrian community, a world she knows well.
The other books are there because at one point or another they seemed interesting to me and so I hope to get to time to read at least some of them. We shall see...
By:
Danette Haworth,
on 12/18/2007
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I really enjoyed Ship Breaker... and I think it was because I was so sick of dystopian novels with female main characters.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman is another great YA dystopian novel that primarily focuses on a male main character. The plot sounds really strange, but it's a great book.