Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Back from Bubonicon

For anyone who's been wondering where I've been the last few days, I've been in Albuquerque, New Mexico at a science fiction convention called Bubonicon. Before anyone asks -- and it seems I get asked this a lot, as though I'm an authority on the subject -- Bubonicon was named back in 1971 by science fiction writer Robert E. Vardeman who had read in the newspaper that Egypt was not allowing people from New Mexico to come into the country because of New Mexico's high rate of Bubonic Plague. If memory serves, there are about 2-10 cases of Bubonic Plague recorded in New Mexico each year, but fortunatelyit's rarely fatal these days because of modern antibiotics. At any rate, the convention is named for the Plague and the convention's mascot is a rat named Perry Rodent (after Perry Rhodan of the novels by K.H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting.)

While at Bubonicon, I got to say "hi" to several friends, both old and new, along with several favorite writers including Walter Jon Williams, Suzy McKee Charnas, and the aforementioned Bob Vardeman. Another favorite writer I got to speak to was Nicole Givens Kurtz who has a new book entitled Zephyr Unfolding, that even has a blurb by yours truly. Another thing that was extremely cool was that I got to see the first episode of the updated Doctor Who series. (I could have stayed for two episodes, except that I had to take the family off to dinner!)

In general, I love science fiction conventions and I encourage writers at all stages of their careers to visit a convention or two per year. I made my argument for why new and aspiring writers should visit conventions in the introduction to Hadrosaur Tales 19 (which is available at www.projectpulp.com ). For more established writers, conventions are a great opportunity to network with other writers, get feedback from fans, and talk about their wares. My company, Hadrosaur Productions, went so far as to buy a dealer's table at the convention so we could show off old copies of Hadrosaur Tales, new copies of Tales of the Talisman, along with books published by Hadrosaur and LBF Books. By and large, people seemed quite impressed with Tales of the Talisman and my sense is that the company has moved in the right direction. I also sold completely out of copies of my novel, Vampires of the Scarlet Order -- and as a little side note, the book was well-reviewed in the Denver Post while I was at the convention.

I do have two minor rants from the convention. The first rant has to do with certain authors' spouses that were less than friendly or polite. In each encounter, I came away with the distinct impression that the spouse felt that I was beneath them because either A) I'm a small press author or B) I was a dealer at the convention. What's been notable about these encounters is that the authors themselves tend to be quite polite and nice. Also, in all fairness, I suppose it's possible that I caught the author spouses on a bad day. Because of that, I won't drop names or entertain speculations about whom I'm speaking. I will say that I'm talking about both husbands and wives. I also want to emphasize that the vast majority of people I talked to at the convention were quite nice -- including most of the author spouses. These are just a few proverbial bad apples. That said, I've run into this attitude more than once and the thing is, it does make me think twice about buying books by the author in question. A little politeness goes a long way!

The other rant has to do with convention dealers that won't carry small press books. The thing is, one of the reasons I go to conventions is to visit the dealers and shop for those things I can't easily find at other stores. However, quite a large percentage of the dealers room was taken up with books that I could easily find by walking into my local Barnes & Noble. I have no particular problem with this, especially when the convention guests and participants are well-represented. My problem is with the dealers that make it a policy to exclude small press -- even when the authors are at the convention. Years ago, once could go through a convention dealers room and find lots of good small press, fan fiction, and even handmade crafts and hard-to-find toys. Those things still exist, but it seems that dealers room tables are increasingly filled with the same pre-packaged merchandise that you can find at any chain store. There are exceptions and I applaud those dealers that still carry small press books and rare items.

My two rants aside, I had a great time. I'm looking forward to my next two conventions. The first is MileHiCon in Denver from October 21-23. The other is TusCon in Tucson from November 18-20. I hope to see you at a convention soon!

Dave

Posted by David Summers 2005-08-31 17:42:56

Monday, August 22, 2005
Some Thoughts on Reviews

Earlier this month, there was a great review of my novel Vampires of the ScarletOrder in a regional newspaper called The Ink. The newspaper has a circulation of about 17,000 and is available in Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico, and West Texas. So, all in all, I'm extremely pleased with the review. If you'd like to read it, and The Ink isn't distributed where you live, you may view it online at http://ink-artnews.com -- you'll find the review inAugust 2005 (which is the current issue) under the Art Newssection.

Like most authors, I suppose, I'm flattered by good reviews and less-than-thrilledabout poor ones. However, as a reader, I've sometimes wondered about how useful reviews really are. I can't honestly think of a time I have ever purchased a book based on a good review, or avoided a book based on a poor review. Sometimes I buy books based on the recommendation of a friend, or good cover art entices me to pick up the book and read what it's about. I never read the little blurbs written by other authors or reviewers -- after all, a publisher would be foolish to put a bad blurb on the back of a book! The other way I decide what books to read is through short stories. More often than not,if I like an author's short works, I'll go see if they have any novels.

Unfortunately, I've also read more than my share of reviews by people who bash books with biting sarcasm that, I believe, is supposed to entertain the audience. However, such sarcasm isn't really helpful to anyone wanting to buy the book; it's just mean spirited. I've also read too many reviews where the ultimate judgement of thebook is based far too heavily on the reviewers private agenda -- either the reviewer wishes to curryfavor with the author or their publisher or the reviewer hates small press or something of that sort.

As it turns out, when we started Tales of the Talisman Magazine, I rejected a few proposals for book reviews on the basis of what I've just said. However, several people continued to discuss book reviews with me and ultimately I gave in. I decided to use one of the fairest, least biased reviewers I know, Kane S. Latranz, who writes reviews for the weekly newspaper, the Albuquerque Alibi. My condition was that the reviews would be short, so that the fiction and poetry would still dominate the magazine. Kane agreed and his first reviews will be appearing in Tales of the Talisman 1.2, which goes on sale in September.

Why did I ultimately give in to having book reviews? It came down to several people telling me that they do find reviews useful. Also, both Kane S. Latranz and Roy Van der Aa -- who wrote the review of my novel in The Ink -- along with a few others, showed me that reviewers who are fans of good literature and are independent thinkers can write reviews that are both useful and informative.

In the end, I suppose the jury is still out about how useful reviews are -- at least for me. Perhaps now that we'll be running reviews in Tales of the Talisman, I'll consider some books on the strength of reviews. Still, I know that if I read a really great short story, I'm going to want to know if the author has written a novel so that I can savor more of their words.

Posted by David Summers 2005-08-22 15:13:06

Saturday, August 20, 2005
Blog, the Magnificent Ferret

First, allow me a brief introduction. My name is Dave Summers. I've written three novels: The Pirates of Sufiro, Children of the Old Stars, and Vampires of the Scarlet Order. They are listed here on SFF World at http://www.sffworld.com/author/1216.html

I also edit a science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine called Tales of the Talisman co-published by Hadrosaur Productions and LBF Books. The first issue came out at the end of June and the second issue will be out in September. For more information, visit: http://www.hadrosaur.com

This is my first foray into the world of the web log... so a few thoughts on the subject:

The other day, I was watching The New Scooby-Doo Movies with my kids. The episode was "Scooby-Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke." In this episode, Dick Van Dyke has fallen on hard times and runs a carnival all by himself. Of course the carnival is haunted and Scooby and the gang must help out. As I was watching, I caught sight of something in the background that caused me to nearly fall out of my chair. One of the sideshow attractions was "Blog, the Magnificent Ferret -- ten feet tall, 24 stone. See Blog, 10 cents."

This episode of Scooby-Doo was made over thirty years ago. If that little bit of background art wasn't prophetic science fiction, I don't know what is. Now, I've been following some web logs over the past couple of years and it's impossible not to notice the media attention they've garnered. Blogs run the gamut from insightful, provocative political discourse worthy of discussion in major newspapers to vitriolic personal attacks that would make an episode of Jerry Springer look tame. I submit that no matter where they are in that spectrum, blogs are a sideshow attraction. The better web journals serve the same purpose as the Op-Ed pages of newspapers, but like Op-Ed pages, they don't drive the news so much as provide feedback on what is happening in the news, much like surveys and polls. The worst blogs are like reality TV, except you don't get to see anyone throw chairs. Like a 10-foot ferret, all blogs have teeth. However, like any good sideshow attraction, you have to wonder whether the teeth have substance and you always know that if one attraction fails to please, there are more down the midway. At least blogs don't cost money... not even ten cents!

Finally, I submit this little web journal experiment is nothing more than a sideshow attraction either. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, you'll find more substantial stuff in my books and the magazine I edit.

Dave

Posted by David Summers 2005-08-20 20:56:09