Things I Know I Know

You know, I don't at all mind that writers publish books under new names in an attempt to get back into the market and escape the death spiral. I don't even mind when they write something in the author's bio like, "The Totally Generic Story of Kings and Queens is Jane X's first novel," because at some level (the level that treats a name as if it can write a book) it's true. It's the first novel published under that name at least.

What I do object to is then blurbing the book as if it's a great first novel. Because it's not. It's a fifth or sixth or tenth novel. And everyone who's blurbing it and many of the people reviewing it know perfectly well who the author is behind the pseudonym and they know that it's not a first novel. And they still write things like:

This remarkable debut novel captured my imagination.

or

This is [blah-blah's] debut novel and it ranks with the works of [greats of the field].

Those are just lies (it is possible some reviewers don't know, but it is absolutely not true for all of them. When I know that someone's using a pseudonym, it's pretty much a guarantee that everyone in the genre and most everyone outside it also knows.). Say it's a pretty good novel. Say you're sure we'll be seeing lots more of Jane X. But don't say it's an exceptional first novel if you know that it's not a first novel at all. It's annoying.

Posted by debco at 04:29 PM | Permalink

I'm playing with styles (this is just the default for MT 3.2). The Billie pic will be back (I hope)...but if things look weird for awhile, it's because I have no idea what I'm doing :-)

UPDATE: And the Billie pic is back. Now I just have to get the rest of it working...

Update the second: Billie pic is still back. Title is almost right. I sill need to get the third column back but I'm hungry now so I'm taking a break.

Posted by debco at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've finally upgraded to MT 3.2, which seems to have gone fairly well, except it won't show me the comments. It admits that they're there; it shows them on the actual blog; and it will find them if I search for them, but it won't list them where it's supposed to.

I'd like to make some changes to the design (make it actually work for one thing) but that may be awhile.

Posted by debco at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Apparently...cow tipping? Pretty much a myth (which, if you've ever paid much attention to cows, would probably be a given):

A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.

Dr Lillie, Ms Boechler’s supervisor, revised the calculations so that two people could exert the required amount of force to tip a static cow, but only if it did not react.

“The static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,” she said. “But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.”

...via (I can't remember)

Posted by debco at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Guardian:

Classical music has been piped into Co-op stores at Seaton and Teignmouth in Devon for just over a week, and already youngsters who used to congregate near the doors have gone elsewhere.

The supermarket plans to experiment with different types of classical music to see if particular styles are more effective.

Posted by debco at 09:06 AM | Permalink

Thanks for the ride.

scifi.com is discontinuing SCIFICTION at the end of 2005.

Great stories. Freely accessible. Excellent pay for writers. Of course, it had to go.

I am honored to have published a story there.

Posted by debco at 11:46 PM | Permalink

John Henry had his last chemo today. Yay!!

He had a chest x-ray today and everything still looks clear. So he is very excellent :-)

Posted by debco at 05:34 PM | Permalink

John Henry was supposed to finish chemo today, but his blood count was too low so he'll go back next week for his final treatment. He still seems to be doing well and they seem pleased with him at the vet school. Way back when I said that I'd be happy if he made it six months (this isn't actually true--I would prefer that he live forever--but years from now I would say that it was).

On Monday it will be six months since he broke his leg and by any measure that's pretty good. If you accept the one dog year=seven people years equation (which also isn't actually true, but I'll stipulate to it for the purposes of discussion) then he has been living with bone cancer for three and a half years. So, you know, all around good.

Posted by debco at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it

--Bernard Bailey

Posted by debco at 10:12 PM | Permalink