A

AEG – (Abbreviation), All Edges Gilt

B

Biennial – An item which is printed every two years

Blank – A page which has not been printed on

If there is one thing that constantly strikes me about Oscar Wilde, it’s his sense of humour. There’s a sort of dry sarcasm within this dialogue that I couldn’t help but to chuckle at, despite his numerous digs at the English way of thought. That is, that it ‘isn’t catching’, and ‘everyone incapable of learning has taken to teaching’. Wilde almost reminds me of a mischievous schoolboy, saying such impertinent things before darting away onto another topic so that no-one can really concentrate and take proper offense to what he’s said. This dialogue is full of his natural humour, which makes it a pleasure to read.

Written as an article-within-a-dialogue, Wilde cleverly disguises his rant and uses a dialogue style in order to break up what would otherwise be a large block of text. Apart from being quick-witted, we don’t get to find out much about the two characters, but that doesn’t particularly matter. The flow of the piece is easy, and during the segments that may be considered ‘lengthy’, the character of Cyril breaks up the verbosity of Vivian with a few choice interjections and questions. Whilst this does work to an extent, it’s only a thinly veiled feature so it does seem a little contrived. Of course, with Oscar Wilde you can never be sure what he means to do, but for me, it would have worked just as well as an actual dialogue instead of taking a ‘cheats’ way out.

Despite the humour inherent throughout the piece, The Decay of Lying is nevertheless thought provoking on a number of levels. It serves to question widely held assumptions about the very nature of…well…nature, and the relationship of that to art and vice versa. I have to say, the piece makes a very good point for the banality and unoriginality of nature, even though I myself am rather fond of countryside walks and admiring the view.

It challenges, argues with, mocks and downright sneers at both nature and art, and mankind’s attitude towards them. With it being an ‘essay’ instead of anything of a longer nature, it’s easily read in one sitting…and then read again a few days later just to make sure that nothing was missed the first time. I wouldn’t recommend reading it in small bursts however. Once you move away from it – even for just one day – it takes a short while to get back into the swing of things, and the pace is so fluid that one generally has to go back a paragraph or two just to find one’s footing anyway. Although a general background reading from the time period would enhance the work, it’s able to stand alone if Victorian literature isn’t to your liking. (I can say this from experience).

If you have a spare hour or two (depending of course on your reading speed), then I’d certainly recommend this, if only for its humour value. Searching for it online will yield quite a few free copies of the essay, so there isn’t even any need to pay for it.

Now dear reader, this is where I hesitated for a second. My cousins, after all, hadn’t done any harm to the books, and they were showing that their stories were able to be used as something other than intended. Now, this anecdote serves as a rather literal indication of ‘books as games’, but it doesn’t take a lot of searching to find other, more subtle, instances. With the emergence of eReaders such as the Amazon Kindle, the general populace could finally read books without staring at a computer screen or carting around a heavy tome.

And of course, this was the point where the video-game industry decided to poke their noses in. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy gaming as much as the next person, and I also believe that companies such as Nintendo are actually helping kids’ literacy to an extent. Just picture it, dear reader. You’re in your favourite gaming shop, perusing the newest releases for your Nintendo DS, and all of a sudden you see ‘101 Classics’. For a moment you stand confused, but a little intrigued. Well, if Nintendo think it’s cool, then it must be interesting, right? Picking it up and going home, you slot it into your (insert eye-melting colour here) DS and being to play…er…read.

Okay, so not a lot of young teenagers would bother with this, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. Perhaps next time, Nintendo could create an interactive reading game. Oh wait, they’ve been around for years…they’re called RPG’s. (Although to be perfectly truthful, who ever reads all of the dialogue or cut scenes?…now be honest…). The fact remains that there are getting to be increasingly sneakier ways of producing book-based games. I don’t mean things like ‘Harry Potter’, which has already been turned into films…but other titles such as ‘The Women’s Murder Club’ series by James Patterson. How far are we able to say that offering an increased awareness of the existence of different books is a good thing…when on the other side of the coin, it may be argued that after playing the game, individuals may feel as though there is no point in reading the story itself?

It’s very easy to say that big corporations like Nintendo (I don’t mean to pick on them, honest…it’s just that it’s easier to stick with one example), are just trying to use any means available to them to ‘cash in’. It can’t be that difficult to download 101 books, throw them into a cartridge and call it a game, after all. I would like to think however (along with a world of sunshine minus global warming, fuel minus spills that go on for months –coughs-, and unicorns without being mentally unstable) that maybe…just maybe…someone at game HQ decided to put aside the age-old contention between reading and videogames and create something which might appeal to both.

As far as the entertainment versatility of books never ceases to amaze me…it doesn’t mean I don’t cringe when I see a particularly poor ‘game’ version of the novel however. Although, as the saying goes, you can lead an individual to knowledge, but you can’t make ‘em read. (Or something along those lines, anyway).

I once said that I’d never review a bad book…and as it turns out, I’ve changed my mind.  I thought I’d take a different spin on things and examine where I think a writer’s gone wrong. The Spear had a lot of potential; a story dealing with the political game of chess played between international intelligent agencies and the underground world of neo-Nazism could have made a nail biting thriller, yet combine that with the Nazi occultism and the ‘Spear of Destiny’, you have a story bordering on unbelievable. The result could have looked like James Bond meets the fiction of A. Crowley. Instead, the novel looks like Johnny English meets Rent-A-Ghost.

The book revolves around Steadman; an ex-agent for both the Britain and Israeli intelligence forces who retires to Britain and joins a private investigation firm. An old face returns, wanting him to look into an arms dealer and the disappearance of another agent. Although he refuses it, his partner accepts the job but less than a week hours later ends up crucified to Steadman’s door. MI5 force Steadman to work for the Israelis once again in hope of under covering a dangerous neo-Nazi organisation in Britain.

You have some truly creative ideas in this book, from a tank chase to torture with a hairdryer, to the ghost of a Nazi demon. However, you also have a villain who seems to be an Ian Fleming reject, dialogue and an argument that could have been put together by a schoolboy and a writing style that fluctuates between realistic and enjoyable to being as wooden as the desk I’m sitting at. Already you might see one possible cause of death. Did James Hebert bite off more than he could chew?

The plot is very much the soul of a book, if it’s a bad plot it’s usually a bad book. The Spear is very much a mash of genres, horror mixed with political thriller with a dollop of history. It’s a gamble but it’s not a first. What the story suffers from most is a thinning of the blood, or in plain English, weak storytelling.

The first problem is Steadman’s feelings against the Israelis. His argument is flimsy and limited, which left me hating him slightly for his ignorance. The same lack of conviction also appears in the villain, whose reasoning appears self-defeating and self-damning. Steadman’s like a parrot, constantly responding by labelling them mad. You can’t believe that the Nazi’s are Nazi’s or that Steadman was smart enough to be in British Intelligence. Also, the structure and narrative voice felt like the literary version of the shaky camera technique you see in films like the Blair Witch Project. In moments of pace and action there was more emphasis on excitement and panic than what was actually occurring. Of all the plot twists there was only one I could not see coming…but when I read it I couldn’t take it seriously. There were only a few scenes where I really fell into the story, the best of which was in the form of a flashback, but its positioning couldn’t have been more awkward (unless it was stapled over the original page of dialogue that proceeded it). Apart from that, the narratives’ lack of substance meant that I drifted through it – the reading became mechanical.

I do like James Herbert’s work and his writing style, no matter how taboo, but I’d recommend books like The Secret of Crickley Hall, which showcase his developed and skilled writing style. In the case of The Spear, I imagine he could do a better job now than he did back in the 70’s. I didn’t get much of a kick from damning a book but it makes a pleasant change to my usual ‘this is great’ gushing.

Anyway, it’s about time I review something which isn’t of the horror genre, perhaps even, dare I say, ‘literary’. After all, familiarity breeds something or another…

C

Closed Tear – A tear with no material missing

D

DEC – (Abbreviation) Decorated

E

ED – (Abbreviation) Edition, or Editor

The story is told through a series of letters from Alex to Jonathan, which are written in a very odd kind of broken English. These letters can be very funny, particularly in the first half of the book, and provide an opportunity for Safran Foer to poke fun at himself. However, it does mean that the book takes longer to read than you expect and understanding them can get tiresome after a while. The letters are interspersed with extracts from (the character) Jonathan’s novel, which tells the story of the village his grandfather was from before the Nazis destroyed it. These are written in very descriptive and practically magical realist style. They contain some beautiful imagery, but again can be difficult to read at times.

As the journey continues, things are ‘illuminated’ which have implications for Alex and his Grandfather as well as Jonathan Safran Foer. The comedy of the first half of the book starkly contrasts with the tragedy uncovered in the second half, which makes the novel all the more affecting. As well as providing a personal story about the horrors of World War II, the book deals with issues like contemporary anti-semitism and how far people who are caught up in war can be blamed for their actions. Although I feel that someone who didn’t like the style it was written in couldn’t enjoy Everything is Illuminated, it is a truly original book, which creates hilarity as well as poignancy via experiments with language.

—–

The name ‘Magician’ elicits some of the best literary memories I have. It is the start of a series by Raymond E. Feist so good I even read them in the shower (holding them above the shower head to keep them dry). Reading a book this good can’t be rushed any more than you can rush a fine wine. You’ve got to let it breathe for awhile before savouring its nuances and subtleties; and this book is full of both.

One of the best features of Magician is Feist’s writing style. The descriptions are vivid, the characters are extremely believable and not everything has a happy ending. The characters are often faced with difficult choices, sometimes none of which have the possibility of a good outcome. Above all the plots are well thought out, intricate and contribute to the overall feeling of Magician being – in my opinion – one of the most realistic fantasy books ever written.

The story begins in the Kingdom of the Isles on a world called Midkemia and follows the lives of two best friends, Pug, an apprentice of the court magician, and Tomas, a member of the Duke’s guard. It begins by the discovery of a storm-ravaged ship of a design unlike any seen before in The Kingdom. The sole survivor is brought back to the keep of Castle Crydee, a frontier outpost of The Kingdom ruled by Duke Borric con Doin, his two sons, Arutha and Lyam and his daughter, the Princess Carline. The sailor speaks in an incomprehensible language and it is only with Father Tully’s divine intervention that the Duke’s court discovers the foreigner’s people pose a deadly threat against the Kingdom. With no time to lose, the Duke and his entourage set out for Rillanon, the Kingdom’s capital city, with Pug and Tomas in tow.

Whilst en route, the Duke’s party is attacked by enemy scouts, Pug is captured and Tomas nearly becomes the victim of a fearsome wraith when the Duke and the other survivors are forced to take shelter in a dwarven mine. From here, the reader is swept away on a roller coaster adventure of politics, intrigue, betrayal and gallantry that spans two worlds, as the brave heroes embark on journeys to stave off planet-wide disaster against an invading force of alien soldiers.

In short, this book is sure to be the beginning of a literary addiction of profound scope and proportion for anybody that has the good taste to start it. Hm! Maybe it’s time I started reading the series all over again!

—–

Review by: Christopher Ian Collins
Edited by: Sara Slack & Amelia Rockliff

I like Ted Hughes. I really really really like Ted Hughes. My mum read The Iron Giant to me when I was younger, and ever since I have absolutely loved everything he has ever done. I have just ordered his collected works from Amazon, a massive brick which I will no doubt have to go through the hoo-ha of collecting from the sorting office because there is no way the postman will be able to fit it through my letterbox. It’s first on my agenda to read after exams are finished, which will make it the first book I have read purely for pleasure in three years.

When I tell people how much I like Ted Hughes, however, they often seem a bit uncomfortable. When I chose to write an essay on Oedipus last year, I got a lot of ‘Ted Hughes? But what about Sylvia Plath? You know he was really mean to her and practically murdered her, right?’ This got me thinking a lot about how much our knowledge of an artist’s personal life should affect our appreciation of their work. I do like Sylvia Plath, especially The Bell Jar and Ariel, and I am aware that she was married to Ted Hughes. If the film Sylvia, in which Hughes is played by a rather tasty Daniel Craig, is anything to go by, he was a right twit with regards to women. I also know that his next wife gassed herself as well. But do I care? Not particularly. I think that it has nothing to do with the quality of his poetry, just like I think that our knowledge of how Ariel was published posthumously should mean we read it like some kind of extended suicide note, or our knowledge of Oscar Wilde’s sexual orientation should mean we look for ‘clues’ in his work.

Obviously there are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, if someone started extolling the virtues of Mein Kampf while I was in earshot I would probably be outraged and, depending on how brave I was feeling that day, either confront them or edge awkwardly out of the room and make a point of avoiding them forever. This is a pretty extreme example though, and when the author of a book isn’t Hitler I think different rules should apply.

Overall, I think that you can like Frankenstein AND ‘To a Skylark’. You can like Hole AND Nirvana. You can like Ted Hughes AND Sylvia Plath. I think it’s a shame if people avoid appreciating things they enjoy because they somehow feel like they’re betraying another artist. Stop worrying and like what you like!

1) Having written novels both by yourself and with other authors, how different would you say the processes are, and do you prefer one to the other?

It’s enormously different, mainly because for a collaborator I have to express and/or set down details about the story that I merely keep in mind when I am working by myself. I have to provide as much background and character study as I can so that my vision becomes part of the shared work. I also find that working with someone else I can go faster than I do alone. I think it’s the synergy of bouncing ideas off another mind. Some of the greatest fun I have ever had is when two of us start feeding off the other’s ideas and laughing because we are creating something in the air between us. When Bob Asprin and I were plotting Class Dis-Mythed in a restaurant at a DragonCon, we had a wonderful time hooting at the other’s suggestions and trying to top them. I think the mood between collaborators  infuses the story.

I have to prefer to work alone, since most of my projects are individual ones, but I enjoy my collaborative works. Writing is a solitary profession, so sharing the experience with someone who knows *exactly* what you are doing is fantastic.

2) In the 80′s, you wrote a ‘choose your own adventure’ set in the ‘Pern’ universe. How difficult did you find that sort of project compared to novel-writing?

I wrote two Pern “Crossroads” adventures, Dragonharper and Dragonfire, for TOR Books. Since I was already experienced in writing game materials (for Mayfair Games), I had only to incorporate that discipline into my writing. The greatest challenge was to make certain that Anne’s fans would be satisfied with my presentation of her world and her characters. I love her work, so I was very respectful of it. I have been told by readers that the books worked for them, both as games and as novels. I still have the charts showing the story progression and the various unsuccessful outcomes of the adventures.

3) What has been your favourite project to date?

I can’t pick one favourite. I’ve just turned in a book that I have wanted to write for years, a sort of Jeeves and Wooster in space (View From the Imperium, coming in 2011 from Baen Books). But I also love my Mythology books, which are light and funny and positive. I had a blast doing Strong Arm Tactics, a humorous military SF novel. I am very proud of the work that I’ve done on the Myth-Adventures with Robert Asprin.

4) If you could invite any three authors to tea, who would they be and why?

Terry Pratchett, Mark Twain and Dorothy L. Sayers. I love writers who can catch me off guard and make me laugh — or make me think. There’s a good deal of collective wisdom in these writers’ books. All of them understand the human condition in a way that I envy and hope to be able to emulate one day. It would take paragraphs to describe what I love about these writers, but their work means a lot to me as a writer and a reader.

I’ve left out dozens of other writers whom I admire and would also like to have to tea. Can’t I make it a large garden party instead?

5) I’ve heard of different authors having a strict writing regime that they stick to. Do you tend to follow a timetable or do you find it better to write only when you’re in the right frame of mind?

As a working writer I have to make my frame of mind right. I hit the keyboard in the morning right after I feed the cats and make my morning cocoa, anywhere from 5:00 to 10:00 AM. If I have not started working by 11 AM, I step away from the manuscript and do other things, such as taking care of my files. I never look at my e-mail in the morning, or I will do no work. Once I get going, I try to stay at the keyboard until I reach a natural ending, such as a scene or a chapter, or the end of a short story. If I have to stop, I try to follow CJ Cherryh’s suggestion to leave a cliffhanger to come back to. That makes me eager to jump back into the story and finish that part. In any case, I am usually finished writing about 4:00 in the afternoon.

When I am very close to finishing a book, the story itself drives me. I keep going until I can’t stay awake, sleep for just a few hours, then go on, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day.

6) What are your views on the e-book Vs paper book debate?

I think e-books are part of the future of literature. I do think that there will always be physical books. As each electronic system is superseded by better technology, a lot of material will be lost as unrecoverable pixels. I can’t find anyone who can read my old Apple IIg disks from ten years ago, yet, we have paper or parchment books that are hundreds of years old.

That’s not to say that I dislike e-books. Some of my work is already being sold in electronic format. I am necessarily concerned with the piracy issue. I would love to embrace e-books wholeheartedly, but I need to be paid for my work. I have no problem with the Creative Commons license, and will probably release some stories in the future under it, but the rest can’t be free for the taking. Pirate copies hurt everyone. A fair commercial system needs to be established and supported. I think that the music industry set a very poor standard by waiting so long to create an e-music model that people got used to downloading any albums or songs they wanted for free. Literature, which makes a tiny fraction of the money, can’t afford that sharp a learning curve. I think we’re getting there, though.

E-books also provide a market, free or otherwise, for up and coming writers who can’t find a place in the print market. It’s been a great boon to both readers and writers.

I think e-book readers and audio books are terrific. They are just perfect for people who are going on a trip and don’t want to fill their suitcases with chunks of paper. For a week away my husband and I have a minimum of six books apiece, one for each plane or train ride, and four in between, not to mention newspapers and magazines. We were just given an e-book reader, and I have been playing with it. The next time we have a holiday, I’ll load it up. As an SF fan myself, I am eager to try out futuristic gadgets. Who knows? It may give me some ideas.

To find out more about Jody Lynn Nye, click on the handy link HERE and be taken to her website. Alternatively, you can follow her on Twitter HERE. (Aren’t I nice, saving you all that trouble?)

In other news, I keep wondering when my summer is going to start. Granted, I’ve managed to keep I.Q. ticking over and whatnot, but it isn’t the same as being able to put a lot of time and effort into developing the site, and I miss the simple things…like tinkering with CSS codes and getting stressed that the layout won’t go just so. (Alright, so perhaps not so much of the latter, but I’m sure you get my meaning, dear reader). I decided to take some time-out today on doing a few menial tasks such as deleting all the spam comments we’ve been getting recently. -Sighs- At some point, people will learn that administrators have the final say when it comes to sites like this. All comments have to be approved by yours truly.

Oh, and our Facebook Group now has 100 members. I’m very tempted to hold a competition to get even more members. Of course, the ‘prize’ will most likely be book tokens (how cliche!) but at this stage, it’d probably be the most cost-effective way of getting new readers. That and Twitter, of course.

Dear summer, I’m ready when you are.