review Archive
Content by Cory Doctorow
I received a review copy of Cory Doctorow’s first book of collected non-fiction, “Content,” from Tachyon Publications the other day. Here’s a disclaimer that may or may not be necessary: While Cory and I have never met in person and I don’t think we’ve corresponded electronically, we do have a lot of mutual friends, once-removed community connections, he’s posted stuff about me on BoingBoing.net, and I’m pretty sure we’re friends on Facebook. I was asked to review “Content” by a third party.
“Content” features twenty eight essays, articles, and presentation transcripts originally published over the last seven years in The Guardian, Forbes, Information Week and elsewhere. The context of some of the material is, given the quicksilver nature of Internet history, a little dated, but the overarching message is hyper-relevant: art, creativity and the relationship of all expression to the mass media industry is in a state of extreme flux.
As an author, Doctorow has, as he says, “a dog in this fight,” and he makes it clear that it is a fight: against digital rights management (”…bad for society… business… artists…”) the erosion of privacy (”…ubiquitous cameras only serve to violate the social contract that makes cities work”) and the danger of the remarkable opportunities of the information age being curtailed by the lobbying of old-media giants desperate to maintain control of the splintering pipe.
Doctorow also advocates for e-books, demolishes the vilification of file-sharing, and exemplifies the commercial value of giving creative material away from free by appealing to both common sense and the evidence of the last ten years.
In each of these essays, Doctorow slides passionate arguments on the future of creativity and society in a conversational, casual and humorous delivery mechanism. It’s difficult to say if his efforts will have much impact eroding the moribund convictions of the entertainment industry, but they may not be the target audience for “Content.” On the other hand, if all those Generation Z and proto-Singularity kids reading Doctorow’s “Little Brother” also find their way to “Content,” this book may well become a classic.
If you’re a creative person, if you’re a “content” consumer, if you’ve ever been dismayed to discover you don’t own the music or movie or software you thought you bought… you need to read “Content.” Even if, like me, you agree with most of Cory Doctorow’s positions and advocate many of the same principles, it’s worth your time — you’ll find yourself energized and rejuvenated.
Maxwell, Harwood, Sigler
In the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure to receive and read books from authors who utilize new media and / or the DIY ethic in the pursuit of their art. It’s time to do some reviews!
Full disclosure — these are all folks I know personally. Still, I’ll try to be objective.
“Murder Moon” — Matt Maxwell
I met Matt Maxwell in junior high school. That’s over a quarter of a century ago.
Just letting that sink in for a moment.
Back then, we geeked out over comics, drew our own crude Frank Miller knock-offs of Wolverine, Daredevil, and friends… and imagined we’d see our own comics on the shelves one day.
For Matt, that day has come, and I’m very proud, very excited.
“Murder Moon,” written by Matt Maxwell with art by Luis Guaragña, Gervasio, Steve Lieber, and others, published by Matt’s own Highway 62. Graphic novel, trade paperback. It’s a Western… with werewolves!
Rendered in nice, stark black and white with lots of heavy shadows (albeit a little too heavy in some panels), “Murder Moon” takes classic Western elements and scrambles them with the supernatural. You’ve got the drifter, emotionally scarred from his Civil War years and mysteriously reluctant to be reunited with a family member. You’ve got the small mining town, slowly dying. There’s a sheriff, naturally, and of course, he’s got a little more going on than he’d like to let on. There’s even a hanging.
And you’ve got a werewolf, drawn in some sequences with an apparent nod to the Bill Sienkiewicz rendering of the Werewolf by Night featured in the old Moon Knight comics published when Matt and I were kids — especially in the last panel of page eleven. I can do nothing but salute that, and wonder if it was Matt’s idea or Guaragña’s . I also admire Matt’s take on the werewolf mythos — no spoilers, but it recognizes that this tale takes place in the American frontier, not Eastern Europe.
The presentation is more atmosphere than gore, the pacing easy in a way that befits the passage of time in a hot, dusty one-street frontier town. There are some unanswered questions, but that’s okay, because this will not be the only Strangeways book — Matt’s already working on the follow-up, tentatively titled “The Thirsty.” Wonder what that’s about..?
If you like cross-genre horror, give this a try. You’ll be supporting a long-deserving self-published new talent, and making future works possible. Order it from your local comic book store, if possible. If you don’t have one nearby, see the Amazon.com link below.
“Jack Wakes Up” — Seth Harwood
Seth is one of those pesky podcasting novelists you’ve heard about a time or two. Eschewing the traditional wisdom, he put a version of “Jack Wakes Up” on Podiobooks.com as a free audiobook, read by the author. You’ve heard of this tactic… but lots of folks haven’t, and when the book got picked up by Breakneck Books, a small press in New Hampshire, Seth worked the podcast angle into some excellent promotional mojo in the traditional media.
“Jack Wakes Up” is a crime thriller, a genre I don’t have too much exposure to beyond James Ellroy’s amazing L.A. Quartet novels. I’ve seen a lot more crime thriller movies — stuff like “The Usual Suspects,” “Pulp Fiction,” and such. This stuff can be fun.
Seth’s book is fun! I made an effort to get through it quickly, which is not to say it was an effort to get through — far from it. I made time to read — something I don’t have much of these days — so that I could get back to it.
The set up: Jack Palms is a has-been one-hit movie star and ex-junkie running out of money. An old associate from the bad-old-days invites him to be in on a drug deal involving some traveling Czech characters and a local supplier. Of course, Things Go Wrong, and Jack involves himself in something more complicated and dangerous.
The action is brisk and entertaining, the characters colorful, and the writing is appropriately cinematic. The only thing that threw me out of the story now and then was, unfortunately, the motivation of the lead character.
Jack Palms pulls himself deeper into life-and-death situations, near as I could tell, because he’s bored with living a straight-and-narrow life of clean living and physical fitness he’d fought three years to develop. Yes, he’s running out of his movie money, but he doesn’t consider just going out and finding a job… he goes straight to a one-off payment from Czech joyriders that will just cover his bills. Then what, Jack?
Also troubling is the reactions (or lack thereof) of most of the non-gangster characters when exposed to horrific, bloody violence at extremely close range. Jack, who we presume has never been closer to devastating violence than watching squibs pop on a movie set, seems barely fazed when people are shot to pieces all around him. The few times he does give a stray thought to getting out of the mess, he sticks it out because of the rush he’s getting.
I’ve never been a recovered junkie, so I dunno… but I didn’t quite buy it.
That said, this is meant to be a pulp book — I’m over-analyzing it, for sure. I say again: I enjoyed the heck out of this book, and I think you will, too. Think of it as an action movie on paper, and you’ll have a blast. Pick up a copy through the link below, and you’ll be supporting another podcast author who’s making good for himself.
“Infected” — Scott Sigler
Ah, now we come to the podcast novelist who is making a lot of good for himself. I posted a bit about Scott just a few days ago, so I’m really only going to talk about “Infected” itself. I finished reading it yesterday, having never listened to the podcast version.
First, what’s this book about? Essentially, it’s a ticking-clock novel — government scientists and agents race to track down the cause of a strange disease that makes its victims paranoid, homicidal nutjobs; one infected guy who has spent his adult life fighting his already homicidal nutjob nature struggles to get the better of the disease before his own clock runs down.
I loved this book. I consider Scott a friend, and I respect his talent and unrelenting moxie, so let me be clear: very quickly, while reading “Infected,” I stopped thinking of it as “Scott’s book.” It simply became “this kick-ass, delightfully disturbing book I cannot put down.” I really can’t give higher praise in this context.
This is being marketed as a horror novel, but it isn’t one of those surprise-scare horror books. It’s more accurate to say that it’s horrific. There are genuine cringe moments here, lots of them, and they’re achieved for two reasons:
First, Scott — like his idol, Stephen King — knows how to give you reasons to care about the characters, and does so with great economy. This raises empathy, which is critical if you’re going to give a damn when these people are put in great danger, or do great harm to themselves.
Second… the nature of the nastiness in this book forces you to consider your own body, and its far-from-inviolable sanctity. If you’ve ever decided to deal with an ingrown toenail or fingernail with some hot water, hydrogen peroxide, and a nail file… heck, if you’ve ever dug a splinter out of your skin… the deeply personal, intimate horrors Scott serves up in “Infected” will resonate with shuddering impact.
This book deserves to be a summer blockbuster. It deserves to be a movie… but frankly, after reading it, I’m not sure how a major studio is going to pull that off without some taming. More than anything, it deserves to be in your hands, pages whipping by at paper-cut speed. Get it. “Infected” rocks.
Pony Up For These Authors!
Support Sigler, Support All Podcast Authors
My friend and colleague Scott Sigler’s first hardcover release from a major publisher, “Infected,”
Big Publishing and Traditional Media are watching “Infected” very closely. If the book performs well in its first week, it sends a powerful message: the audience will buy what it loves, and gatekeepers are no longer absolutely necessary to filter the content people enjoy.
As the “History Of The New Merit Economy” textbooks will show, Scott Sigler built his audience of tens of thousands by giving his content away for free for the last three years. Now it’s time for that audience, and anyone who believes that fans and creators can support each other directly, to pay him back for hundreds of hours of entertainment.
Show Old Media the power of disintermediation. It’s time to buy “Infected.” Go to your local bookstore, or do it right now. Look, I’ve made it easy for you:
“North of Sunset” by Henry Baum
A while back, Henry and I did a book swap. He wrote up “Brave Men Run” almost a month ago. I am horribly late returning the favor.
Rather than tell you what “North of Sunset” is about, check out the Lulu page (where you can also — and should — buy the book!) for reviews and a synopsis. You’ll find a lot of high praise and favorable comparisons to Chandler and Flaubert there… all deserved.
I finished the book about three weeks ago. Since then, I’ve had trouble deciding just what I wanted to say about it. The fact that I’ve been uncertain of my own opinion of the work is, I think, a testament to the book’s effectiveness. I think I’m ready to give it a go.
“North of Sunset” builds pace at an exponential rate. It starts slow, piling on the point-of-view characters until I was very, very ready for the first third of the book to be under my left thumb. Once things started to happen, though, I devoured pages with eager hunger… but I was left with a disappointment I didn’t initially understand.
Took a little digesting to figure it out.
“North of Sunset” is a satire, a statement, a vision of celebrity and the freedom prison it creates, as well as Western culture’s role as both warden and conjugal visitor. The book is full of characters, but it isn’t really about any of them.
That’s not a criticism. It’s a reflection of my own preferences in what I like to read, and what I like to write. I look for sympathetic characters, good or bad. The people populating Baum’s book are, with the exception of one minor character, nearly bleached of any sympathetic qualities. That lack was the reason for my feeling of disappointment. However…
…that’s the point. In the “Hollywood Noir” world Baum asks us to embrace in order to stage his play, people require the superficial approval of the anonymous masses more than they need to act morally. As a reader, I found myself waiting for justice. It never came. Message received.
Ultimately, regardless of this reader’s literary prejudices, “North of Sunset” succeeds. It’s an engaging read, in part because it feeds on our desire to experience the amplified passions of its characters. The fact that this is the same impulse that fuels the cult of celebrity is delicious irony, a meta-message with the reader as collaborator.
Neat trick, Henry. Nicely done.
Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)
Hey, dig into your record collection (or ask your mom or dad, or listen to it on Rhapsody or Pandora) and put “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on your music-listening device of choice.
Seriously.
Take eleven minutes and listen to the opening track, “Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding.)”
Man, check out the bass guitar, especially on the “Love Lies Bleeding” half of the track. Dee Murray earned his paycheck: the man is workin’ the thunderbroom; he’s all over the place, the tone is just perfect, and it’s recorded beautifully — you can hear that great, visceral undertone of wound metal vibrating between fingers and pickups, just like you’re there.
Kick ass. No kidding.
