On the weekend, it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Assassination of JFK, and the proofs for Dead Americans arrived in my email. It heads off to press, soon, I am told.
It is about this time that a book begins to look like a book. It is not the physical object, not yet, but it has moved beyond being a document file, a mix of elements, and is now like the image of an embryo on a monitor. I was pretty pleased by what I saw - naturally I am the most impartial of viewers - and I think it will be neat book when it is out in the world. In a way, it was strange to read it in this format, as if a mirror had been held up in an angle you don't usually see yourself. I tend to think of myself as intellectually lazy, easy going, and mostly cynically amused by the world I live in, but I don't think anyone who reads the book will think that (well, perhaps the first: there's always someone willing to jump onto the negative descriptions you've got of yourself). But I thought the book was a dark, weird thing, with a lot of variety and nuance to it. I thought, as I have thought since I wrote it, that the novella, 'Octavia E. Butler' was one of my finest pieces. I fully expect people not to agree with me on, for people not to like it, or to find it obscure, but I will maintain my stance. But truthfully, I thought all the stories stood up well, which you know, being impartial and all, means I am the person to listen too. Still, I don't think that about a lot of my work in hindsight (I think Black Sheep is a mess, for example) and I left a lot of short fiction out of the book because of that.
Anyhow, here's the sweet cover, again:
You can pre-order it, as well.
It is about this time that a book begins to look like a book. It is not the physical object, not yet, but it has moved beyond being a document file, a mix of elements, and is now like the image of an embryo on a monitor. I was pretty pleased by what I saw - naturally I am the most impartial of viewers - and I think it will be neat book when it is out in the world. In a way, it was strange to read it in this format, as if a mirror had been held up in an angle you don't usually see yourself. I tend to think of myself as intellectually lazy, easy going, and mostly cynically amused by the world I live in, but I don't think anyone who reads the book will think that (well, perhaps the first: there's always someone willing to jump onto the negative descriptions you've got of yourself). But I thought the book was a dark, weird thing, with a lot of variety and nuance to it. I thought, as I have thought since I wrote it, that the novella, 'Octavia E. Butler' was one of my finest pieces. I fully expect people not to agree with me on, for people not to like it, or to find it obscure, but I will maintain my stance. But truthfully, I thought all the stories stood up well, which you know, being impartial and all, means I am the person to listen too. Still, I don't think that about a lot of my work in hindsight (I think Black Sheep is a mess, for example) and I left a lot of short fiction out of the book because of that.
Anyhow, here's the sweet cover, again:
You can pre-order it, as well.
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