Books

Good Intentions is somewhere between male adolescent wish-fulfillment, soft-core erotica, paranormal romance, and urban fantasy. The plot revolves around a pretty ordinary guy, still living in his mom’s basement, who decides to sneak into the local graveyard to get a few atmospheric pictures. He’s hoping to use the pictures to impress a pair of cute goth chicks in his photography course, lacking the gumption to simply approach them without a prop.

Why are ebooks from traditional publishers priced so high?

That’s the question . Though the situation has improved a bit since this was written around 2011, there’s still a large price gap between traditionally published ebooks and independent authors. And it’s not because the independent authors suck. (Some do, sure, but that’s not why there’s a price difference).

If you watch the prices over time, the independents usually have lower prices, often just a dollar or two. Traditional published books tend to hover around $10-$15 when first released, and may get down to $5-$7 eventually, but rarely go below that. And readers often complain about those perceived high prices, reasoning that there’s no physical book, no additional cost per copy beyond a bit of electricity to send it to the buyer (which isn’t even paid by the publisher), so why isn’t it free? Or at least a minimal cost, like the independents?

Over at the Mad Genius Club, Amanda finds a publisher talking about ebooks as a “service” and charging more for them than printed books because they are convenient for the reader. Both sides have valid points, but the discussion hook is Amanda’s conclusion :

But to say an e-book should cost considerably more than a print book because it is more convenient is ludicrous. It is especially so when the publisher refuses to admit that a reader buys the book instead of just licensing the right to read the book. As for Luby, well, he needs to quit drinking the kool-aid and realize that the reading public isn’t quite as naive or foolish as he seems to think it is. As for the publishers and bean counters still doing their song and dance of joy over what he had to say, they need to adapt t changing times and demands or be left behind. As the song says, the times, they are a-changing.

If an allusion to Tolkien is the most common way to praise a new fantasy author, “Heinleinesque” has got to be the science fiction equivalent. The description certainly applies to Peter Maxwell’s Ride the Rising Tide, which contains equal doses of space, adventure, and 60’s science fiction nostalgia. It has a space navy, a plucky young protagonist eager to rise through the ranks on the strength of exceptional abilities and a sense of destiny explained only by the invisible hand of the author shaping the plot. You’ll only be jolted out of the futuristic scenario by the occasional references to hypno-study courses and the undefeatable prowess of a skilled black belt in karate.

Brandon Sanderson’s excursion into young adult literature, Steelheart (The Reckoners) explores the world of superheroes and supervillains… or more accurately, explores a world where there is a surfeit of supervillains and absolutely no superheroes whatsoever. The world is based roughly on our own present, but with variations ranging from the surreal (supervillains ruling various cities as dictators) to the bizarre (transforming entire cities into steel, with super-moles digging vast tunnels for people to live and work within).

The latest book in SM Stirling’s Change series, The Given Sacrifice concludes the war against the Church Universal and Triumphant with a certain sense of anticlimax. While none of the events quite surprised me, I was left with a sense – quite familiar to me from other recent books in this series – that the author had overstretched his ability to maintain dramatic tension and that the events that have occupied the past three or four books in this series would have been better served to all take place within a single book. Compressing the narrative, if not necessarily the time scale, would make it easier for the reader to preserve the sense of risk and danger that has been rather lacking since Rudi retrieved the Sword of the Lady.

Having set aside my higher expectations after Earth Unaware , I was anticipating pretty much a simple adventure story this time around. That’s pretty much what I got with Earth Afire. Unexpectedly, though, we were introduced to Mazer Rackham in this book, and he was unfortunately less than impressive as a character. In Ender’s Game, Card writes Ender as a character who is convincingly super-intelligent yet childish. Mazer is supposed to be cut from similar if not quite identical cloth, but he doesn’t carry it convincingly.

A Cassandra Kresnov novel, 23 Years On Fire advances the clock a bit and brings some intriguing new ideas into the series. Although they are coming a little bit out of left field and strain plausibility somewhat, such small sins are easily forgiven in support of a good story and the philosophical questions that comes along with it.

The novel opens with Sandy leading a military raid on a Federation planet suspected of using mind-control implant technology on the population of an entire planet – accidentally. That theme continues with the rest of the book, as the artificial intelligences on all sides learn exactly how capable they can be once fully grown up.

Have you ever wanted to strap yourself into a starship and light off the thrusters just to see where you would end up? Fight space pirates with your black belt in Karate while climbing the ranks aboard a merchant starship? How about just being an improbably nice fellow with the plot thoroughly on your side? Then this book will satisfy you. Just keep your suspension of disbelief handy, because you’ll need it.

Astra takes the lead of a new super-group, squaring off against the Green Man – an environmental super-terrorist who causes super-accelerated plant growth. Nothing exceptional in this straightforward superhero novel, though readers might find the page count and the price tag somewhat at odds with each other.

This is the third novel in the Wearing the Cape series.