The Hunger Games Book Review - SPOILERS
I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games before I went on vacation but didn't have time to write a book review before I left. Considering that the film adaptation has just made a gazillion dollars, it seems as good a time as ready to give my thoughts on the book.First, a short summary. The Hunger Games follows a young protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to represent her district in the annual deathmatch/reality show known as the Hunger Games in order to save her sister, who had been drawn at random. There she fits for survival against 23 other competitors from all 12 districts, including Peeta, the baker's son from her district who she is pretending/actually falling in love with. I know that there's a lot more details such as the pageantry, social-political commentary, and palace intrigue, but that's the basic story. Simple, straight-forward, easy-to-understand. Good stuff.This ground has been well-trodden before with Arnold Swartzeneggar's The Running Man (which I love) and the Japanese Battle Royale (which I've never seen). It's not the most original material but it hasn't yet been done to death.So, aside from the unoriginal premise, how was the book?Pretty good in fact.While Suzanne Collins is not going to be confused with J.K. Rowling (who I can't read without staying up all night), she does keep the story interesting and the pace brisk. The language is kept simple and easy-to-understand, allowing you to concentrate on the story and not the prose. The characters, while somewhat stock, are likeable and draw you into rooting for them (especially Rue). The only real problems that I had with the story was that romance between Peet and Katniss seemed a bit forced (maybe intentional considering that they also pretending to be in love) and drags on too long in the third act of the novel. Near the end, we are greeted with around 50 pages of the finally re-united pair resting in the woods and mending their wounds while they grow more and more twitterpated. Given the good pace that Collins had maintained throughout the rest of the novel, this break really breaks the tension just when it should be rising to a crescendo. But it ends strong and sets up some interesting conflicts for the next book.So should you read it?Yeah sure. It's not Lord of the Rings but it is fun and enjoyable because it is well-executive. Give it a shot.However, that does not say that it's perfect. There is a couple of things that bugged me as I was reading.The first, is that Katniss does really kill too many people. If my math is correct, she only kills two people directly. The rest are killed by others or inadvertently by actions that Katniss takes. If you include her dropping the tracker jackers on the other tributes, then that makes four. It's an interesting choice in that it helps preserve her innocence (she kills only when necessary and only the "bad" characters) but it also makes her a bit of a spectator for most of the games. I would have loved to see her hunt the other tributes more directly (the "bad" ones of course) in order to show off her superior archery and tracking skills.The second thing that bugs me is the tracker jacker incident. It seems a bit too Deus ex machima for me. Poor Katniss gets treed by the allied tributes and then is saved by a tracker jacket nest that just happens to be there. To this point, we had never heard about tracker jackets (unless I missed something, comments please) until they are needed. It would have been better had we been introduced to them much earlier, say when Gale and Katniss are hunting. This would have given Gale an opportunity to explain what they are to Katniss (and by extension the reader) while setting it up for use later on in the Hunger Games.But those quibbles are relatively minor in the broader context. The Hunger Games is a good read that won't take you long. Go out and enjoy it.PS - Rue is by far my favourite character.
Progression of Evermore Cover Art
In order to help E:COTN set itself apart on digital bookstores, I've hired an illustrator to draw the cover art for the novel. Thankfully, Jordan Knoll, who did the cover design for Suicide is a Tax Write-Off, recommended Kevin Bae from Toronto. His highly expressionistic art-work seemed to be a pretty good fit for Evermore's imagined world.So after some preliminary discussions, he started working on short form bookmarks while we worked out the contract details. After a short period of time, he sent me his first two ideas.
The first image on the left is Blue who, while not the protagonist, is nonetheless the most iconic character in the book. This first image is a simple profile shot of the character with shadow on the left slightly concealing her scar. My biggest concern with this image was that the scar was not nearly grotesque enough and a simple profile shot isn't enough to catch a prospective readers attention. We needed more.
The second image on the right goes in a completely different direction. Highlighting three different areas of Evermore in the spheres and the three distinct parts of Blue's subconscious (id, ego, super-ego), the second image was interesting but we both found that it was too complicated and abstract. A reader looking at it would have no idea what the novel is about or its major themes.With my feedback and further discussions, Kevin came back with a third image.
Kevin found the geometric dimensions of Market Square to be quite fascinating, so he devised its structure in more detail. At the bottom left of the image you will find his idea of what the cover page would look. Much simplified, the cover illustration sets out an interesting outline and draws the eye. However, it is still a little too abstract. At this point, the reader is not going to know anything about Evermore. Thus, he will be unable to discern that the geometric shapes are supposed to represent a meta-physical place inside the virtual world.
Kevin went back to the drawing board and completed a fourth image that you can see on the left. The image is profile shot of Blue but her face is disintegrating into polygons. I found that I loved this idea as soon as it was suggested. It's simple, focuses on the most interesting features of a major character and it symbolizes powerful one of the major themes of the novel: the loss of self in a virtual world. Her face falling into polygons represented how Blue was slowing losing her mind inside the virtual world of Evermore. I loved the idea. It seemed to say so much while showing so little.
However, this is where we also got off track. When Kevin asked if I loved the tessellations, I thought that he was referring to the polygons and said yes. In case you're wondering, polygons are single-side geometric shapes that are used to create three dimensional models, tessellations are images that mirror one another. They are completely different yet I didn't seem to notice until the next image, seen on the right, arrived.As you can see, the fifth image is getting more detailed. Blue is looking over her shoulder to something menacing approaching. The skin detail is extraordinary yet I didn't like the calligraphy blocking the rest of her body or the tessellations. Kevin stated that the calligraphy was a stand-in for her hair and duster jacket. That was fine but the tessellations were a sticking point.We arranged a phone meeting which gave us a chance to get on the same page about what we were looking for visually. It was probably something that we should have done earlier in that it made it far easier and quicker to get across my ideas. It also gave me a chance to give Kevin the short five-minute version of the story (as there's not enough time for him to read the manuscript) so he would have a better idea about what happens and the visual themes that he could take advantage. It was also here that I decided to expand our contract so that Kevin would create both the front and back page of the cover. I felt that since I had spent so much time and energy on this novel, I might as well get both front and back covers created just in case I decided to offer a print version sometime in the future. Kevin was excited as this would give me more space with which to work.
Kevin's next image was much closer to what I was looking for. The image is startling. The use of colour and light is gloomy yet provocative. The main imagery is in place with only the details to work out. As you can see, the main image of the Blue disintegrates into pieces that continue on to the back cover. Great design. The only real problem that I had with it was that the facial expression. Blue looked like she was about to fall asleep where normally she would wear a continually expression of repressed rage.
Kevin kept at it and produced the seventh image that you can see on the left. You can definitely see the physical features of Blue coming together. Her menace is there but not yet apparent as it is still an earlier image. The colour contrast is interesting and I love the beam of Blue light on the backside of the cover. The only problem that I had was that the polygons have become pyramids. This gave me an opportunity to touch base with Kevin to make sure that we were on the same page. I wanted single-side polygons because their synthetic nature highlights the virtual world that is tearing Blue apart.
With that in mind, Kevin kept working and produced image number eight on the right. The minute I saw it, I know that he had nailed the facial expression of Blue. This is exactly how she would like if her mind was being pulled to pieces. She would be pissed, looking for somebody to hurt. We were definitely getting closer. For the last couple of images, Kevin had been working on having her mind disintegrate first into key objects from the virtual world of Evermore before they disintegrated further into simple polygons. You can see this idea beginning to come into fruition here. My only person is that polygons are a little flat. At the end, the polygons should look like they're spinning in empty space.
Following my feedback, Kevin went and created the ninth image, which you can see on the left. While still early, you can definitely see the structure coming together. It has that great whoosh of light going off to the left, the facial expression is maintained and the polygons, while still flat, look appropriately synthetic. Kevin also added red lighting on the right to replace her anger and yellow lighting on the left. At this point, the basic structure of the is complete. Now Kevin will find-tune it with my feedback, make a connected design for the back cover, and start adding in the fine details.At this point, the cover art is well on its way and in very capable hands. I am really excited about how it's going and I hope you all really like it. As Kevin creates new versions, I'll upload them to the website so you can check them out. All in all, it's been a really cool process to go through with Kevin and I can wait to see how it turns out. For the serious self-publisher, I would highly recommend it. In a new world where anybody can publish, you have to look for every edge to stand apart. Cover art is a great place to start.
Cover Art - Suicide is a Tax Write-Off
Wow, my apologies. It has been almost too months since my last post. Between editing the final version of E:CotN, going home for a family reunion, taking a camping trip, and the tribulations of life, I have had great difficulty in finding the time to post on this website. With the end of a busy summer, I should be able to write with more frequency from here on in.The big news is that I'm planning to release a short story that I wrote way, way, way back in 1997 for free on Kindle. This will give people a chance to get to know my writing and for me to get some experience with the steps of digital self-publishing before I release E:CotN.One of these steps is to commission cover art for the story. When publishing for Amazon, cover art is essential. It is your firs to opportunity to grab the attention of the reader and get him interested in your story.Since I have no artistic talents whatsoever, my editor Erin Stropes suggested that I work with Jordan Knoll, a graphic designer based out of Toronto. Working with him was great. We were able to pass ideas back and forth until we came up with the concept that you see above. By using a discarded receipt, Jordan was able able to create an interesting image that tells the reader a great deal about the story without revealing the plot. I'm really happy with it. Jordan did some great work on it.Next, I'll have to purchase an ISBN for it and upload it to the Amazon Digital Text Platform. I had also wanted to upload it to iBooks, but to do so I have to charge a minimum price of 99 cents. As I wish to give away the short story for free to promote my upcoming novel, I don't really feel it is appropriate to charge for one platform and not another. So for now, it will be Kindle-exclusive.Anyway, I hope that all of you like it. I'll be spending the next week plowing through Amelia's edits on E:CotN. I look forward to the day when this project is finally completed.
The 99-cent e-book?
As some of you are aware, my original business plan was to sell my self-published short-stories for 99-cents, my novellas, for $2.99 and my novels for $4.99. I thought that these prices were fair, created differential pricing between three quality products, and were cheap enough to encourage buying. It turns out that I may have been wrong. According to David Carnoy, the standard price for an indie e-book is $2.99 and may be dropping to $2.99 99-cents.I had figured that $4.99 would allow me to differentiate myself from the big-box publishers who were overcharging customers. According to Carnoy, the digital revolution in publishing is, like music before it, pushing a race to 99-cents.
In some sense, what's happening in the Kindle Store is what's already happened in Apple's iPhone App Store, where developers have been forced to lower their prices to 99 cents to compete (recently, Angry Birds' maker Rovio told fellow developers to get used to pricing their apps at 99 cents). The price erosion isn't that great yet on the Kindle; there are still plenty of $9.99 and higher e-books out there from traditional publishers. And many of them still sell very, very well. But with so many more e-readers and iPads out there, the market has grown large enough--like the iPhone market did--that you can actually make decent money at 99 cents, particularly if you crack the Top 100.
Carnoy highlights the experience of Christopher Smith, whose "Fifth Avenue" became an Amazon best-seller, dropped his price from $2.99 to 99-cents and watched his sales soar into six figures. His strategy seems to periodically drop his price to 99-cents every once in a while to spike sales and maintain his Top 100 ranking on the Kindle Store. Then he returns his price to $2.99 and reaps the higher margin from sales attracted by his high ranking. It seems to be working well for him.On the other hand, Jesse Brown of Macleans believes that the Internet is becoming a 99-cent store where everything music to books to movies to videogames is sold at the magic price of 99-cents. According to Brown:
One dollar minus one penny seems to be the magic number when selling virtual goods that can otherwise be easily acquired for free. Self-published authors are discovering that when they drop their sticker price from $2.99 to $.99, sales shoot up, and their titles rapidly climb the charts. Rovio, makers of Angry Birds, have built a multimillion dollar business, a buck at a time, and now preach the gospel of that sweet spot price. Kindle Singles are Amazon’s bargain-priced short e-books, which are breathing new life into long-format journalism. Nine of the 10 best selling apps right now on iTunes are priced under a dollar. As different industries experiment with a range of pricing schemes for their wildly divergent products, they are all arriving at the same conclusion: 99 cents.
So this seems to leave me with two possible business models. The first is where I sell Novellas for 99-cents, Novels for $2.99, and drop the periodically to drive sales. The second option would be to sell everything for 99-cents. Personally, I more inclined to the former option as this would allow drop my price periodically, like Smith, to boost readership and give me something interesting to announce on my website (eg. "It's Canada Day. All books for 99-cents"). However, if Brown is right, then we're all going to end up at 99-cents anyway.One change is for certain. I will have to give away short stories for free. While they involve hard work and dedication to craft, they don't simply have the value proposition that a full-length novel would have. Instead, I can use them as a way to attract readers (who doesn't love free?) and build an audience for my full-length novels and novellas. They will also provide valuable experience in navigating the e-book self-publishing environment, even at a modest loss.Regardless of whether or not the ideal price is $2.99 or 99-cents, the goal remains the same: to publish and sell books. However, the pace of change is shocking in the industry. My life's work, once priceless in my eyes, is now probably worth 99-cents. Would you buy that for a dollar? I'm hoping so.
Book of Negroes Book Review
Over the Christmas holidays, the Vancouver Sun held a promotion that they called the 12 Days of Christmas. Each day, they would provide free stuff for readers with an iTunes account. Now most of the stuff was pretty disposable, but one of the giveaways was an iBooks version of the Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. At the time, I didn't really think too much about it. I put aside and went about my life. About a month ago, I finally found the time to read it.And I couldn't put it down. Lawrence Hill has crafted an excellent story that pulls the reader forward from beginning to end. From an idealic childhood in Bayo to the cruelty of the American South to the betrayal of the British in Nova Scotia, Aminata is pulled through a nightmarish life full of pain, loss, and suffering but also love and hope that gives the reader a far better understanding of the true horror of the slave trade.The real strength of Hill's novel is the unforgettable imagery that transports the reader into the time period. When Aminata is transported from Africa to the American South by ship, you can almost smell the disgusting conditions through Hill's obscene yet descriptive prose. It was simply unforgettable and gave me an understanding of the horror that Africans, kidnapped from their homes, separated from their families, and robbed of their freedom, had to endure. Hill's background in history tracking the Black Canadians of Nova Scotia strengthens the tale by giving the tale historical authenticity. You don't feel that you're reading a work of fiction but instead are staring into the life of a real person.There are some weaknesses though. While Aminata is an excellent lead, she isn't the most original of characters. The intelligent, rebellious female hero who beats the odds is a fairly trope character. While Hill uses her well, it was a missed opportunity for a more complicated and thus interesting character, especially when dealing with the omnipresent influence of slavery on everyone’s lives. Throughout the story, she maintains her trust in others, despite the number of times that she has been betrayed. I would have liked to see her wrestle more with issues of trust and cynicism towards humanity as this would have given her something internally to struggle against and eventually overcome. Instead, her conflict is external, focused on the scourge of slavery and the way it destroys so many innocent lives.However, this choice may be more appropriate as it allows Aminata's moral certainty and inner strength to contrast with the poisoned compromises that result from an economic system based on slavery. For example, see Solomon Lindo, a jewish duty inspector who believes himself to be compassionate and understanding to Aminata yet can not see that by “owning” her, he is still harming her, robbing her of her god-given right to freedom. Despite his redemptive actions later on, I can understand why Mr. Hill does not give Solomon the absolution he craves. By participating in the slave system as an owner, Mr. Lindo has given it personal credibility. The lives that are lost cannot be returned, the atrocities cannot be undone. Redemption and absolution are beyond reach for Mr. Lindo and that is what makes him a somewhat tragic figure. His only hope lies in Aminata’s forgiveness and she understandably, is not in a forgiving mode.A second weakness in the book is the ending. I felt that it strained the novel’s credibility to deliver a happy ending that didn't really fit with the rest of the story. Over her entire life, slavery had robbed Aminata of her freedom, her family, her lover, and finally her children. For everything to work out at the end, while emotionally satisfying for the lead character, seems to undermine the tragedy of slavery and its destructive impact on so many lives. Perhaps Mr. Hill is like us. Having watched Aminata overcome so much hardship during her life, we cannot help to cheer when she receives a little piece of happiness. We are only human.However, these weaknesses should not distract from the fact that the Book of Negroes is an outstanding accomplishment. Lawrence Hill should be proud of his work. He has crafted a story that should not be missed.
The Future Will Not Be Printed
I haven’t had much time to post recently. My job, hot yoga and preparations for an upcoming family reunion have taken up more and more of my time. In the time I’ve been away, the publishing world has continued to undergo rapid change. Most notably, Amazon has announced that ebooks now outsell all printed books on Amazon.com. Amazon now claims that since April 1, for every 100 print books that Amazon has sold, they have sold 105 Kindle ebooks. They also claim that they have already sold more than 3x as many Kindle ebooks in 2011 then they did for all of 2010.However you want to cut it, that is a significant shift in how the public consumes literature. It’s not surprising. Ebooks are cheaper, more convenient, and more portable. But their rapid growth since the introduction of the Kindle and iPad are no less impressive.The growth of the Ebook sales and its growing acceptance by the public through multiple devices such as the Kindle, iPad, and other tablets has begun to challenge the current pricing model. Narasu Rebbapragada from PCWorld has a fascinating article on the subject. I won’t review the entire document, but I would say that the current prices for ebooks are far too high. The strength of app and music sales from iTunes comes from impulse buying where customers instantly buy what they want without stopping to think about their pocketbook. If the customer has to think about the price then you’ve probably lost a sale. Personally, I believe that $4.99 is the most appropriate price point. It’s reasonable high enough to differentiate its higher value in comparison to songs or apps, but it’s low enough that the consumer is not going to worry too much about the price. $5 is an easily digestible sweet spot.That said, I don’t have too much of a problem with the publishing industry’s agency model. Personally, I believe that they can and should be able to set the price to whatever they want. If they believe that they can sell a book at $14.99, then it is their right to set their price. I believe that they’re wrong but I’m not going to begrudge them their right to do so. Besides, with hundreds of thousands of books available now, it’s not like the customer doesn’t have other choices. For me, it’s an advantage. The high price point creates a opportunity for cheaper, independent books to gain a greater share of the market.It is indeed the Wild West and nobody knows exactly how it will turn out. However, one thing remains true: we are entering an age of complete literary freedom. Anybody can publish a book and anybody can sell a book. The publishing world has become a free market. It will be fascinating to see what it can produce.
The Sentimentalists Review
Memories are both a blessing and a curse. They have the emotional power to take us back to our greatest experiences but they also insidiously unreliable, constantly lying to us about our own past. Johanna Skibsrud’s debut novel, The Sentimentalists, plays on this contradictions. Her Giller Prize winning novel, a near-autographical take on her own father, deals with the tantalizing power of memory as well as its inability to bring us closure.After a breakdown in her own life, the protagonist returns to Government House in Ontario to recover and to reconcile with her long-absent and dying father Napoleon. The story alternates between the present and past. The present is told by the protagonist and directly deals with her own feelings and memories of her father while the past is told to her by her father. These stories deal with his earlier life and later his experiences in Vietnam.It is in reading these passions that you begin to understand while Skibsrud’s first effort was universally praised. Her prose is outstanding. It’s poetic and flows naturally without any sign of artificial writing. The prose belies her past work in poetry as her sentences and paragraphs are beautifully constructed. Her style is somewhat reminiscent of Michael Ondaatje whose text reads more like poetry than prose fiction.However, outside of the beautifully written text, there isn’t really much else to recommend. The story of a person trying to piece together the past of their father has been done many times before with far more effectiveness. Recounting horrifying experiences in war has been done countless times before as well. Skibsrud’s recounts of Vietnam warfare and the atrocities (seemingly) committed by Napoleon’s troop are generic, countlessly replayed in other books, TV shows and movies. On this, Skibscrud may be understandable limited by the experiences of her father and the written record on which the events in Vietnam are based.However, these same events could have been far more compelling with a stronger narrative structure. While the hook of the novel is the daughter’s search to understand what happened to her father in order to understand her own life, this conflict was not presented in a way that hooked me to the story. For the most part I meandered through the story, finding little to drive me towards the end. What this story needed was a MacGuffin, something that becomes the focal point of the protagonist’s search and that when found, provides a measure of illumination and understanding to the reader. The unfinished boat at the beginning of the story holds promise in this regard but it is not truly developed. The boat feels more like an appendage than an essential part of the protagonists history, a real missed opportunity.But perhaps that is not Skibsrud’s point. Instead of providing quick and satisfying conclusions to the reader, she is more interested in showing in how memories, while tantalizing, are never able to provide the answers for which we seek. They are shadows of truth and The Sentimentalists raises these questions effectively at the inconclusive end. While the story itself is rather uncompelling, Skibsrud’s evocation of memory strikes very close to truth. It is for perhaps for this reason that the literary community awarded her the distinguished Giller Prize. Literary juries prize originality above all else and on this score, Skibsrud stands alone by integrating memory into all aspects of her story, from structure to prose, from the beginning to the end. Perhaps the closest corollary that I can think of is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day. But in Ishiguro’s work, the story leads to an emotionally devastating finale. In Skibsrud’s debut, I felt nothing. The elements are there, but they are just out of reach.Memories are emotions unresolved and while Skibsrud’s debut effort is not able to tell a effective story, she is to be commended for capturing its essence. While I cannot recommend The Sentimentalists to others for its generic and uncompelling storyline, I recognize that she effectively captures the power and fallacy of memory throughout all aspects of her novel. She has significant writing skills. When she combines these literary skills with a more compelling story, she may very well create the next Great Canadian Novel.