Kyle Brady: Blog » Books

“The Value of Books” [Self]

Kyle Brady — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:12:16 +0000

New column at Technotainment Revelations on True/Slant:

With the new Christmas Day record for e-book sales, a question will inevitably rise over the next few weeks: what is the value of books, both printed and digital? There’s been a discussion over the price of e-books for at least the last year, especially regarding whether they should be cheaper than their printed counterparts – so determining the innate value of books, more appropriately defined as the innate value of reading-based longform entertainment, is becoming important.

Go check it out.

Musings on SciFi Book Length [Self]

Kyle Brady — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:34:17 +0000

There's been some discussion recently about the length of books in SciFi, both past and present... along with the details of who/what/why/when/how/where, and whether or not having longer books is a good idea.

I posted a lengthy response on an io9 overview of the "debate", and thought it was re-post worthy:

Who said that longer books are bad?

I prefer the well planned, thought out, and complex lengthy SciFi novels of today to alot of the shorter "wham, bam, thank you mam" stuff that was seen previously.

If you're a good author, then you write until your story is done. As much as people pretend it isn't true, the originators of SciFi were not very good authors- they had good ideas and great imagination, but had trouble with plot, dialogue, and the idea of a character as an individual. If you need examples of this, just thumb through any of the "original greats".

People like Stross, McDevitt, etc. are good examples of great and far-fetched SciFi ideas that are turned into not only great novels, but novels of epic proportions. Some of the greatest novels of modern times has the same "feel" of scope that is found in Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" series, with all the best parts of SciFi.

And this is supposed to be a bad thing? Please.

I'm not even going to get into the current state of Fantasy's book length. Completely different... story.

Twilight: A Book Review [Self]

Kyle Brady — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:09:39 +0000

I usually don't post book reviews on here, since I belong to one of my favorite sites of all time, Goodreads, that lets me keep track of what I've read, am reading, and what I thought of each book.

But this review is too precious to not mass-distribute, so here it is.

My review of the teenage girl's wet-dream of a book, Twilight.

Probably the singularly most terrible book I've ever read.

I went into this book expecting something interesting and vampire-based (like a pre-ILOVEJESUS Anne Rice novel, or an early Laurell K. Hamilton book), so I didn't come in with any prejudice.

The beginning of the book was tolerable, and I attributed alot of the fluff and nonsense to the introduction of the characters, setting, etc. But I was wrong.

The majority of this book reads like the memoirs of a horny-but-goodgirl teenager, stuck in the world of vampires for no apparent reason. Five pages of describing how a shirt clings to Edward's "muscular chest" because of the "dampness of the fog", while also vaguely describing her girlish reactions, is way too much for the average reader, let alone an audience that veers outside the preteen/post-menopausal range.

Not only does the majority of this book equate to female-oriented softcore porn (like those trash novels you can get at CVS), but Meyer throws out everything interesting and seductive about vampires. Granted, most authors "reinvent" the vampire legend for their works, but she seems to have made a bullet-point list to intentionally discount them. Sunlight? Nope, just makes them shiny. Evil on the inside? No, because some of them drink animals' blood. Crosses/garlic/silver? Laughable.

So basically, he's not a vampire. He's just some sort of superhuman character with no flaws, who lives forever, has super-strength, and feeds off the blood of animals. No weaknesses, only godlike existence.

Great.

Another large discussion point when reviewing this book is it's obvious literary failure. Did Meyer ever graduate from middle school? If so, how can she be so completely oblivious to the standard plot model? 90% of the book is just the inane ramblings of a high school girl who buys clothes, gossips, and semi-dates someone at school. And then Meyer gets within the last handful of pages in the book and seems to think "OH SHIT! I NEED DRAMA!" and throws in some random vampire fight.

Then the book ends.

Full of literary value, Meyer is obviously on par with JK Rowling, Tolkien, and probably even Stephen King.

Finally, many of what readers assume are Meyer's "morals" that she wishes to impart on the audience are actually just Mormon indoctrination. They aren't obvious in this first installment, but I have it on good authority that the later works are extremely obvious in their moral and religious intent. Knowing this, if you go through the book, you can pick out essentially the premise of the entire religion.

This is not acceptable. Yes, authors have a right to religion. Yes, they have a right to impart certain morals, themes, and suggestions on us. But they should not indoctrinate us. C.S. Lewis managed to write epic stories that used the themes of Christianity without preaching. And he is just one of many who accomplish this strange-to-Meyer feat.

All in all, a terrible book. Not worth reading. Ever.

And I don't plan on seeing the movie, nor reading any of the book's sequels

[see and comment on the original, at Goodreads]

More Harry Potter [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:50:34 +0000

I just finished re-reading the entire Harry Potter series (only the second time through... but considerably better than the first), and I noticed something: about halfway through the series, JK Rowling smoothly transfers the character development from a "Harry+Ron+Hermione" focus, to include many more characters, a large portion of which develop distinct, and lovable, personalities.

Why do I bring this up? Why is it worth mentioning? Because it provides a giant opportunity for the series to not "die" with the 7th and final book, without it seeming to "sell out" or become cliche. What am I talking about?

Parallel Stories

The development of the story, with the focus on another, but no less important, character is something rarely attempted by authors... probably because it is so difficult to align the two plots, and provide enough detail from the other perspective(s) to make it worth reading. But I've seen it done successfully, once: Orson Scott Card. The "Ender's Game" series was (and still is) one of the most loved SciFi events of all time... but instead of ending the series when it was obviously over, the story got revitalized. Many times. And made it even more endearing to it's fanatic following.

The Obvious

Like I said earlier, it would probably be a terrible idea to extend the Harry Potter series past the 7th book, in a chronological sense, because of the all-inclusive ending, and the terrible excuse for an Epilogue. Even worse would be another series, following someone else set in the future, distanced from the current series... following a child of Harry & Ginny, perhaps.

But the obvious way to expand the Harry Potter Universe would be parallel stories: one series centered on Luna Lovegood, and another on Neville Longbottom.

Character Choice

If parallel series are ever written, the character choice would be crucial. An entire book (or series) focused on Ron, Hermione, or their families would not work. The trio, and by extension, their families, are already a very significant part of the book, too much to be "spun off" themselves. Luna and Neville, however, are exactly the opposite.

Glimpses of Neville are seen from the beginning, and as the series progresses, we see him grow more confidant and capable, but also become closer to Harry, and becoming an integral part of the anti-Voldemort movement.

Luna doesn't even appear until about halfway through the series, and even then she only appears to help explain a weird situation, or provide some unintentional humor. It's not until the 6th book that we really see Luna grow into her own, but by the end of the series, I can't help but feel like she didn't have as much "face time" as she deserved.

Added Value

Imagine these two parallel series are written. The added value potential is huge... through Neville we would have more light on the backstory of Voldemort and Harry's parents, not to mention his own, and through Luna we would see more of the quirky wizarding world that slowly fades from sight as the current books progress.

But more than just adding details to pre-existing storylines, these would have the chance to do even more: expand the Harry Potter Universe itself. All those times when Neville and Luna disappear would be a perfect chance to have epic stories of their own. The biggest chance of all would come towards the end... having not hidden in the forest, this would be a rare chance to re-tell the epic battle (and it's precursors) from a perspective that was closer to the action for longer periods of time.

Wishful Thinking

Realistically, this will probably never happen. If anything, we'd probably see a book or two written in a pre-Harry world, but nothing as expansive or impressive as what I've just described.

But that doesn't mean I can't hope for it...

--- --- ---

Update (7/17/2009): Over a year later, I wrote something similar for the Inquisitr.

The Kindle, Not All Bad [Old Content]

Kyle Brady — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:08:58 +0000

If you're reading this, then chances are you know about Amazon.com's Kindle, an e-book reader... kind of like an iPod for books. And you also probably know that it's getting major criticism for everything from it's battery life to it's product design to if it's even useful.

But one major market is being overlooked here, without anyone thinking about the potential effect it may have: students.

Textbooks are super expensive, and it gets even worse when you go to college. $350 for a textbook? And it's not made of silver? The biggest excuse for the price of textbooks (even if you buy them used online, they're still very expensive) is the printing. Hardback + many many pages + color + nice and glossy pages = high printing cost.

I guess that makes sense. So why don't you not print at such a high standard, and lower the prices a little bit, eh? BECAUSE YOU WANT MY MONEY!

Most high schoolers (at least the ones that actually want to go to college) carry a backpack full of textbooks to and from school everyday. Not one of those laptop backpacks, but a super-size LL Bean backpack that is made of that funny material that'll stretch, but not easily rip.

Doctors and parents complain this is ruining their children's backs. College kids refuse to bring books to class because it's so difficult to make that 30min walk across campus with 15 books in their bag, totaling the entire weight of a large hobbit.

Why don't we use less textbooks then? Oh, maybe because there's usually 2 books required, if not more, for the average college class, and rumor has it those "Barnes and Noble Campus Bookstore" places highly encourage the use of multiple books, especially when they're new...

Remember when laptops were going to revolutionize the learning process, about 10 years ago? How parents were fighting for their kids to be able to use laptops in the high school classroom? And colleges were promising to make the texts available via computer?

What happened to that? I know I haven't ever used a digital textbook in college, and I don't know of anyone else that does either. But the ones I do hear about are usually clunky: you have to install special software, only install once... sounds like something Microsoft would create, right?

So here's my solution. Since publishers are apparently incapable of publishing full-color textbooks in PDF format, and selling them iTunes-style (not through iTunes, but the same idea of online distribution)... which would considerably cut costs, since not only is the book not physically printed, but it's not shipped anywhere either... why don't we take advantage of the "I want to be popular" technology of the moment?

E-book readers like the Kindle (there are others, but this is the one to get the most coverage so far) could be the easy solution. Try this out on college campuses, where the kids have money to spend, and actually might want to learn:

Include as part of tuition a one-time fee for an e-book reader. Deliver this at orientation Freshman year.

All classes have the option to buy a printed version of a book, but are suggested to use the digital version, available for download at the appropriate location.

See how happy it makes everyone.

Continue this program every year.

Eventually stop even printing these college textbooks.

"Oh but what if it breaks?!?!?!" Easy answer. I'm pretty sure that if you have to pay anywhere between $100-300 every now and then, even if it's every year, to get your textbooks for a fraction of the cost ($30 Physics books anyone?), no-one is going to complain. So don't give me that IT crap as an excuse.

Maybe e-readers are not going to be very popular in general population for another decade or two. I mean, seriously, a digital library of books isn't going to impress anyone... no-one's iPod or iTunes library is of any interest either, right?

But at least target the market that would benefit the most: poor college students who hate paying for textbooks every semester. College textbooks have been a problem since probably the dawn of time, and now here's a way to alleviate the pain.