Joseph, just fifteen and alone in the land known at Getfen, awakens to an attack on the Great House in which he is visiting. Narrowly escaping with his life but still pursued by enemies who wish to see him killed, Joseph must journey across a dark, unfamiliar world in his quest to return to his home of Helikis…and his father. He has thousands of miles to travel and much to learn, about this perilous alien world in transition, and about himself.

“What the greatly changed Joseph might find at the end of his journey, and how he might react, are questions that I came to care deeply about.” — New York Times Book Review

“One of the world’s finest stylists and storytellers.” — San Antonio Express-News

A New York Times Notable Book

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A coming-of-age story set on a distant planet…., Silverberg masterfully conveys the reality of death, and all of the emotional pain and ethical conflict that such a choice presents to a person of conscience. At the end of Joseph’s journey, readers will be left wondering how he will deal with the dilemma of being in charge of a social system that he now understands cannot last. This engaging, entertaining book is a fast read with many thoughtful themes.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc

From Library Journal
The latest novel by sf veteran and master raconteur Silverberg (The Majipoor Chronicles) relates the coming-of-age of a young man raised in luxury who learns resilience and compassion in the face of adversity. A good choice for most sf and YA collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This legal travesty may at long last be reversed. A bill is making its way through Britain’s Parliament “is intended to abolish costly trials by jury in most libel cases, curb online defamation through a new notice and takedown procedure, reduce so-called ‘libel tourism’ and make it more difficult for large corporations to sue newspapers.”

Not just newspapers: “The bill will rebalance the law to ensure that people who have been defamed are able to protect their reputation, but that free speech and freedom of expression are not unjustifiably impeded by actual or threatened libel proceedings,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice.

Details in Queen’s speech launches overhaul of libel law (guardian.co.uk)

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published by Digital Book World as What is So Fair as a Libel Suit in May?

Hmm.  $5.7 billion sounds like a lot, actually. Enough to drop the company’s value to about 3% of Apple’s.

Sony is the company that brought you the Walkman and the PlayStation. And the Sony eReader.  What is going to become of our poor dear Sony eReader?

Though it never remotely competed with Amazon’s Kindle and has been surpassed in popularity by the B&N Nook, Apple’s iPad and even Kobo’s eReader, it has held steadfast for the six years since its introduction and remains a viable electronic reading device.

The company has a new chief who is giving 10,000 employees pink slips and implementing other cost-cutting measures which have emboldened him to predict ¥8.5 trillion in sales in the next two years, according to Reuters.  Now that sounds pretty impressive.  Surely there will be a few yen of profit to sustain Sony’s eReader.

We hope so.  We’re fond of it, and we need someone to compete with the big boys.

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published by Digital Book World as Sony on the Ropes. Will eReader Survive?

A new question about one state in the union will be posted every Monday. The
winner will be drawn at random and announced every Friday. All winners will
receive the novel set in that state and will be entered to win a grand prize at the end
of the summer: a designer case for your Kindle, Nook, or other electronic e-reading
device.

Visit us on Monday for the first question!

In showrooming, customers enter a retail store and, when they have located the product they’re shopping for, walk out, go home and purchase the item on the Internet at a lower price.  Some shoppers simply scan the barcode of the production in the store and order it online on the spot. This in effect makes the brick and mortar store a mere showroom for customers to examine products they have no intention of buying there. Last Christmas Amazon actually promoted the practice, outraging alarming and outraging many stores and store chains. We know of at least one publisher that fought back by discontinuing distribution of its books on Amazon.

The latest objector is Target, the giant retail store chain. Executives, reacting to what they perceived as showrooming of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, informed Amazon they would no longer carry it.

Though Amazon sells most of its Kindles on its own website, many customers like to examine them physically, just as they may now do with Kindle’s rival, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which may be “road-tested” by customers in B&N’s brick and mortar bookstore.  Recognizing consumers’ natural impulse to touch, Amazon began distributing Kindles in big retail chains.

It’s hard to predict what impact Target’s action will have on Kindle sales.  With nearly 1,770 stores in 49 states and gross revenues of $65 billion, boycott of a product by Target can have some seriously detrimental impact on any supplier. More ominously, if Staples, Best Buy and Wal-Mart, which also sell Kindles, see themselves as showrooming victims and follow Target’s lead, it could put a crimp in Amazon’s sales – and its image.

For the complete story read Target, Unhappy With Being an Amazon Showroom, Will Stop Selling Kindles by Stephanie Clifford and Julie Bosman in the New York Times.

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published on Digital Book World as Target Targets Amazon as Showrooming Enabler

Birthday greetings to E-Reads' Technical Director

Richard Curtis

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My Dear Miss Klimstrock,

I’m writing to tender an apology for my intemperate outburst in response to your email greeting me as “Hey, Pat.”  I have been aware for some time that the Internet tends to dissolve formalities but I did not realize that things had progressed quite so far.

I assure you that I usually have far better control over my impulses but perhaps you can appreciate that, given my title and social position, I am accustomed to being addressed Milord or Sir. In the circles in which I was raised, familiarity by peers and indeed even intimate friends is considered shockingly vulgar. Thus, to be addressed “Hey” by a perfect stranger was so alien to my fundamental sense of respect and dignity that I momentarily forgot that the civilized ladies and gentlemen who once populated the publishing profession have been replaced by ignorant and uncouth ragamuffins who speak to one another in grunts, slang and monosyllabic code and send texts in incomprehensible shorthand. I would not have guessed, however, that such liberties are now extended to authors and perfect strangers.

I hasten to assure you that these derogatory remarks are not directed at you specifically, Miss Klimstrock. I also wish to make it clear that I am not reacting spitefully to your rejection of my submission, though I confess that the crudeness of your expression and illiteracy of your spelling and grammar did fuel the rage that compelled me to write my regrettably childish outburst of spleen before I could gain control of my emotions.

Hard as it is, I know I must reconcile myself to the common parlance of the modern world. I realize that we no longer live in an age when we saluted our correspondents with such phrases as “Your Excellency” and Esteemed Madame” or even “Dear Author” and I will endeavor to adjust to the usages of the 21 century, however offensive they may be to the well-bred.

I will remit a cheque for the return of my manuscript.

Believe me to be very truly yours,

Patrick Marley-Clockbridge, Third Earl of Crumfleath

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This blog post was originally published on Digital Book World as The Decline and Fall of the English Salutation

In Fair Warning America is set to finally end World War II with a devastating act–dropping the atomic bomb over Japan. But what if a secret mission was set in place to alter the course of history? In this fast-paced and imaginative thriller, the authors strike a brilliant chord between what was, and what might have been.

It is July 1945. Germany has surrendered, and the U.S. is poised for one last surge against the Japanese. Under pressure from both the press and the Washington politicos, Secretary of War Henry Stimson launches a mission so secret, not even the President knows. Dubbed Operation Big Stick, it is a subversive plot to warn the Japanese and get them to surrender. Charged with leading the daring mission is Captain Patrick Snyder, an impulsive, smart-talking intelligence officer, who fears what failure will bring, not only to himself, but to the entire world.

Stay tuned at E-Reads for news of other thrillers by this remarkable team.

Then he found a new fascination, charismatic, classy, fashionable and rich. He succumbed to her irresistible allure. Only one question remained: Would he throw his first love over?

This is the metaphor that may have occurred to some Amazon-watchers when they read that the behemoth retailer is launching an initiative in the high-end clothing business that resonates with its original efforts to revolutionize publishing.

“Having wounded the publishing industry, slashed pricing in electronics and made the toy industry quiver,” Stephanie Clifford wrote in the New York Times, ”Amazon is taking on the high-end clothing business in its typical way: go big and spare no expense…In the retail clothing world, fears are growing that few will be able to compete with a stepped-up Amazon.”

Though we in the book industry consider our little corner of the media to be glamorous, compared to the fashion field it is lackluster, unsophisticated and impecunious. Looking at it through the eyes of a shrewd businessman, the profit margin on high-end sales – even with free shipping and returning – beggar those of the book industry.”Gross profit dollars per unit will be much higher on a fashion item,”said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the shrewdest businessmen on the face of the Earth. Bezos was Honorary Chairman at the glam opening of a classic costume exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. See New York Social Diary for photos of him with Vogue fashionista empress Anna Wintour.

Will the more precious commodity drive the cheaper one of Bezos’s attentions and affections? Keeping our Eternal Triangle metaphor in mind, read the Times‘s article and judge for yourself. Amazon Leaps Into High End of the Fashion Pool

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published on Digital Book World as Will Amazon Grow Bored with Publishing?

On a January afternoon in 1893, men hunkered down behind sandbagged emplacements in the streets of Honolulu, with rifles, machine guns and cannon ready to open fire. Troops and police loyal to the queen of the sovereign nation of Hawaii faced off against a small number of rebel Honolulu businessmen–American, British, German, and Australian. In between them stood hundreds of heavily armed US sailors and marines. Just after 2.00 p.m., the first shot was fired, and a military coup began.

This is the true, tragic and at times amazing story of the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii and her government. It’s also the story of a five-year police state regime in Hawaii following the overthrow, and an attempted counter-coup by Hawaiians in 1895. And of how Hawaii became a US possession.

In Taking Hawaii, award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins (Standing Bear is a Person, Legions of Rome, Tycoon’s War) reveals previously little-known facts uncovered during years of research on several continents, in the most dramatic and comprehensive chronicle of the end of Hawaii’s monarchy ever published. Using scores of first-hand accounts, this often minute-by-minute narrative also shows for the first time how the queen’s overthrow teetered on a knife-edge, only to come about purely through bluff.

Taking Hawaii reads like an exciting novel. Yet this tale of a grab for power, of misjudgment and injustice, truly took place. Judge for yourself whether you think the queen of Hawaii was wronged, or was wrong.

Visit the Stephen Dando-Collins website for a complete list of dramatic histories of Roman Legions and other distinguished nonfiction works.  And for an inspiring fictional tale of a Roman investigator on whose judgment the success or doom of the cult known as Christianity depended, you must read The Inquest.

No no no, you dimwit, not those loins!

A confession.

Like anybody else launching a writing career, I was not very particular about what I wrote as long as I got paid for it.  That is why I wrote half a dozen sex novels. They were a great way to learn fictional skills, they paid well, the publisher never asked for editorial fixes, and as long as I did not cross certain lines of taste the publisher would accept everything I produced. In those days that line was No Explicit Body Parts, No Clinical Terms for Intercourse, and No Dirty Words. That’s why sex novels in those days were weak tea compared to the hot erotica in even the average romance published today.  I was so good at writing sex scenes that I was occasionally asked by the publisher to “sex up” a drab and unimaginative scene written by another author.

For that reason, I feel confident that it will be no loss for me to pass up the opportunity to attend the Creative Writing in the 21st Century conference  this coming weekend in Toronto, where one of the presentations is entitled “He put his what, where? Or: How to teach students to write plausible sex scenes, prevent them from winning the Bad Sex Fiction Award, while not suffering from fear, alarm, dread, or embarrassment in the process.”.

Quill & Quire interviewed the pair (both female) of creative writing teachers conducting the course, and you will find the Q&A candid and refreshingly funny.

For instance, asked what inspired them to broach the delicate topic of scx scenes in their class, they replied “I think the trigger for us was the contest for the worst sex scene. There are so many writers that I admire who write terrible sex scenes. A lot of them, even if they’re not violent or offensive, are just really boring: he put his thing there, and she stroked this, he moaned, and he said, ‘Oh baby, baby.’”

For the complete interview click on Creative writing Q&A: Nicole Markotic on the delicate art of teaching sex scenes.

And if you don’t remember what contest they’re talking about, read Bad Sex Award Is Coming.  Oh God Oh God Yes Yes Yes It’s Coming!

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published on Digital Book World as Are Your Loins Churning Yet?