fantasy fiction

1. In July, Amazon announced that Kindle book sales had surpassed hardback book sales. Analysts pooh-poohed this milestone as paperback sales are far greater than hardback sales. But now Kindle book sales have overtaken paperback sales as well. Amazon is now selling more digital or ebooks in its bookstore now than physical print books. We’ve reached a turning point in the way people read books.

   There is still a ways to go, however, for ereader owners are still buying print books and ereader ownership is still not mainstream. While the adoption of ereaders is spreading, even at an accelerating pace, a recent survey of book shoppers shows that only 21% own one. I don’t own one yet, though I hope to buy an Android tablet in the next year or so.

   I’m not sure print books will ever go the way of the dodo. Print books will increasingly have collector value. Some people may still prefer reading them, if only out of nostalgia for a bygone era. There are ways to add value to a print book as well: high-quality production, handwritten signatures, personal notes, and so on.

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Clarkesworld Magazine is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine that features at least two original short stories per month from new and established authors as well as artwork, podcasts, and non-fiction articles. Founded in October 2006 by Neil Clarke, its online content is totally free. The magazine has been experimenting with innovative methods of funding. No paywalls or DRM or desperate IP aggression here.

While its content is freely available online, Clarkesworld sells print versions of its fiction. An annual anthology series, Realms, is available in trade paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats. Additionally, several months after online publication, each month’s fiction is collected in chapbook form; the value-add here is that the chapbooks are limited print run (100), numbered editions that are signed by the authors. If you happen to have a tablet pc or ereader, you can also purchase ebook editions of each monthly online issue in epub or mobi/kindle format.

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Great quote from Angel to his son Connor (Angel, Season 4, Episode 1, “Deep Down“):

Nothing in the world is the way it oughta be. It’s harsh…and cruel…but that’s why there’s us…champions. It doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done, or suffered. Or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. You’re not a part of that yet. I hope you will be.

Reminds me of Ayn Rand’s “Anyone who fights for the future, lives it in today”¹ and her conception of Romantic Realism in fiction as a portrayal of life “as it could be and should be.”² See, also, my Journal of Libertarian Studies article, “Atlas Shrugged and the Importance of Dramatizing Our Values (pdf).”

1. The Romantic Manifesto, 1975, p. viii ↩

2. Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995, p. 243 ↩

Zack Snyder, director of 300 and Watchmen, has a new film project coming out in 2011 that may be of interest to genre-loving libertarians: the upcoming movie Sucker Punch. It may not have an overtly libertarian theme or plot, but it does appear to center around an issue that is relevant to libertarians, particularly women and libertarians interested in the time period in the US in which this film is set, the 1950s.

The premise and setting of Sucker Punch remind me of Angelina Jolie’s film Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame, and set in 1928. Both films depict periods in the United States in which it was all too easy to commit someone, particularly a woman, to a mental institution against her will. In Changeling, Jolie’s character is involuntarily committed to the local hospital’s psychopathic ward by a corrupt cop for political/job preservation reasons. In Sucker Punch, the main character, Baby-Doll (what’s with the name?), is involuntarily committed to a mental institution and scheduled for a barbaric lobotomy. I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out why and by whom she was committed.

So, in Sucker Punch, as in Changeling, it appears we will be presented with a story illustrating (wrongful) involuntary commitment, the unequal status of women in recent US history, a struggle for freedom and to maintain one’s sanity in an oppressive medical institution where the authorities insist you are insane. Unlike Changeling, which was a historical film, Sucker Punch will be an action fantasy.

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A few notable things I ran across recently:

1. Will Thomas of The Atlas Society (formerly known as The Objectivist Center) argues that transhumanism is compatible with Objectivism.
2. Kylie Sturgess, in her Curiouser and Curiouser column for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, interviewed Scott Sigler. I hadn’t heard of him before, but apparently he’s known as a podcaster and now also as an author of techno-thrillers.

   Sigler describes skeptics as people
    

   who were spreading the other side of the information instead of misinformation. They are out actively encouraging people to think for themselves, and what’s been interesting is that they’re not necessarily telling people “this is bunk.” They are encouraging people to think critically about things and learn how to address things when you run into them.

   He goes on to mention how, among other things, evolution is being challenged in America. But there’s a flipside to long-accepted, fairly well-established science being attacked in knee-jerk fashion by those faith-based types leery of science in general and of science that challenges their religious beliefs in particular. Sometimes science can become corrupted in politically-charged fields, and scientists lose their objectivity. I’m reminded of an old post I wrote about scientific skepticism in relation to global warming alarmism. I riffed off of Clarke’s First Law of Prediction and Asimov’s Corollary.

   But to get back to Scott Sigler, has anyone read any of his work? If so, what do you think? Do you recommend it?

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