This story is a week old, but I neglected to mention it when it hit: Amazon declares that Suzanne Collins’s “Hunger Games” trilogy is the highest-selling series ever for them in the US.
This does not mean that Collins’s books have sold more copies overall than, for example, J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series, which was the prior record-holder. And it doesn’t mean any of the things implied in Sara Nelson’s self-lauding statement at the link.
What it means — and what everyone who works in publishing already knows, but doesn’t usually like to say in public — is that Amazon is capturing an ever-larger share of the book business, which means that they sell a larger percent of books now than they did ten years ago — so ofcourse the big sellers now are bigger for Amazon than the big sellers were ten years ago. (Look for a similar statement about those “Fifty Shades of Grey” books in another year, especially if a movie does get made.)
This is good if you think that a single retailer should dominate the entire retail landscape for a particular kind of product. If you don’t think that’s such a good thing, your mileage may vary.
But what the statement really is saying is “we own the book market now, suckers.” So you might as well learn to love Big Brother.
Fans don’t always realize how much of what they get to read on the marketplace gets out there despite publisher preconceptions. History is filled with any number of books, ranging from A Wrinkle in Time to Confederacy of Dunces to Harry Potter, that hit the market and left in their wake a host of rejections from various editors because the stories didn’t fit in with what they were looking for.
Pulling Up Stakes first made its presence known at various conventions when I first started working on it. I’d read sample chapters and enthused audiences begged to know when it was going to be done so that they could find out what happened next.
Yet when the book was circulated to editors, the reason for their passing on it were impressive, to say the least.
Pulling Up Stakes tells the skewed tale of Vincent Hammond, a twenty-something vampire stalker, who lives with his domineering mother in a small community of hunters tracing their lineage back to the French Revolution. Vince, however, has a rather singular problem: he’s a vampire. And if his mother finds out, she’ll kill him. Literally. So he doesn’t dare come out of the coffin, so to speak and keeping his secret becomes further complicated when…
Well, we’ll get to that at a future date.
Little did I, or the fans who have loved the readings up to that point, know that that Pulling Up Stakes violated too many rules of the genre. Editors who rejected it, however, didn’t hesitate to explain the problems.
First, if you have a vampire story, you have to have a female protagonist.
Second, men can’t write vampire stories. That’s solely the arena of women writers. Bram Stoker, Joss Whedon…you can suck it.
Third, humor doesn’t sell. So apparently you’ve doomed yourself when your vampiric narrator says things like, “Sparklepires? Come on. Real vampires considered the Twilight books to be such a loose flow of unmitigated crap that they were typically referred to as ‘Vampirrhea.’”
So apparently by writing a humorous vampire story with a male protagonist, I managed to hit the trifecta of hopelessness. No publisher would touch it.
And as you, dear reader, work on prying your slack jaw off the floor, consider how nice it would be to send a message to the publishers that maybe, just maybe, thinking outside the box now and then might be a nice idea, by letting everyone know that Pulling Up Stakes is going to be making its debut at Crazy 8 Press in just a few weeks. Because you can’t keep a good undead man down.
My plan to reduce the stack of read but unreviewed books by reviewing one a day has fallen sadly afoul of events — and the particular “event” in this case was the fact that Thing 2 (my younger son, now 11) and I have been playing a lot of Lego Indiana Jones 2 the last week or so.
(It’s not new, but all of the Lego games – except for Harry Potter, which has over-complicated game mechanics — are so much fun that it’s great just to pick them up and run around smashing things and jumping your little man around randomly; they’re the kind of games that make you happy just to look at on the shelf and even more so to pull them back down and play.)
In other, unrelated news, my iPod Touch has been acting up for the past couple of weeks, and finally succumbed to the Ubiquitous White Screen of Death over the last few days. Even the so-called “genius bar” — I’ve been a user of Apple products for a long time now, and I greatly preferred it when they were scrappy underdogs and not arrogant SOBs — was no help, and so I ended up having to get a new one earlier today.
So far, it doesn’t seem all that different — it supposedly has the super neat-o keen-o “retina display” and a faster processor, but it basically seems like the same device to me. Except. This new one has a camera in it, a cheap crappy phone-style camera, so I can now take cheap crappy pictures of random things when I remember to. And so, this afternoon, instead of actually writing a review for one (or more!) of the books in that big stack, I played some more Lego Indiana Jones 2 with my son, took a picture of the stack of books, and wrote the above.
Nothing like a good book to get the rabble-rousers going.
In Field Of Dreams, Ray Kinsella’s wife, played by Amy Madigan, successfully shuts down the effort to ban Terence Mann’s books from the local Iowa school system. Terence Mann – played by James Earl Jones – was based on J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher In The Rye.
Catcher was published in 1951, and has pretty much stayed on “attempts to ban it” lists since its publication. In fact, it was the most censored book in America from 1961 to 1982, even though, according to Wikipedia, it was the “second most taught book in United States public schools.” It most recently reappeared on the “most challenged books” list, published by American Library Association, in 2009.
These are some of the books I remember being on the curriculum when I was in school, along some that I missed because I was already out of school by the time they made the list of required reading, courtesy of my co-workers, although I have read them all:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Animal Farm
Antigone
Brave New World
Beloved
Call of the Wild
Catcher in the Rye
The Color Purple
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
The Diary of Anne Frank
Fahrenheit 451
The Glass Menagerie
The Grapes of Wrath
Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet
Invisible Man
Johnny Tremain
The Light in the Forest
Lord of the Flies
Macbeth
The Miracle Worker
1984
The Odyssesy
Oedipus
Of Mice and Men Othello
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Othello
Our Town
The Outsiders
The Pearl
The Pigman
Pygmalion
The Red Badge of Courage
The Red
Romeo and Juliet
The Scarlet Letter
A Separate Peace
Shane
A Tale of Two Cities
To Kill a Mockingbird
Where the Red Fern Grows
Wuthering Heights
And here are the books on that list that have been banned at one time or another – or on which attempts have been made ban, courtesy of the American Library Association (ALA):
The Great Gatsby
The Catcher in the Rye
The Grapes of Wrath
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
Beloved
The Lord of the Flies
1984
Of Mice and Men
Catch-22
Brave New World
Animal Farm
Invisible Man
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Call of the Wild
A Separate Peace
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Outsiders
Call Of The Wild?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Other books on the list I found from the ALA include the Goosebumps series; the Earth’s Children series; Gone With The Wind (but not anywhere in the South – oh, for those good old antebellum days!); The Handmaid’s Tale (in the South, I bet!); the Harry Potter series; Slaughterhouse Five; Native Son; Cujo, Carrie, and The Dead Zone (someone really doesn’t like Stephen King); Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Forever, Tiger Eyes, and Deenie, (they don’t like Judy Blume, either); A Wrinkle In Time; Flowers For Algernon; James And The Giant Peach (but Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is okay?); The House Of Spirits; The Bluest Eye and Song Of Solomon (or Toni Morrison); and That Was Then, This Is Now (ditto for S.E. Hines).
Brave will be out in June so Disney is cranking up the publicity machine. Here are some concept sketches to give you more of an idea about the filme, featuring Pixar’s first heroine.
MERIDA (Voice of Kelly Macdonald)
Passionate and fiery, Merida is a headstrong teenager of royal upbringing who is struggling to take control of her own destiny. She feels most at home in the outdoors honing her impressive athletic skills as an archer and swordfighter, and racing across the magnificent Highland countryside with her faithful horse, Angus. With a spirit as vibrant as her untamed hair, Merida also has a softness of heart, especially when it comes to her wee triplet brothers. As the daughter of the King and Queen, her life is weighted with responsibilities and expectations, causing her to yearn to preserve her freedom and independence. When Merida blatantly defies an ancient tradition, the consequences of her actions prove disastrous for the kingdom. She must race against time to make right the result of her reckless behavior, her journey compelling her to look inside to discover the meaning of bravery and reveal her true fate.
ANGUS
Black as night with ivory muzzle and fetlocks, Angus is Merida’s powerful Clydesdale and her most trusted confidant. Angus is Merida’s escape from castle life into the deep forest and the highlands beyond. Merida target shoots from her perch on his broad back and is able to coax him into one adventure after another. Angus can be balky, stubborn and faint-hearted at times, but is ultimately a devoted and faithful friend to Merida.
It’s spring, that magical time of year when the flowers bloom, birds sing, and school libraries publish the list of books most frequently banned or attempted to be banned.
This year’s list is a mixture of new best sellers and timeless classics. You’ve got your Hunger Games, your To Kill a Mockingbird, your Brave New World and your Gossip Girl. There is a guide that explains to kids about what happens to mom when she is pregnant, and the reason it’s listed is because it is “sexually explicit.”
Look, I understand that most school libraries have limited budgets and limited shelf space. They can’t stock every book in the world. Someone has to make decisions about what gets purchased and where it gets shelved.
The problem is who gets to decide.
I’ve been the mother of a first-grader, and if there arose a ridiculously hypothetical situation wherein my six-year old came home with Brave New World, I probably would have a talk with his teacher. I think it is inappropriate (my kid would have just learned his ABCs, so I think Alpha and Beta might be a stretch), but rather than try to get it banned, I would hope to understand what the teacher was thinking. Maybe there is a new pedagogical theory that I don’t understand.
But no one is complaining about Aldous Huxley being taught to first graders.
The idea that someone is objecting to To Kill a Mockingbird because of “racism” is ludicrous. It’s a story about racism, how it affects people of all races in a community. It’s great novel, beautifully written and evocative. It’s also a great opportunity to start a conversation with students – most likely middle school or older – about how our country evolved and is still evolving.
A lot of the books on the list made their places because, according to their critics, they contain “sex,” “violence” or both. Some contain “nudity.” Some have “language.” I have trouble imagining books that don’t have at least a few of those elements. How can you describe human interactions without at least one? How can they teach the Bible (any version) or Shakespeare without them?
Some parents say things like, “I don’t want the schools teaching my child about sex/racism/war. I want to do it myself.” And that’s all well and good. However, one doesn’t teach a child by restricting information. If the school teaches something with which one doesn’t agree, one should use that as an opportunity to demonstrate one’s own position. As a Jewish parent in a predominantly Christian society, this was something I did regularly.
Some parents don’t want their children exposed to any ideas that might influence their kids to think independently. I have to wonder why these people had children. They would be happier with dogs.
Why does this matter to comics fans? Because the people who decide to ban books from school libraries are the same people who think comics are just for kids, and therefore should face the same restrictions they think are appropriate for school libraries. These people are why the American Civil Liberties Union has always included comics as part of their mission, because they remember that the attacks against comics in the 1940s and 1950s were attacks on all of us.
Our democracy can only succeed when all members have access to the marketplace of ideas. That includes Mein Kampf and Heather Has Two Mommies, Twilight and The Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter and Captain Underpants. It also includes Superman and Spider-Man, Hellboy and Preacher, Fun Home and The Playboy.
(Maxims: Political, Philosophical, and Moral, by Edward Counsel)
Except in comics.
I was doing a search for quotes about death when I found this one, which is so apropos. I never heard of Edward Counsel; did a Google search, but couldn’t find him?? Found a reproduction of his book on Amazon; the original was published before 1923. All I can gather is that he was an Australian who was born before 1900. Anyone who has more info is welcome to let me know in the comments section.
The reason I was looking for a quote about death – of which there seems to be milllllllllions – is because all us comic fans are buzzing about the YouTube video The Death and Return of Superman, by Max Landis (son of John Landis), who stars in The Chronicle. I was going to post it here, but Martha (Thomases) beat me to it three days ago – which amazingly points out that DC actually thought Tim Drake’s/Robin’s new costume was more of a P.R. event than Supe’s kicking of the bucket – so I won’t do that. All I can say is that, if by any chance you haven’t seen it, do so at once. You have my permission to stop reading this column, go watch it (it’s about 16:00 long) and then come back. It is bitingly hilarious, and exceptionally on the mark!!!! (Major kudos to Landis and his fellow actors btw!)
SPOILER ALERT!: Okay, I’m going to assume that you have either already seen the video or have taken the 16:00 to watch it before returning here, because I’m going to give away the ending here.
Landis concludes his short film by stating that Superman’s death and return opened the floodgates for other comic characters to die and then resurrect. In other words, said resurrection cheapened the dramatic impact of said death, and ended the ability of readers to mourn the loss of the character, because the reader knew the character would eventually return. Cynics like me will always point out that the death of a character in the comic book world is always due to (1) marketing; and (2) the dictates of Hollywood – as Martha ably points out in her column concerning Lois And Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
As a comics writer, a editor, and a reader, the “make-believe” of death in comics really pisses me off.
I’d like to point out that the ability of fiction (any fiction, from comics to television to movies) to help children understand and cope with finality of death is incredibly important. J. M. Barrie understood this, as he has Peter Pan say “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” And of course, J.K. Rowling did not flinch from the meaning of death in the Harry Potter And The novels; it was one of the themes of her “magnus opus” – beginning with the main character. Need I remind you that Harry was an orphan?
Okay, young readers of comics are scarce these days. We all know that. But they are still out there; my eleven-year old niece Isabel being one of them. And children are curious about death. About six months after my husband left me, the family was out to dinner. Right in the middle of the laughter and the eating, Isabel, six years old at the time, said to me, “Is John dead?” (That was a conversation stopper, let me tell you.) Of course her parents had explained what had happened. But obviously Isabel couldn’t grasp the concept of marital separation and divorce, so all she knew was that John was gone, which in her thoughts equaled death… because, as her mom told me later, she had just seen a movie – I don’t remember which one, it might have been one of the Harry Potter’s – in which one of the characters died. And she was trying to wrap her young mind around “death.”
Which I think is good; our society tends to put death into a dark, dusty corner where it molders and mildews and mutates into something unbearably monstrous. Remember the uproar over Terry Schiavo? How about the Republican bullshit of equating Obama’s healthcare bill with death panels? And as a registered nurse in the operating room, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen terminally ill or extremely aged patients subjected to the stress of unneeded or useless surgery or treatment because the family insists on it because they can’t deal with the impending death of their loved one.
Death can be welcomed as an end to unending pain and torment. Death can be aggressively fought against with all the tools of modern medicine. Death can be sudden, or it can be stretched out into nanoseconds.
But death is real.
I’m still reeling from the death of Kara Zor-El – Supergirl – in Crisis On Infinite Earth. Don’t talk to me about the reboots.
The Very Short List of Comic Book Superheroes Who Have Died And Returned: Alfred Pennyworth, Aquaman, Aunt May, Big Barda, Bucky, Captain America, The Doctor, Elektra, Fahrenheit, The Flash, Firestorm, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, The Human Torch, Jean Grey, Moon Knight, Negative Man, Punisher, Robin, Supergirl, Superman, The Thing, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (many if not all), Wonder Man, Wonder Woman, Yellowjacket.
TUESDAY: Michael Davis. Sponsored by the Bacon Council.
Over the weekend I started to read Stephen King’s new book, 11/22/63: A Novel. I’m not very far into it, as King writes long and I like to luxuriate in his enjoyment at having a story to tell and his great affection for his characters. And also, I have things to do.
It’s a time-travel story, and so far it’s set in 1958. I was five years old then (King was 11), and some of my memories of that time are clear. As he describes children playing in Maine, I remember what it was like for me in Ohio.
We played Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers. We played House, and School. None of us had Barbies yet, but we had stuffed animals so we could play Zoo. We made mud pies. We played Kick the Can and had squirt gun fights (see above re: Cowboys and Indians, etc.).
What we didn’t have, in our fantasies, was fantasy. Nobody did any time-traveling. No one went into outer space. There were no Ninja Turtles (or ninjas), no Transformers. There were hardly any Princesses.
When I was a bit older and could read, I liked Greek mythology and fairy tales and comic books, but hardly any of my friends did. Like them, I enjoyed Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins and Cherry Ames, but I wanted more. My mom had some of her storybooks from when she was a girl, and I loved them, with their old illustrations. She introduced me to the works of Edith Nesbit,and I discovered a new way to imagine. Instead of gods and goddesses, nymphs and demons, or royalty protected by fairies, this was fantasy rooted in the real world.
Until I read his Books of Magicin which Neil Gaiman thanks E. Nesbit, I’d never met another person – besides my mom – who had read those stories. If you haven’t read The Railway Children, you’re in for a treat.
From there, my local librarian introduced me to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Not knowing it was a classic, I took it for science fiction and read the short story anthology, Tomorrow’s Childrenand from there I discovered Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and others.
Again, none of my friends were into these books. We might have shared a love of Salinger because by this point we were going through puberty and no one else could understand our intense psychic and spiritual pain. Still, I was the only one mesmerized by the explicitly alternate realities of science fiction writers.
Things are different now. There are involved fantasies for every age group. HBO offers Game of Thrones for adults, and J.K. Rowling has sold hundreds of millions of copies of the Harry Potter books. Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who are cultural milestones, something every culturally literate person is expected to reference. The Avengers movie and the new Batman movie are expected to dominate next year’s box office. Sometimes it seems like half the bookstore shelves are devoted to vampires and/or zombies. And then there’s that Stephen King fellow.
I’d like to think it’s because we’ve become a more tolerant culture, one open to more different perspectives. I only know that genre fiction has brought me a lot of joy. I hope it has the same effect on the rest of the world, especially as we time-travel into the future.
Editor’s Note: That’s Ms. Nesbit up there, looking back at you.
Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland. In Brave, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts.
Merida is a skilled archer and impetuous daughter of King Fergus (voice of Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (voice of Emma Thompson). Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (voice of Kevin McKidd), surly Lord Macintosh (voice of Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (voice of Robbie Coltrane). Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric old Witch (voice of Julie Walters) for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish. The ensuing peril forces Merida to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late. (more…)
Fans don’t always realize how much of what they get to read on the marketplace gets out there despite publisher preconceptions. History is filled with any number of books, ranging from 
My plan to reduce the stack of read but unreviewed books by reviewing one a day has fallen sadly afoul of events — and the particular “event” in this case was the fact that Thing 2 (my younger son, now 11) and I have been playing a lot of Lego Indiana Jones 2 the last week or so.
