Essay rec: the components of reader response to a book

Janet at the romance blog Dear Author has posted an excellent essay discussing the three main strands that go into a reader’s reactions to a book (correctness, style and taste), noting that only one of these is objective, and considering how that can lead to misunderstandings in online discussions.

The subject is something I’ve often seen discussed in fanfic circles, which has a whole critical vocabulary to indicate stories/books which have a high score on one aspect but a low score on another. But this is one of the best single-post discussions of the subject that I can remember seeing, and while it’s written from a romance reader’s perspective, it does not rely on prior knowledge of any particular fiction genre or fandom in-group knowledge. The comment thread has some good discussion as well. If you’re interested in meta, you may well find this an interesting read regardless of your preferred genre.

Best pen review ever

I occasionally read pen porn, i.e. geeky reviews of pens I know in my heart I’m never going to buy, but I can still fantasise about. Having lost a bookmark for a blog, I was trying to Google it, and found a link to the best pen review ever. The Amazon reviewers have been having a little… fun… with the “Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, Medium Point, Black” review section.

Book review: PD James — Unnatural Causes

Third book in the Adam Dalgliesh series. Dalgliesh needs a break, partly to recover from his last case and partly to think over his relationship with Deborah Riscoe. As is his habit, he goes to stay for a few days with his Aunt Jane, who lives in a small, remote coastal settlement populated mostly by writers. Naturally, he finds murder even in Monksmere.

In this case, Dalgliesh is not only not the investigating officer, but not officially involved in the case other than as a witness and relative/aquaintance of the suspects. But as someone with inside knowledge of the community and a direct connection, he can’t but help but be involved with the local police as they attempt to solve the case.

It’s all too clear that the only plausible suspects are the inhabitants of Monksmere, but that doesn’t stop them trying to find some way to first deny that there has been a murder, and then that it is one of their number who was responsible. James carefully shows the differing and often eccentric personalities, the ways in which they manage to live in a sometimes uneasy tolerance of each other in a very small community, and the effect the murder has upon those relationships. With the victim being a writer of detective stories, and all the suspects being writers, there are multiple levels of meta going on.

I found the book an enjoyable read, though flawed in places. But it’s far from her best work, and even if you don’t like this one it would be worth trying one of the later books. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the book was written in 1967, and social changes since then could make the book feel dated and implausible if you’re not aware of this.

Unnatural Causes at Amazon UK
at Play
Unnatural Causes (Adam Dagliesh Mystery Series #3) at Amazon US
at Powell’s
LibraryThing entry
Also available in audiobook format at audio.com

May book log

Ebooks in May:

Finished reading the third and fourth books in the Time Traders series by Andre Norton, having read the first two books and started the third in April. All four books are out of copyright and available as legal free downloads on Project Gutenberg and mirrors. This is the complete set of the original series written in the 50s and 60, although some co-authored books were added many years later.

Andre Norton — The Gifts of Asti. Short story available from Project Gutenberg, briefly reviewed here.

Elizabeth Bear — Shoggoths in Bloom. Novelette which I received as part of the Hugo Voters Packet, a collection of electronic editions of many of the works nominated for the Hugo Awards, made available to voting members of this year’s Worldcon. It’s also available as a free download at Bear’s website. Hard to review without giving away too much about it. It’s a moral fable riffing off Lovecraft. I admire the technical skill, and liked the story, but found myself feeling a little colder about it than I might have expected given the skill and subject matter. I think this is at least in part because I’m not into Lovecraft — it’s sufficiently well executed that I’m not excluded from the story, but I’m sure there’s stuff I’m simply not getting. I’m also Not American, and I think this does have some influence when it comes to a visceral reaction to some of the subject matter.

Print books read in May:

Only one completed. Wandered into the remainder bookshop, and wandered out again with the hardback of the latest Dalziel and Pascoe novel, “A Cure For All Diseases” which I *had* been leaving until it came out in paperback because I hadn’t expected to find time to read it. Sat down and read it that weekend, with much enjoyment.

Started a re-read of “Unnatural Causes”, the third book in the Dalgliesh series by PD James.

I usually put links to Amazon on my book log, for the benefit of people who think, “I’d like to read that.” I am now torn on this. Amazon have annoyed me once too often, and I really don’t want to give them any more custom than I can help. On the other hand, I have always tried to offer multiple sources for stuff I pimp, especially when I’ve been doing some price comparison, and as far as I can tell nobody has ever bought something through any of the other links other than one episode of buying DVDs from Play, while I get one or two sales a month through Amazon. They also have the click-through stats available, so I can see how many people found the link interesting enough to visit, and I can see that a fair number of people do find the links worthwhile even if they don’t buy anything. At ten or twenty quid a year I’m not doing it for the money, but it is nice to know whether people find the links useful. So no direct links this month, but I’m going to have to think about this a bit harder.

More stuff in the Hugo voting packet

Yes, I’m slow posting this. It’s been a long week at work. Anyway, Scalzi posted a few days ago to say that more stuff has been added to the Hugo voting packet, so you now have even more incentive to buy a supporting membership for Worldcon should you not have already done so.

book log: Andre Norton — The Gifts of Asti

Short story originally published under the “Andrew North” pseudonym, now out of copyright. Nice little short about the last priestess of a god with both genuine power and an implied policy of non-interference. As invaders take the city below, the priestess and her non-human colleague take the back door out of the mountain temple, and find themselves on a strange path to a strange place of safety.

With this being a short story, the world-building isn’t to the same depth as in one of the novels, but Norton was adept at implying things with a few words. This has a number of Norton’s favourite themes presented in miniature, and is well worth a read if you’re a fan.

The text is available from Project Gutenberg and mirrors. The Gutenberg text is also available as a public domain audiobook at the LibriVox project, in both mp3 format and Ogg Vorbis format. The audiobook is about 41 minutes long and read by Mark Nelson. (You can find both the text and the Ogg Vorbis file mirrored at Wikisource.) I listened to the first ten minutes or so, and thought that it was an enjoyable performance.

Book log: Reginald Hill — A Cure for All Diseases

I’ve somehow buggered up my tendons again, so I’m not going to feel guilty about not writing or doing housework. What I actually spent the day doing was reading the latest Dalziel and Pascoe. Liked it muchly. I should probably find a copy of Sanditon and read that, then go back and re-read the D&P.

April book log

I’d put off doing the monthly book log roundup because I was hoping to have reviews of individual books to link to, but reviews did not happen last weekend (because I turned out a couple of thousand words of WIP instead) and won’t be happening this weekend (because the flat is a mess of unfiled books and papers beyond even my slobbish tolerance and I’ll be spending the day cleaning and tidying). So herewith the list of books read in April. You will note a certain theme. This is because I downloaded everything by Norton which was available on feedbooks, and have been enjoying myself working through them.

All by Andre Norton, all available as legal free downloads from Project Gutenberg and mirrors such as feedbooks:

Plague Ship and Voodoo Planet, the second and third titles from the Solar Queen series about a young trainee spaceman aboard a Free Trader spaceship. The first two Solar Queen books were major comfort reads for me when I was a kid, so I was a little bit worried about whether Plague Ship would stand up to scrutiny [mumble] years on. But it’s still enormous fun. Voodoo Planet is novella length, and one I’d only read once or twice before. Good read, although I think wouldn’t have hooked me the way the first two did if I hadn’t already known the characters. Now I want to go and read Sargasso of Space and Postmarked the Stars again.

Ralestone Luck, a 1930s pulp novel which was contemporary fiction in its day and period fiction now. Two brothers and a sister, almost the last of a titled family descended from an English aristocrat who turned pirate and fled to the New Orleans area. The once-wealthy family fell on hard times a couple of generations back, but the siblings feel that if they can find the Ralestone Luck, luck will return to the Ralestones. It was apparently the first novel she wrote (though the second published), and it shows. It’s definitely Norton’s style, and the writing is competent enough for it to be readable, but it *is* a 1930s pulp YA with some flaws in the execution. There’s a touch of white privilege which made me twitch, probably the more so because I don’t expect that from Norton. I’m glad I read it, but I’m also glad I didn’t pay to read it.

Started the Time Traders series. In April I read The Time Traders and Galactic Derelicts, and started The Defiant Agents (the only one I think I’ve read before). Since then I’ve finished The Defiant Agents and Key Out of Time, completing the original series of four books written in the 1950s and 60s. (Another three books were added forty years later, and are shown as co-authored — context suggests that they’re probably share-cropped titles rather than genuinely co-authored. I’d still be willing to read them if I came across them, because the share-cropped and authorised fanfic material in Norton’s worlds which I’ve read has generally been very good.)

The Time Traders sequence is set very firmly during the Cold War, and shows the adventures of a small team of government agents working on a secret time travel project, exploring through time to find the source of odd leaps in Soviet technology, and then using the technology they find themselves. Enjoyed this series.

Review: Cult Pens webshop

I stumbled over the Cult Pens website a couple of years ago when I was looking for a mail order source for my beloved Pentel R56 rollerballs. I promptly bookmarked it for future use, but hadn’t got around to ordering anything from them until a couple of weeks ago.

They stock a *lot* of different pens and pencils. More to the point, they stock the refills and accessories for them as well. You can buy both singly and by the box. The site has plenty of information on each line stocked, usually with their own commentary and not just the blurb from the manufacturer. It is obvious from the commentary that this place is run by pen geeks.

The sheer number of product lines makes navigating the site a slightly daunting task, but it’s well laid out into sections by manufacturer, and there is a useful interactive selection guide where you can put in the features you want and what you intend to use it for, and get back recommendations. There are also very good articles on mechanical pencils and technical pens, with an in-depth look at the different types and features, and recommendations for different uses at price brackets ranging from budget to extravagant.

The prices are shown both with and without VAT. UK shipping is simple — if your order is under 10 pounds, it’s 1.50, over that it’s free. They also ship internationally, with VAT deducted where appropriate.

The prices are reasonable, but generally not hugely cheap. I’m fairly sure I could have got most of the things I ordered a little bit cheaper by shopping around. But the advantage of using this site was that I could get everything at one site, all at a reasonable price, with clear information that let me decide whether it would do the job I wanted it for. I ordered 8 individual items and one box of a dozen black R50 rollerballs (which were in the Office Essentials, a small selection of nice office pens on heavy discount).

The shopping basket is reasonably easy to use. One thing I particularly liked was that I could leave it for a couple of hours, come back, and find the basket still there. I find it annoying when a basket times out after ten minutes or so — this is a security precaution which is useful when you have to sign into an account before you start shopping, but is simply a nuisance when the site doesn’t have any of your personal information until you actually check out. The main payment method is debit or credit card, but you can also generate an order from the basket and then select “cheque” as payment method if you want to pay by post using UK cheque or postal order.

I ordered on Sunday evening, received a clear and detailed delivery note with full UK VAT receipt by email immediately, and my parcel was with me on Tuesday morning via first class post. The items were packed loose in an appropriately sized bubble mailer, without any padding inside the envelope, along with a paper copy of the delivery note. I’d hope that more expensive items would have a bit more protection, but for the items I’d ordered this was fine.

I like this site, and will be ordering from them again. The only problem is the sheer amount of temptation one has to resist.

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

I was too tired last night to edit and upload something, so nothing new this morning. I may get a chance tonight, but am not promising anything. In the meantime, there are already quite a few free pieces on my website, including my first profic novel series, and a couple of shorts from a current series.

http://julesjones.com/fiction/downloads.html