More Tireless Self-Promotion
Yep, another book. The UK mass-market paperback of The Quiet War, officially published today. The hardback cover was pretty cool; this one's even cooler. Do I need to tell you to do the right thing by it?
And - yet again - there's more! Cowboy Angels has been rendered into an eBook. You can buy it via WH Smiths or Waterstones. And I've just received copies of the US edition of The Quiet War, and the UK hardback of Gardens of the Sun, both of which look pretty damn fine.
Currently reading: John Carey's biography of William Golding; The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Just watched: District 9.
posted by Paul McAuley at 10:44 am
6 Comments:
Good to see new titles coming out as ebooks. The range is still a little thin on the ground right now.
Do you know if more of your books will be coming out in ebook format soon ?
I'm reading the first chapters of "The Quiet War" on my Sony reader while I wait for the paperback to arrive from bookdepository.co.uk. Enjoying it so far.
Hi Ian, I think The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun will be issued as eBooks, not sure when. The other titles were published before electronic rights was more than a phosphor dot on the horizon, so new contracts would have to be issued. Which always takes a while.
Is the Carey biog. worth reading? I have a lot of time for Carey as a critic, and I love Golding, but I was a little put-off by the thing's subtitle: William Golding: the Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies, Yeah, That Novel, You-Know, Often Taught In Schools, You Remember It, Sure You Do.
On the whole, yes, I'd say it's worth a look. The critical parts are mostly very good (including some fine descriptions of much unpublished stuff that tells you just enough while leaving you wanting more) and he has a good empathy with his cantankerous and self-lacerating subject. There's the usual problem with writers' biographies in that the stuff before they become published and famous is much more interesting that the stuff after. Although what ends up as a series of accounts of lecture tours and holidays and ceremonies at which the great writer is honoured (Golding funny and self-critical about his part in these) is leavened by Carey's critical blow-by-blow accounts of the composition of the novels and insights into how they echo one on the other and touch on points in Golding's life and psyche. Carey perhaps just a little too sympathetic to his subject, but by no means producing a whitewashed statue. And also a very sympathetic portrait of Golding's wife, and of his editor, Charles Monteith.
Carey does explain why he used the subtitle, at the end, but like you I'm not convinced it's necessary.
Also on the biog, Carey does justice to and is not at all sniffy about Golding's love of SF. One of the unpublished but more or less finished works is an SF novel set in ancient Greece. And now I know which of James Blish's works he particularly admired.
Paul, I finished The Quiet War about 15 minutes ago and am very impressed. Several weeks ago I wrote about it on the BSFA Forum. I need not retract one word. The style changes after the first 50 pp or so, but the result is just as satisfying. You need the descriptive density you employ to make all of your many scientific and political points in as powerfully memorable and convincing a fashion as possible. The result is "pellucid," as the review ZONE points out, but never approaches "primary school language," as the reviewer also claims. Expansiveness and straightforwardness are properly deployed. Thanks for a fine read.
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