The Pocket and the Pendant

Aeonite (Michael Fiegel) writes "Mark Jeffrey is probably best known to Slashdotters as an online media entrepreneur and one of the co-founders (along with Mike Maerz and Jim Bumgardner) of The Palace, an avatar-based chat system popular in the late 1990s. Jeffrey is not to be confused with Neal Stephenson, though both men have websites featuring clockwork imagery, goatees, and novels which contain references to Sumerian mythology -- Stephenson's Snow Crash and Jeffrey's first novel, The Pocket and the Pendant. From a distance, one might be inclined to believe that similarities to Stephenson's own work are more than cosmetic: Jeffrey thanks Stephenson on the Acknowledgments page of his novel (along with Stephen R. Donaldson and Carl Jung, among others), and one Lulu.com review (mentioned in a press release) describes The Pocket and the Pendant as being 'like Stargate, Harry Potter, Snow Crash and the old Land of the Lost rolled into one.'" Read on for the rest of Fiegel's review. The Pocket and the Pendant author Mark Jeffrey pages 220 publisher Lulu.com rating 5 reviewer Michael Fiegel ISBN 1411613236 summary In a world where time has no meaning, one boy stands alone against the forces of darkness.

In my estimation, that's a lot like saying that chocolate chip cookies are "like flour, sugar, chocolate chips and vanilla rolled into one." Both statements are true, in part, though they leave out a lot of other ingredients, and mention some (Snow Crash and vanilla, respectively) which proportionally make up very little of the overall batter.

Granted, I know what the reviewer was thinking of when they wrote that assessment of the book; namely, the Sumerian myth. But beyond that, it's misleading to suggest that a Snow Crash fan would also enjoy The Pocket and the Pendant. I'd go so far as to say quite the opposite. Snow Crash was a Cyberpunk novel loaded with heavy doses of socio-political and religious satire, violence and sexual imagery, among other things. The Pocket and the Pendant is a fantasy novel that contains no overt satire, little violence outside of a few bruises, and nothing sexier than the word "girlfriend." To draw comparison between the two is akin to comparing Star Trek and Star Wars: about all they have in common is stars. One is science-fiction, the other's science-fantasy; one takes place in the future, the other "long, long ago"; one's got Wil Wheaton, the other's got Natalie Portman; one's designed for adults (Seven of Nine, the Borg), and one's focused on a younger audience (Jar-Jar Binks, the Ewoks).

Given that dichotomy, The Pocket and the Pendant falls squarely in the Star Wars/fantasy half of the speculative fiction genre. As a longtime fan of Star Wars, I can't say that's a bad thing. There's much that's good about this book, and as a first novel it shines far brighter than many works I've laid eyes on. However, there are some uneven spots that must be acknowledged along the way.

Humble Beginnings

After a brief prelude which sets up the action to follow we are introduced to the novel's protagonist, Max Quick. Max is introduced as being "a very strange little boy," a phrase that bothered me the first time I read it. As we will learn just a few dozen words later, Max is twelve years old, as are his peers, who are also, time and again, referred to as "little boys and girls." When I think of someone who's a "little boy" I think of the teenage Amidala in The Phantom Menace calling the 8-year-old Anakin "a funny little boy." I do not think of twelve-year-olds as "little children," but rather as pre-teens well on the way to adulthood: Natalie Portman's Matilda in Leon, who is twelve going on 32; Nabokov's twelve-year old Lolita, four-feet-ten in one sock; the drug-using pre-teens and barely-teens in Kids and Thirteen.

In the world of The Pocket and the Pendant, however, twelve-year-olds truly are "little boys and girls," possessed of a wide-eyed innocence that, while capable of being tainted and turned, is nevertheless omnipresent in the mannerisms and language of the main characters. Mention of "girlfriends" causes blushing, and one twelve-year-old character uses the term "tummy" and repeatedly refers to her mother as "Mommy." Consider the following dialogue:

" Can you hear me?"
"Yes!" came the little girl's voice from somewhere above, now sounding more hopeful. "Oh, yes! Whoever you are, can you help me, please?"
"Yes, I will, I promise," Max called back. "What apartment are you in?"
"912," she yelled back, "The door's open! Hurry! I'm scared!"

The only child in the book who's portrayed as truly malicious and evil is Ace, described as a "big kid" by the author in a clear effort to put at least several years between him and the "little twelve-year-olds." While it's true that there are some young antagonists who have reverted to barbarity, even their actions seem more like a foolish game than true maliciousness, bringing to mind scenes from Lord of the Flies or Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome or even Peter Pan, kids turned savage not by choice, but by circumstance. Sasha, one of the most vicious-tongued of these savage "Serpents & Mermaids," even joins the other "good little children" on their quest after a time.

In all, there are four heroes in the novel, all presumably in the same age range, all "just four little kids" as described by our hero, Max Quick, himself. He's accompanied by Casey Cole, his female sidekick (and not his girlfriend, as he insists); Ian Keating, a British transplant, here playing the role of Spock to Quick's Kirk; and, of course, Sasha, who comes in late and serves mostly as a plot device, conveniently tripping or falling into trouble when necessary. As to the plot ...

All The Time In The World

The action begins for our heroes as it ends for everyone else on the planet: on April 9th at 3:38, in the middle of a solar eclipse. That's the moment at which time itself stops. Mothers are frozen in the middle of making breakfast, fathers are paralyzed as they drive to work, and children are stuck fast as they head home not to play GTA San Andreas, but to eat lemon and jelly sandwiches and play hide-and-seek (for such is the world of Max Quick). In fact, it's not just people who are affected, but presumably the entire universe itself: the wind stops blowing, flocks of birds halt in mid-flight, and waves become frozen on the ocean, each immobile and essentially as hard as stone.

As it turns out, not everyone is stuck in time. There's Max, of course, who quickly discovers that while the rest of the world is stopped, he has gained respectively supernatural powers, able to "whoosh" about with great speed and hear across great distances since everything else in the world has fallen silent and still. He soon rescues Casey, who has discovered two powers: first, the ability to "fall inside" mirrors in order to escape from danger; and second, the ability to rub objects to "heat them up" and unfreeze them from time. This discovery leads to one of the more unintentionally amusing lines in the book if you're an adult:

Everything seems to be like that: slow and sticky -- but I figured it out: if you rub it and heat it up, it comes loose and then you can use it." She beamed.

The unwitting double-entendre there makes me question the assessment that The Pocket and the Pendant is "a fast-paced adventure sure to thrill young and old alike." Clearly, the author intends this line to be read from the perspective of an innocent child, discovering a secret and describing it in perfectly obvious and appropriate terms, but I think it is likely that only a child (or "young adult," as the library likes to call them) will be able to take that at face value. But on with the story...

Max and Sasha, in an attempt to uncover the mystery behind the stopped time, soon encounter a rogue band of youth gone wild, which leads to a very clever battle set inside a time-stopped bank of fog, and the eventual capture of our heroes. Luckily, they discover a disgruntled member of the gang (Ian) who is able to help them escape via a magical book-cum-"deus-ex-machina". At first, it seems strange that the novel interjects a magical tome into what had previously been a more science-oriented storyline, and stranger still that the characters all seem to just accept this magical object at face value. But as the plot unfolds, this becomes more acceptable to the reader; as we discover, not only is there a reason for magic and science to exist side-by-side within the story, but there's a reason why the main character seems capable of embracing it all without questioning it.

As the story evolves, we encounter more quantum-bending books, a Nam-shub (Sumerian incantation), UFOs, an entire army of alien centurions, and an insidious plot that involves a rogue planet, ancient Egyptian and Sumerian "gods" and the interference of Snow Crash's favorite god, Enki, one of the novel's most interesting characters despite the fact that he (and, perhaps, the author) seems to believe that all the world's problems can be solved by giving troubled children a bowl of ice cream (this happens three times in the course of the novel).

Enki gets some of the more interesting (and some of the more adult) dialogue in the novel, though I hesitate to use the term "dialogue" since it's mostly "monologue." Enki is not alone, however. Heroes, villains, diary entries and side characters all spout off great gouts of plot for pages and pages, at times explaining backstory, at other times (as with Enki) seeming to speak the author's own philosophical beliefs as they attempt to justify thousands of years of history, archaeology, religion and philosophy in one neat little storyline. One entire chapter is devoted to Enki's reconciliation of Sumerian mythology and Biblical references to Adam, the Nephilim, the Flood, Babel and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Not that it's done poorly here; on the contrary, it's done as tidily as Stephenson does in Snow Crash (which is to say, solidly enough to serve the plot, but probably not enough to stand up to actual scrutiny in the "real world"). Surely the RIAA would disagree, however, with Ian's concise assessment that good and evil are akin to users who share on P2P networks, and those who do not (respectively).

The Pocket and the Pendant

As Enki explains to our heroes, "The Pocket" of the title is the little "pocket of time" within which the characters find themselves through the course of the novel. To reveal more about the nature of this "pocket" is to spoil parts of the story, but suffice to say that it goes far deeper than your typical "time has stopped" trope, and involves weaving the concept of neural networks, the nature of consciousness and quantum mechanics into what Enki dubs "Dreamtime."

Various objects called omphalos -- special amethysts, diamonds, rubies, lapis lazuli, emeralds, etc. -- "contain echoes of the very Dreamtime itself", allowing users to alter reality in various ways. Some omphalos are used to allow users to travel faster, others to communicate across great distances. "The Pocket" was created by an omphalos called the Chrononomicon, and "The Pendant" is another omphalos which the novel's villains are searching for within "The Pocket." It has the capability of affecting the entire human race, and whether or not they can be stopped before achieving their goal is ultimately on the shoulders of Max Quick and his three friends. If the heroes succeed, the world will be saved from evil. If they fail, all humankind will be enslaved, just like the band Planet Furious, who are, late in the book, "thawed out" and forced to perform onstage for an army of villains in what has to be one of the silliest scenes in the novel.

Not that there's anything particularly wrong with "silly" in a children's book. Scenes like this are bound to capture the imagination of younger readers. But adult readers are going to have a hard time grasping the relevance of "Johnny Jupiter, Sophisto, Frankie Mercury and Sid Venus" in a novel which, pages earlier, was going on about quantum mechanics and the nature of reality.

Who's The Audience?

This issue is addressed in this review over and over again, precisely because of the author's apparent intent:

"The novel is written for both adults and young adult readers alike," says Jeffrey in a press release about the novel. "I consciously wrote in a fast-paced and humorous style accessible to both audiences, yet didn't want to create something 'kiddie'.

All told, before the book is out, we'll have encountered references to ancient Sumeria, Judeo-Christian mythology, quantum physics, time travel and astronomy -- heavy, weighty topics that will probably fly over the heads of many children reading the book. We'll also have encountered children calling each other names, characters who speak in "kiddie" language to one another, a "Beep-o-tronik" cell phone and a "Vicious Cycles 'Sportstervarius' motorcycle." These two things -- adult language, and childish language -- exist not together, but side by side, separate and noticeably unequal. Consider the following, from page 180 and 181, respectively:

It was the same kind of feeling one got looking at an Escher print. It was numinous, chthonic.
The gestalt was one of controlled geometric chaos -- triangular, dodecahedral, octagonal and tetrahedral shapes in every direction.

"...I forgive you." She paused a moment and then added, "I even forgive you for what will happen to my Mommy."

The novel certainly has pieces that are appropriate for older readers, and it definitely has pieces that are intended for younger readers, but I am hard pressed to say that it can appeal as a whole to either group. Due to the nature of the story and the fact that the protagonists are children, my gut instinct is to suggest it's definitely a children's book. I can see a child enjoying the book much more easily than I can see an adult finding it all fulfilling. Slashdot is mentioned on page 67, but I don't think the typical Slashdot reader would find the novel really and truly fulfilling. However, their children probably would, especially if mom or dad was there to explain what "numinous" or "chthonic" meant.

This is not to say that adults cannot enjoy such novels. Many a children's novel has been embraced by adults: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, A Wrinkle In Time and The Hobbit spring immediately to mind, and of course there's the ubiquitous Harry Potter and much of Piers Anthony's work, especially the oft-forgotten Mode books. Such novels contain worlds where youthful innocence is threatened on the path toward experience, and children (or hobbits) are forced to grow up faster than they might like in order to save themselves and others. The Pocket and the Pendant is at home with these books, not with Stargate or Snow Crash. And that's good company to be in.

Nuts & Bolts

It's worth mentioning the book's layout, at least in passing. The number of lines varies from page-to-page, with some pages leaving a more comfortable 1/8" white gap above the rule at the bottom, and others cramming an extra line in there, seemingly at random, but likely due to the somewhat inconsistent spacing between sections within each chapter, some of which are quite wide, others narrower. Rather than being fully-justified (with even edges on both sides), the book is merely left-justified, with ragged right edges. While not a mortal sin, it's at least venial, making the text hard to read in some places where words sorely in need of hyphenation are instead dropped to a new line:

For his part, Max was surprised to find that there was something disturbingly
familiar about Mr. Siren also. Then, Max caught a flash, a snippet
of...something. He blinked in confusion and tried to concentrate.

From a stylistic standpoint, one annoyance is that the novel's main villain has a habit of speaking in pseudo-archaic English, with "thee," "thou" and "thy" peppering her speech, presumably in an effort to make her seem older and more alien. While I would normally consider this as egregious a sin as George Lucas burdening Jar-Jar Binks with Jamaican patois, I will let Jeffrey off the hook here since he has one of the characters question this very issue late in the novel, in a rather amusing scene.

Far worse, however is the author's unfortunate habit of liberally sprinkling his text with italics for emphasis. I cannot find a single page in the book that does not contain at least one or two italicized words. In general, one uses italics as a means of emphasis only sparingly, and the overuse in this novel leaves the reader a bit seasick, riding a roller-coaster of emphasized words up and down, up and down. Much of the time, one can chalk this up to the gushing exuberance of an excited speaker, but at times, such emphasis seems wholly out of place within the context of a given sentence:

Oh, it is you, I knew it was," she said, shaking her head. "But how can it be? I don't understand ... but I have no doubt: it's you alright."

Overall the book is well-edited, with only a handful of typos to be found throughout. One of the most amusing, repeated twice, is to be found on page 201 near the end of the novel, where a character unfortunately serves ice cream not in "bowls" but in "bowels." That's one your kids might actually notice, and laugh uproariously at.

Unintentional potty humor -- some things are funny no matter how old you are.

In Closing

For those who enjoy many of the other books mentioned above, The Pocket and the Pendant is a good, fun read. However, it's hard to get past the notable imbalance between the book's "adult" and "kiddie" elements. It will be interesting to see where the author takes his characters should he write a sequel to this novel, and if he's able to more thoroughly blend the weightier language with a consistently child-friendly storyline.

The best advice for those who are unsure of whether or not this is for them is to check it out themselves. A free preview of this novel, including the first two chapters, is available in .pdf format for immediate download from print-on-demand-publisher Lulu.com and www.pocketandpendant.com. The P&P website also includes cover art, news and updates about the book, a blog, and several other reviews.

You can purchase the Pocket and the Pendant from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Was that a review?

[Kjuib]

or just a copy of the Novel? In my opinion, reviews should be really short. If I get bored reading the review, it is unlikly I will read the book.

Re:Was that a review?

[fm6]

For some reason, Slashdot book reviewers always seem to spend most of their reviews summarizing the work in mind-numbing detail. Maybe it's the only way they know to make the review long enough. Or maybe they just don't understand that a review isn't the same as an English-class essay that you write just to prove that you read and understand the book.

Re:Was that a review?

[OECD]

Meh. I gave up on the review after, "I do not think of twelve-year-olds as "little children," but rather as pre-teens well on the way to adulthood." Obviously, this review was written by a twelve-year old.

Re:Was that a review?

[daniil]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

I hate short reviews. There's only so much information a short review can carry and if the reviewer doesn't happen to be a master of the genre, they'll mostly end up either retelling the short plot summary on the back of the book, or comparing the book to some others (to explain it in terms familiar to the prospective reader). But neither of these will tell me what makes this book is so special that i have to read it.

That said, i have to confess that i didn't read the whole of this review, either. I guess this is just to show that sometimes size doesn't matter :H

Re:Was that a review?

[Aeonite]

The only other reviews I've seen of this book are the short 5-star type which say little about the book that you can't learn from the author's website, akin to the short quotes from reviewers that movie advertisements use.

Given the opportunity to do so, I decided to do a little more in the hopes of providing justification for my own rating of the book. I can't (and won't) apologize for being thorough.

Re:Was that a review?

[Doctor Memory]

Struck me more as a pretentious business major, probably one that wanted to be an English major but was afraid they wouldn't make enough money (and with writing of this caliber, they wouldn't). Reading this was akin to seeing a hand-crafted breadbox made from MDF -- you wonder why someone would spend such effort making something essentially useless from such poor material.

Re:Was that a review?

[techno-vampire]

It was an excellent review. It told me exactly why I'd never want to read the book and you can't ask for anything better than that in a review.

Re:Was that a review?

[jp10558]

I want to say that of reviews I often read, I find the slashdot ones the most relevant and useful.

It might because it's written by someone with a similar computer geek background, or maybe because it is less professional and more like what a friend would tell me about a book. The fully polished reviews of magazines are more like analytical or critical english 101 essays from my point of view than the slashdot ones.

To each their own, but I find that a short review does nothing for me - I too can read the back of the book. These longer reviews are quite helpful, assuming that the reviewer manages to keep most of the plot to themselves, and I think this reviewer manages that quite well.

Re:Was that a review?

[Bob Uhl]

No, 'little children' are kids of six or eight, with no real sense of responsibility. There is an eleven-year-old at church who serves alongside us men as an acolyte, and does a pretty good job of it. By the time one has hit twelve, one is no longer a little kid. Certainly not an adult, of course--but getting there, at least.

Re:Was that a review?

[my_fake_account]

Men do not serve as acolytes.

In my church, you *stopped* being an acolyte around age 13 (or younger).

Have some dignity.

Re:Was that a review?

[Bob Uhl]

An acolyte (from the Greek for 'attendant') may be (theoretically) of any age, but as they in some ways represent the angels (who are always represented as young men, i.e. in their twenties) it's certainly seemly for men to serve in that capacity. What's really unseemly is the use of boys, when one thinks of it: that's all part of the 'Awww' school of liturgics which holdest that that which is cutest is most sacred.

In the Orthodox Church, one may find bishops, priests, deacons, monks, subdeacons, readers and acolytes around the altar--and it may be that not one is less than thirty. Serving God isn't child's play: it's a business for adults.

Which is not to say that we haven't in our numbers boys as well. One of my own brothers started at the tender age of four. But the norm is for there to be more men in the sanctuary able to vote than otherwise.

Re:Was that a review?

[bokane]

Or a paedophile.

Re:Was that a review?

[bokane]

Quite so. It was neither too long, nor too short. The posters who are complaining about it being too long probably also consider reading anything longer than a comic book to be a hardship.

Re:Was that a review?

[my_fake_account]

"I tell you the truth,
anyone who will not receive
the kingdom of God
like a little child
will never enter it."

And anyone who is still thinking that way as an adult needs to grow up.

The key word in your post is "business". My own brother-in-law and sister are supported by a congregation. They should get real jobs and stop scamming people. And you should stop supporting that BS too.

Why i won't bother reading it:

[daniil]

The submitter writes: "One Lulu.com review (mentioned in a press release) describes The Pocket and the Pendant as being 'like Stargate, Harry Potter, Snow Crash and the old Land of the Lost rolled into one."

That's why.

Re:Why i won't bother reading it:

[Suburbanpride]

Snow crash is the my favorite sci-fi/cyberpunk book of all time. I really haven't heard of many poeple who hate it.

Harry poter is slightly more questionable, but anything that gets compared to snowcrash I would consider reading.

Re:Why i won't bother reading it:

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't stand Snow Crash, and it's only the reviewer's claim that this book is only a little like Snow Crash that makes me have any interest in it.

Then again, the most used section of my book shelf is classical literature in the original Greek and Latin, so I'm probably not the typical consumer of books like this.

Re:Why i won't bother reading it:

[daniil]

*tongue-in-cheek* Oh yeah?!? Well, i'm sorry for being such an elitist snob.

Seriously, though, i've read Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" and i'm afraid it isn't my kind of sci-fi. Neither is Harry Potter (even though i must confess that i've read all Harry Potter books...). Perhaps i'm too old for this shit...

Re:Why i won't bother reading it:

[jp10558]

I found Snow Crash to be very enjoyable, though somewhat *risque*(pornographic?) at certain points. Overall it reminded me of Tad William's Otherland series, which I sadly have yet to finish...

Wheaton vs. Portman

[Anonymous Coward]

one's got Wil Wheaton, the other's got Natalie Portman

So it's like Fark vs. Slashdot, is it?

Re:Wheaton vs. Portman

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Slashdot has both!

w00t!

[northcat]

along with Mike Maerz

Mike Maerz?!! OMG, you mean the one who starred in the Awsten Pavers series?!!! w00t!

Re:w00t!

[Reignking]

It can't be! It has to be the head coach of the St. Louis Rams...

Re:w00t!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bumgardner?

tl;dr

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I read it sounds like a great book.

Mmm, bowels.

[Anonymous Coward]

a character unfortunately serves ice cream not in "bowls" but in "bowels."

Where else are you going to get the hot fudge?

Re:Mmm, bowels.

[mistersooreams]

And don't even ask about the hot grits.

Re:Mmm, bowels.

[julesh]

Sorry, but that'd be warm fudge.

I WENT BLIND

[magellen]

Attempting to Read all that you should have typed it in Basic Code...Apple IIGS style :)

And the winner is...

[mistersooreams]

And the winner of Most Natalie Portman References In A Slashdot Article is...

Chthonic!

[Tackhead]

> However, their children probably would, especially if mom or dad was there to explain what "numinous" or "chthonic" meant.

Kid: Mommy, what does 'chthonic' mean?
Mommy: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wga'nagl f-*ahem*-why don't you just ask Dad about sex or something?
Kid: Mmmm... okay...
[ 30 seconds later ] Kid: IA! IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN! HASTUR! HASTUR! HASTmfmmfph!
*munchmunchmunch*

"Remember, parents. The only thing worse than explaining 'chthonic' to your kids is having them find out for themselves."

Re:Chthonic!

[Omestes]

Since when did chthonic have anything to do with Cthulhu?

Chthonic means UNDERGROUND. Cthulhu is a BIG NASTY who lives UNDERWATER.

sorry.

Re:Chthonic!

[fm6]

Since when did chthonic have anything to do with Cthulhu?

They certainly sound similar. Assuming you can pronounce either one!

I guess I must be a little child.

[RealAlaskan]

This discovery leads to one of the more unintentionally amusing lines in the book if you're an adult:

Everything seems to be like that: slow and sticky -- but I figured it out: if you rub it and heat it up, it comes loose and then you can use it." She beamed.

Sorry, I just don't see the double-entendre the reviewer finds there. I thought I had a filthy, corrupt mind, too.

Back on topic, I'd say it's a good review. I probably won't read the book, and probably won't give it to my kids. It doesn't sound like my style, and it doesn't sound suitable for the under-10 set. I might not have decided that from the cover blurb.

Re:I guess I must be a little child.

[Dark Paladin]

Now that I think about it, if any part of my body came loose when you rubbed it, I'd be really worried.

I kind of like my body parts to stay, well, attached.

All rolled together

[sczimme]

describes The Pocket and the Pendant as being 'like Stargate, Harry Potter, Snow Crash and the old Land of the Lost rolled into one'

Wow - Land of the StarHarrySnowPotterGateCrash of the Lost. That sounds like a good read.

Re:All rolled together

[fireduck]

kinda reminds me of this.

My 10 Page Review of the Review Here

[BlakeLupa]

OK not really.

self-published

[jd142]

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but since lulu.com is a selfpublishing site that is publishing the book, their assessment may be a little biased.

The fact that it is self-published would also explain the odd formatting issues the reviewer discussed. Which doesn't speak well for lulu.com as a book producer. For as little as $500 you can self publish from places that will at least right and left justify your text.

Ah, I just looked at lulu.com and they are much more diy selfpublishers than the companies that will charge you a small fee and make sure the book looks good.

Re:self-published

[Aeonite]

This is the main reason I brought up these issues here. They're not enough to ruin the reading experience, but they are noticeable, and presumably easy enough to fix if a publisher takes the time to do so.

Re:self-published

[Eric Giguere]

The author is the publisher. Lulu.com just prints the PDF that the author submitted. This is the danger of self-publishing, of course, the fact that you can skip over the normal steps in the publication process such as copyediting, page layout, indexing, etc. Not that you can't self-publish a professional-looking book, but it does take additional work -- you're not done once you've written the text.

Eric
My books (published via a traditional publisher)

Re:self-published

[julesh]

Not that there's anything wrong with that

Well, it makes me question why. Books that are published by traditional means tend to make substantially more money for their authors. They sell more copies, because they end up in bookstores and with a substantially lower cover price (I'm not going to pay $17+delivery for a 224 page paperback novel). Therefore, there are three general kinds of books that go to self publishing.

1. Those that will appeal to only an incredibly narrow niche market which there is no mainstream press willing to cover. This sounds, from the review, to be pretty mainstream SF/Fantasy. The subject matter would not rule it out for traditional publication.

2. Books that are not well enough written to meet the standards of a professional publisher.

3. Books whose authors are clueless as to how the business of publishing works, and think that self publishing is therefore their best option.

(There's a fourth, actually. Open content books. But I'd expect it to have been mentioned here if this was one.)

Obviously there's the occasional exception to this. Well written, mainstream books do get self published from time to time. I believe that Grisham's first novel was published like this. But, they're a tiny fraction of the shite that's out there. Which is the other reason, aside from the price, I won't be buying this book. I figure there's maybe a one in fifty chance that it's actually any good.

No offence to the author, of course. Or the reviewer, who clearly liked it. I don't know either of you.

Re:self-published

[salutor]

By the way, the reviews on http://lulu.com/ are not posted there by Lulu, but by readers.

Some of the comments here disparage the idea of "self-publishing," but they fail to make any distinction between independent publishing and subsidy publishing (vanity presses).

Independent publishing is not unlike indie music, indie filmmaking, blogging, or any of the other recent revolutions in content publishing that allow individuals to take advantage of inexpensive ways to produce and distribute work for smaller audiences than those required by giant book, music, and film companies. Lulu provides tools for independent book publishers, as well as those who wish to sell other content, like songs or images, through the Internet.

Some of the books published this way lack good writing, editing, formatting or some combination of all three, but there's no reason to assume that an independently published book won't be as good or better than a book published by any small press. Most authors offer previews so you can get a sense of the book before buying it.

A vanity press (or subsidy publisher), on the other hand, makes its money by charging authors for services. This can be a straightforward business or an unscrupulous one. In either case, it is a very different business model from Lulu, which earns money only when authors like Mark Jeffrey make money, through a commission on each sale.

By way of a footnote, print on demand--the manufacturing technology used by Lulu in the case of The Pocket and the Pendant--is a process not specific to self-publishing at all. POD technology allows books to be manufactured literally one at a time. The ability to print books one at a time economically is the product of new manufacturing technology that barely existed five years ago. Large, mainstream publishers and academic presses are looking for ways to take advantage of POD technology to lower their costs and support a broader library of titles. In that respect, big publishers have a shared interest with independent publishers like Mark Jeffrey.

Re:self-published

[techno-vampire]

I have a book published by "print on demand," because it's a book of tech support humor, and that's a small nitche market if ever I saw one. No mainstream publisher would be crazy enough to put it out, but I can make a small profit by print on demand. There's at least one such company specializing in putting old books back into print for the authors, and Piers Anthony has most of his old backlist books out that way at Xlibris just to get them back into print and help out the company because he believes in this type of thing.

Yes, that was a review

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>In my opinion, reviews should be really short. If I get bored reading the review, it is unlikly I will read the book.

If you can't handle a well-written 3,000 word critical essay, that's your problem. It is not a reflection on either the essayist or the novel. You should recall, also, that logically it quite possible to have a boring review of a really great novel and a really great review of a really boring novel. There is no causal relationship between the two.

If reviews longer than "This Sucks!" bore you, stick to teevee.

Re:Yes, that was a review

[0racle]

A critical essay is not a review, and a review is not supposed to be an essay, at least in the common usage of the terms relating to reviewing books, movies, events and whatnot. A critical essay is to pick apart the work to render a decision on the work, a review is a high level glossing over of the work to make people interested in it, or turn people away from it.

Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Forget it. I want no truck with any book that thanks Donaldson for anything, _especially_ inspiration. That'd be like buying a CD that thanks KC and the Sunshine Band, The Captain and Teneille, and whoever it was that did "Disco Duck" for their inspiration.

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Reignking]

and whoever it was that did "Disco Duck" for their inspiration. Rick Dees, LA DJ

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Mr. No Skills]

whoever it was that did "Disco Duck" for their inspiration.

Rick Dees (link). Sorry - one of those trivia facts that hasn't fallen out of my head yet.

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your hatred for Donaldson is Unbelievable.

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Alzheimers]

For every knock against Donaldson's classic "Thomas Covenant" serieses (he's just published the first book of the third series) I see someone who's never even bothered to read his *REAL* contribution to SciFi- The Gap Cycle, (Conflict, Vision, Power, Madness, and Ruin) published betweein 1991-1996. An exciting Space Opera style adventure populated with interesting and fully realized characters who make decisions both good and evil. If high fantasy isn't your thing, his Wagnerian tale of the struggle to stay human against all odds is one that shouldn't be missed by any self-titled SciFi fan.

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Let me get this straight: someone who thinks that the Thomas Covenant Chronicle is a "classic...series" wants me to read something of Donaldson's because they say it's even better? Um...no.

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Alzheimers]

Just because something was published pre-1990 doesn't mean it's bad. Remember, Lord of the Rings was published in 1954!

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is it you have against donaldson?
i rather like his writing, admittedly i haven't
read the gap series, but i always rather
liked TCoTCtU & T2CoTCTU and the mordant's need
books.
though, that was something like 6-7 years ago,
so maybe i'm remembering it w/ a bit o the 'halo of youth' effect :)

--vat

Re:Thanking Stephen R. Donaldson?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Age has got nothing to do with it. I love LoTR, as well as Heinlein and some of the other old greats. I just wouldn't apply the term "classic" to any of the books SRD poops out on a regular basis. To me, "classic" implies something > mere age, something that SRD's work does not have and that SRD himself may not be able to comprehend.

That said, I respect him for his skill to part people from their money. Simple plots, one-dimensional characters, ample sex, and the eventual triumph of good over evil sell well. I'm just not buying it.

Executive summary

[Anonymous Coward]

In China, the pendant is banned.
In Korea, only old people have pendants.
In Japan, talking robot pendants talk to pockets.
In Soviet Russia, the pendant pockets YOU!

Any questions?

Re:Executive summary

[schizacopf]

? profit ?

Re:Executive summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you kid, get off my pendant!

Clever referral link, booksandrev08.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not purchase the book straight through lulu.com and give the author more cash, instead of trying to steal that $0.10 in referral fees?

is-that-a-pendant-in-your-pocket dept...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bilbo: "What have I got in my pocket?"
Gollum: "It'ss a trick my precious. The nasty hobbit'ss got nothing in itss pocketss. It's just happy to see uss."

Print on Demand.

[mandrake*rpgdx]

While interesting in concept, makes print just as bad as the internet for letting Hackneyed wannabe authors spew crap from their lips and put into the printed page. Maybe someday he might get published by a real publishing house. Until then, unless it finds it's way onto the shelf on Borders, I will not be buying it.

Re:Print on Demand.

[Anonymous Coward]

"makes print just as bad as the internet for letting Hackneyed wannabe authors spew crap from their lips and put into the printed page."

Is that supposed to be ironic?

on principal I never buy anything print on demand.

[mandrake*rpgdx]

For very good reason. If I want to read ill informed bad writing, I can get it on the internet for free.

Call me an arse, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Palace" was NEVER popular. It "existed" in the late 1990s. That's about it.

Re:Call me an arse, but...

[lack1uster]

You arse.

Re:Call me an arse, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Palace was never terribly popular, correct. However, it continues to have a devoted following, with hundreds of servers and several thousand users. It's also free and without spyware or ads. Check out www.thepalace.com or www.palacetools.com

you know what else you skip with self publishing?

[mandrake*rpgdx]

credibility.

A tribute to Tom Swift?

[cybergrue]

protagonist, Max Quick.
Seems to be a tribute to Tom Swift.
I wonder how many 'kids' will get that one.

Re:you know what else you skip with self publishin

[julesh]

That'd be one of the "normal steps of the publishing process" -- having an editor who knows what they're doing read your book and decide whether it's good enough or not.

Jeffrey

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeffrey is not to be confused with Neal Stephenson

Thanks for clearing that up. I was a bit stymied for a moment until I hit this line.

"Goatee"?

[pknoll]

Neal Stephenson doesn't have a goatee, and neither (I surmise) does Mark Jeffrey.

They have "Van Dyke" style beards, the popular beard cut of the tech generation. A goatee is a Van Dyke without the mustache; i.e. chin-only whiskers.

Re:"Goatee"?

[Aeonite]

I think technically a Van Dyke is described as "a variation of a goatee with a mustache." So technically they both have goatees, as well as Van Dykes.

All squares are also rectangles.

Nevertheless, thanks for the clarification.

Re:"Goatee"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, you don't know a goatee from a goatee. Any goatee is "chin-only whisers," mustache or not. Just check this site out: http://www.goateestyle.com/goatee/famous.phtml If the Count doesn't change your mind, nothing will.

To Be Continued

[Anonymous Coward]

This is your brain.
This is your brain on slashdot...

Re:Clitoris

[xtermin8]

I would guess- clitoris, but I imagine many /.ers have little experience with these ;-)

The Palace is still going

[Anonymous Coward]

The Palace, an interesting scriptable avatar chat created by Mark Jeffrey and Jim Bumgardner, is still going strong. No longer a corporate venture, the software is distributed for free. A strong user and developer community exists. Their website is http://www.thepalace.com

Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[mihalis]

Sorry? Is the reviewer entirely serious? I mean, when I was younger, I -thought- Star Trek was fairly serious Sci Fi, but the older I get, the smaller the gap between Star Trek and Star Wars gets.

It's still story and character oriented non-science based. Problems with Star Trek physics are well documented.

In Star Trek it's common for the captain of the space ship to "beam" down to a planet, unprotected by a space suit, meet "aliens" who are completely humanoid, and often converse with them, and occasionally fall in love with them. It's not entirely clear which parts are because of magical 24th century technology and which parts are simply rather infantile wish fulfillment.

Re:Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[Shihar]

Star Trek is not for adults because it has superior science. Star Trek is more adult oriented for the themes it touches and, more the anything else, because it is a drama. Star Wars is not a drama, it is action/adventure head to foot. Now, that is not to say that the Star Wars universe is incapable of being a drama, but the movies most certainly are not.

The actual science of sci-fi is generally geek nitpicking. Personally, I think that any sci-fi set over 100+ years from now that doesn't have god like AIs that put all humans intellect to shame either better have a good reason or is taking liberties with technology. That said, I don't really mind it when sci-fi takes liberties with technology. The point of sci-fi is not to predict the future (though some times it tries). The point is to put characters and society into a unique position you can't have a traditional setting. It doesn't matter if that setting bends or snaps and half and spits on laws of physics.

Re:Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[Aeonite]

Certainly Star Trek can have appeal to kids. Heck, they had a cartoon for a while. However, Trek generally seems more willing to tackle more adult themes -- political machinations, subterfuge, racial tensions, etc. -- even if the mechanics are a little fanciful.

Compared to Star Wars, however, Trek is a lot more mechanical, crunchy and scientific. Light sabers? Jabba the Hutt? The Force? These are fantasy tropes given sci-fi trappings. But to hear Geordi talk about Dilithium crystals and the holochamber is to recognize you're not seeing Swords and Sorcery wreathed in chrome, but true science-fiction.

Re:Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[mihalis]

Light sabers? Jabba the Hutt? The Force? These are fantasy tropes given sci-fi trappings. But to hear Geordi talk about Dilithium crystals and the holochamber is to recognize you're not seeing Swords and Sorcery wreathed in chrome, but true science-fiction.

Hardly... When Star Trek scripts are written they just leave blanks for the techno-speak and have someone else make it up later, because it doesn't matter one jot what it says or how convincing it is. Every time they reverse the polarity, emit a tachyon beam, or encounter a space-time anomaly, they may as well be turning on a lightsaber, engaging hyperdrive or using the force.

For me, the only useful measure is whether an attempt is made to extrapolate from commonly accepted scientific principles and existing gadgets to plausible future ones. If such an attempt is made (e.g. many Arthur C Clarke novels) it's called "hard science fiction". If not it's "soft Sci Fi" or "fantasy".

As much as I like both Star Wars and Star Trek, the weak science is occasionally annoying - if literally anything can happen at any moment, we may as well just read Stephen King and levitate lawnmowers with our minds.

Re:Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[Aeonite]

Every time they reverse the polarity, emit a tachyon beam, or encounter a space-time anomaly, they may as well be turning on a lightsaber, engaging hyperdrive or using the force.

I disagree. I think there's a difference. A lightsaber is a fantasy sword with sci-fi trappings. A Jedi is a samurai or knight (literally) with mystical, magical powers. Even The Force was mystical and fantasy-like until TPM when George "sci-fi'ed" it up and made it Midichlorians, which was absolutely the sort of Trek-like technobabble you speak of. Aside from this, Star Wars is all about sweeping epic fantasy.

Trek doesn't have these things. Picard doesn't wear a rapier, Troi doesn't carry a magic wand, and nobody rides Electrosteeds into battle. The language may be all gobbledygook, but it's still science fiction. It's just not very hard, realistic sci-fi.

All IMHO, of course.

Re:Star Trek : "designed for adults"?

[mihalis]

There are dramatic moments in Star Wars, but overall the level of drama is sadly lacking (that's the problem with them, succinctly put, for adults).

Maybe Star Trek does a bit better, but it's still pretty juvenile. I mean, I loved the moment when Picard orders quantum torpedoes against the Borg in First Contact. It was fantastic, but it's still no "Das Boot". You always know that most of the crew will survive, good will prevail over evil (and you always know, broadly, who they are).

I think that's part of the reason we all like it, frankly, plenty of "real drama" is hard work, and a major bummer. Mystic River - who had an uplift from that as they left the cinema? Certainly not me, and I thought it was overrated (drama?, yes, great? not really).

Good review. Book looks interesting

[dgallina]

Very good review, thanks. I've downloaded the first two sample chapters and read them. I agree that the type-setting and layout are annoying . So far, the book seems clearly intended for young audiences. Of course I don't know if the rest continues in the same vein since I've only read two chapters. The plot is intruiging, however, and I'm considering picking up a copy to find out how things develop.

I've been reading /. too long

[Anonymous Coward]

On a quick glance, I saw:

...though both men have websites featuring clockwork imagery, goatses, and novels which contain references to Sumerian mythology...

Italics????

[notjonny]

"Far worse, however is the author's unfortunate habit of liberally sprinkling his text with italics for emphasis. I cannot find a single page in the book that does not contain at least one or two italicized words."

He means it looks like Slashdot?

ok

[my_fake_account]

"Snow Crash was a Cyberpunk novel loaded with heavy doses of socio-political and religious satire, violence and sexual imagery, among other things."

Socio-political? Stephenson advocates apartheid-- like in most of his novels. Edgy.

Religious? Whatever-- I used to lead prayers before crowds of 1500+-- this book does not really address religion. None of the protagonists have a serious religious commitment. One of the minor good guys (gal) does, but mostly all the religion is in the hands of the bad guys, and it is not explored.

Violence? ???

Sexual imagery? The chick had a dildo in her for the whole book-- that's sexual imagery? Biological improbability more like-- hello toxic shock syndrome.

"like Stargate, Harry Potter, Snow Crash and the old Land of the Lost rolled into one"-- damning with faint praise?

Snow Crash would have been far better without the mumbo-jumbo. Half of all people are of below average intelligence. Just have the villain prey on their stupidity (typical televangilst). All that Sumerian crap was tedious.

Seriously-- watch the 700 Club. Pat Robertson is a multimillionaire because he spews that kind of crap and people lick it up. The techno-mysticism was completely unnecessary-- just have the bad guy be your typical rapacious asshole.

Get it straight, people: Star Trek is Space Opera

[alienmole]

Space Opera has nothing in common with Science Fiction - never has, never will. It's a lot like the difference between astrology and astronomy: people see they both start with "astro" and involve stars, so they can't tell the difference.

Moral: if you think Star Trek is science fiction, that's a sure sign you're a moron who wouldn't know science fiction if it bit you in the balls.