Slashdot Mirror
Reflecting Fires
In times past great powers ruled the world, but left the for the 'Stardome', taking everyone's dreams with them. The 'Bright Mechanics' (magic) are in favour and the ruling elite do their best to suppress the 'Dark Mechanics' (science). As time passes the Bright Mechanics powers slowly wane as the Dark Mechanics flower. Fusils (fire arms), and other Dark Mechanics are just too useful. Cardinal Skye, the last of the truly powerful Adepts is not at all happy with this, and plots to use an ancient prophesy to turn the tide back in favour of the Bright Mechanics. But Skye isn't the only one plotting, and events take turns that no one expects.
Mr. Claburn has created an interesting and complete alternate world somewhat reminiscent of feudal Europe. There are Nobles with armies who scheme and plot, the Adepts who wield great personal power, and the followers of Helion. The Adepts, masters of the Bright Mechanics, play an active role in politics and war - sometime with and sometimes against the Nobles' causes. The great Adepts are feared and powerful figures who can influence great events with a few words. The church of Helion uses its influence in much more subtle ways, promoting peace and thoughtful meditation. The nobles and Adepts both seek the favour of Helion to lend their activities the glow of righteousness. Of course there is a huge underclass that does all the toiling, and a less numerous middles class of merchants and artisans. It is the middles class that is promoting the rise of the Dark Mechanics and their useful arts. And there is one more, mysterious, group called the Eclectics. The Eclectics are feared and reviled by the ruling powers as obscene monsters - half human, half machine. The Eclectics plans are unknown, but they wield fearsome mastery of the Dark Mechanics.
The book is well plotted. The story moves forward quickly with interesting and surprising twists as it goes. There are a number of political factions who react convincingly to the events of the story. Action, personal daring, quiet bravery, and backroom politics all help propel the story forward. The story covers about 30 years, and follows a few main characters over this period in detail. This is a cusp point for this society. The powers of the Adepts and their Bright Mechanics are waning, but the Adepts are doing their best to hide this fact. The once completely banned Dark Mechanics are becoming more and more tolerable as the devices created become more useful. Even the most old-fashioned Noble can see the use of firearms.
The Nobles are starting to embrace the Dark Mechanics to get an advantage over the Adepts, but events are accelerated when a young boy fulfils an ancient prophecy. Now, each faction is trying take advantage of the prophecy while the Eclectics slowly move forward their more patient plots. Events seem to sweeping everyone aside, but is someone still bending things to conform to a grand scheme?
Events leap forward at the beginning of the book, and this leads to one of the minor flaws in the story. Sometimes things leap forward too fast and leave you wishing you were able to read more details. At one point a character goes from young girl, to wife of a powerful political figure with no intervening events. It left me wondering how this man courted and won this strong willed girl. Did he just order her to marry? Did he seduce her with power, or was it true love (at first)? We are left wondering. This problem only happens two or three times in the beginning chapters. The last two thirds of the book move along at a more satisfying pace, and explore the characters and their lives in a fair amount of depth.
The language, to better suit the period, is sometimes flowery in its description, and formal in speech. I enjoyed the writer's style and use of language. The main characters are generally well rounded and stay in character. They sometime do surprising things, but you are never left thinking that 'they would never do that'. I did sometimes wish the novel was a bit longer and took more time exploring the characters lives.
The theme of the book can be read many ways, but to me it explored the lengths that the people currently in power will go to, to remain in power. Those in power want to stay in power, and aren't shy about exerting their influence to stay on top. Huge amounts of effort are expended to protect the status quo even when there are strong signs that a new order might be more profitable for both those in power and their subjects.
The decisions that the prejudices that people have ingrained into them by a lifetime of both overt and subtle teachings are also explored. Sometimes this can lead to self enlightenment, but too often it leads to squalid hate. Don't let this make you think the novel is preachy. It isn't. These things are drawn out in the natural course of the story, and simply add an interesting subtext to the action.
All in all, this novel proves that high quality novels are available outside of the normal distribution channels.
You can purchase Reflecting Fires from Xlibris or Amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'm sure the Book Industry Association of America will begin legal proceedings to shut down this independant source of material soon enough. Go about your business... Nothing to see here...
You've heard of the web service that will advertise anyone's book for a reasonable fee (or free in this case), but wondered if any of the books are worth buying?
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
The story talks about Xlibris, which is probably much more interesting than this one particular book.. Then at the end they say you can buy it at Xlibris or Amazon but only Amazon has a link. Gee, how much do you want to bet that Xlibris doesn't have a commission program? /. - News for nerds, commisions for website owners.
Mix of Fantasy, satire, sci-fi, etc. Terry Pratchett's Night Watch is due out, November 4th. The US edition has the customary hideous cover art, where the UK version (which I've already ordered) has the decent cover art.
If you're at all considering self-publishing your own book, No Media Kings is a must-read. Jim Munroe describes how to take on the publishing giants, drawing from his experience in self-publishing two comedy/sci-fi novels and a number of zines.
Even if you're not game for that, Munroe has an old-school text adventure game called PunkPoints and some video shorts in his "I like to make tiny movies" section, it's worth a look.
Also, some bricks-and-mortar bookstores won't bother to carry your book unless it's on Amazon, so it's good to know that Amazon.com allows you to sell online by consignment through their Advantage program.
Is it all done with smoke and mirrors?
--
Karma: Chameleon (you come and go)
http://www1.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp? bookid=12036
sig: account ID/PassWd forgotten in the vastness of time
We "know" what's good in music and books, because it's stuff we hear on the radio or see on the shelves in stores, stuff by our favorite artists and authors.
But how do you tell with an unknown or an indie, where the industry hasn't shoved it into your face, or where it's too diffuse for word of mouth?
I enjoy the format of CDBaby, with sorting by genre, reviews, "If you like this, you might also like..." and most of all, samples. (Sabbatum - Black Sabbath visits the 14th century, in Latin) I wish there were more of this, especially site-neutral reviews.
Seeing something like this on the publishing front is welcome.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I don't want to sound like a troll, but $18 for a paperback?! $8 for an ebook?! I realize there are significant costs involved in the publishing process, so self-publishing undoubtedly costs more, but good lord!
The whole point of an ebook is to eliminate the major portion of the cost of publishing. And yet, the price is still $8.
Remember when cheap pulp paperbacks were actually cheap?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
There might be some sort of barbarism scenario like that in the future, seeing how wealth continues to polarize and concentrate in the top 1% of the US population while the third world poor breed out of control, thanks to the Pope.
If there was a cheap way to print out books other than sneaking into your local community college, since even laptops glare very badly in the sun, these might be worth reading. You will get pretty bad eyestrain reading an entire novel on the computer, though it's not bad for single-sitting things like Edgar Allen Poe.
The charge of a book should be more for the materials cost, since data -- especially text -- can be copied for absolute pennies, and could have been even back in the days of floppy disk sneakernet. Paperback is still the way to go for buying books until very cheap book reproduction can be done, or until we run out of trees.
----
Are you a Mallcore Kid? If so, kill yourself.
..since none of his other peers will. He's daring to venture into a brave new world, a world which prevents me from curling up on a couch with a nice dead tree and a cup of coffee. Ah well, maybe they'll invent flexible laptops, so if I fall asleep and roll over onto one, it won't break.
;)
:P
But I must say, self/web publishing is the final straw before utter defeat. If this guy is as good as the reviewer makes him sound (Going to read it eventually, blah di blah!), he shouldn't have had any problems getting dead tree published.
By 'shouldn't have had any problems', I of course mean, 'should have gotten about three dozen rejection letters, pulled out his hair, and then got a letter that he had to reread ten times to be sure of its contents'.
The publishing industry is a lot like the tech market right now. If you send out something to a publisher (or a resume to an employer) and get accepted instantly, congratulations - it's most likely a fluke. Just as employers are swamped with resumes, publishers are swamped with 'the great American novel' - and they'll do anything to reduce the stack of paper in their inboxes. The publishing industry judges books by their cover, so to speak, just as that Human Resources chap will toss your resume into the shredder if you use 'there' instead of 'their'.
Anyway, if you're any good with computers and hang in there, you'll get a job somewhere. It's the same way with publishing - there's tons of houses out there. You've just got to get lucky and wait for the right person to read your submission.
Well, now that I've pointlessly bitched about a topic that doesn't concern the great masses of Slashdot, I'm going to go read this story. I hope it's not terribly good, I want my dead trees and soft couches for years to come.
While I can see the point of self-publishing for non-mainstream material, I would have thought any book worth publishing (and worth being read by others) would be picked up by a proper paper publisher - if they think the work can succeed, then they will want to make money from it.
If it was any good and the author had gone to the same effort to find an agent etc as it would take to organise self-publishing, then we'd be able to buy the book through regular sources - for a regular price - and it would probably enjoy greater success.
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
Anybody have this in PDF format yet? I can't find it on Kazaa. :-)
Yes, that was meant to be funny. Go away you self righteous oafs.
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
That comment certainly has an air of cynicism about it. Does the reviewer or /. have a conflict of interest in reviewing this book? If not, then I would think this is a regular book review, just like any other that appears on /.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Nothing but sex, sex, sex from start to finish.
There's something wrong with that??
Homer: Facts are meaningless, you can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!
A book doesn't have to be bad to be rejected, there are plenty of poorly written novels published every year. You just have to appear poorly marketable.
Publishers aren't looking for "good" they're looking for "marketable". They're often the same, but not always.
With regard to the price, I agree it's too high. That's the one of the main problems with Xlibris: The otherwise fair contract, which grants the author all rights, lets Xlibris set prices without consulting the author. The reason for that is that Xlibris is set up to make money off of authors rather than readers. A friend of mine recently published his own novel as well and I suggested that he avoid print-on-demand. By using a traditional printer and a short run of 1000 or so books, he can price his books around $14 and still make a decent profit. I get about $2 per book sold at Amazon...Amazon and Xlibris get the rest.
With regard to the post, "Self publishing could be a sign of bad quality" that's true, unfortunately. I like to think Reflecting Fires is among the exceptions because I make a living as a writer and editor. Still, that's not really my call to make. But also note that the primary consideration of publishers is not quality but commercial potential. The state of the publising industry is beyond the scope of this post, but for those interested, check out Holt Uncensored. Here's a quote from one of her newsletters...
Thanks for listening.
Thomas Claburn
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.
Is why they didn't offer a service matching Indie bands to your favorite "known" musician.
For a small fee, an Indie band should have been able to post their music to Napster (for the initial downloads, P2P afterwards) and list their music in a search database as being, "Genre: Soft Pop; Similar Artists: Sarah McLaughlin, Jewel"
Then people would do searches for Indie bands that are like Jewel, and they would get a list of bands that were like that.
You could even have a rating system were listeners then say, no, they aren't really Jewel-like, they're more Sting like.
That way people will be exposed to Indie music that is "like" their current muscial preferences.
Doing this would be huge. Good thing I have the whole idea patented.
- adam
There might be some sort of barbarism scenario like that in the future, seeing how wealth continues to polarize and concentrate in the top 1% of the US population while the third world poor breed out of control, thanks to the Pope....blahblahblah...run out of trees...blahblahblahblah.
You should read less fiction, since you obviously believe everything you read.
A few years ago, I published a novel with Xlibris. I don't know that I would do it again, but it hasn't been a bad experience. At the time, the entry level publishing cost nothing. Only if you wanted to choose your own cover, or have your book available in hardback did you have to pay. I don't think that's the case anymore. I wouldn't have done it if it cost anything at all. Something about paying for publication strikes me as... Well, it's like paying for cable. Why bother when a splitter off your neighbor's line works fine?
For any prospective writers out there, Xlibris isn't a bad choice, but it's not a good one either. At one point they unilaterally decided to make author payments into a convenient e-cash thing instead of actual cash. ("You can use your whatever.com card at hundreds of participating locations!") Thanks. They reversed this and I've always received payment by check.
Over the years, I have done absolutely no promotion of my novel, and sales have been very poor. It may be because it's just not worth buying, but you can read the whole thing online. (See my sig).
If anyone wants more information about the Xlibris process, send me an email.
A lot of bricks and mortar bookstores won't carry your book unless it is available through Ingram, the big distributor. Ingram had (or used to have) a program similar to Amazon Advantage, where they would warehouse a few copies as long as you are willing to take returns (just like for Amazon Advantage). The big issue with bookstores carrying print-on-demand books is that most print-on-demand publishers don't take returns (Amazon, to its credit, will take returns on a print-on-demand book, although I'm not sure what they do with them except hang on to them and hope someone else buys them).
Incidentally there is at least one print-on-demand place that will allow returns in some case: Superior Books. After all print-on-demand and "no standards" don't need to be synonymous.
- adam
The best way to get published is to work your way up the chain, first get some stuff published anywhere, then some small articles/poems/stories, then longer ones, then you may build some name recognition and get an agent interested in a book.
- adam
- adam
- adam
I have heard that printing a POD books costs maybe $5 and an offet run (how paperbacks normally are done) is about $2. However POD books usually cost more than $3 more than the same-size paperback. I think partly this is the business people saying well a book should cost X * [our costs], instead of thinking Y + [our costs]. So if the book costs twice as much to make, they want to charge twice as much. Which is pretty lame, especially since they won't have to worry about eating returned books.
- adam
also for a reasonable fee, of course.
1)Take a book.
2.Run it through a one of those text to speech processors. (Granted, we need a more emotive TSP app. Perhaps use html tags to denote emphasis?)
3)Compress as an MP3.
4)Encode with a private/public key.
5)Put it out there with a teaser chapter and a website to buy the private key -- cheap.
Advantages: Use ears instead of eyes. "Readable" using any MP3 player. Encryption solves piracy problem. Cheap for user -- lucrative for author. Don't need middleman.
What do /.ers think of this?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
... when you disagree with a book review on Amazon, and start looking for the Reply link.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
The Alt.Cyberpunk.Chatsubo Anthology, a bunch of Gibson fanfic from the usenet group of the same name, cost $200 to publish at iUniverse (another subsidy POD publisher like xLibris). It has earned that out in royalties, meaning it has sold more copies than there are authors. It is available through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and whatever brick&mortar stores chose to stock it (or you can have them order it with the ISBN 0595213332).
Or the "Information Wants To Be Free" crowd can read the entire archives on Google and pick what they want and save $20. (POD books are typically in Trade Paperback size, but are about 50% more expensive than conventional printing--triple that of Mass Market, but cheaper than hardback).
Or you can cherry pick a couple of mine here and here.