I had a birthday last week. And I read somewhere that since the year I was born, the world’s population has trebled. That’s 63 years, folks.
In 1804 there were 1 billion people on earth.
There are now 6.65 billion.
Hmmm.
And I have nothing whatever to say about the photo below, taken by my husband in L.A.
Ever wondered if they are honest?
There’s been a few posts on the subject just lately: Justine Larbalestier and John Scalzi (read the comments section) and Meg Rosoff.
The consensus seems to be that “if I don’t like it, I won’t blurb it.” I must admit, though, I have read quite a few books that have loads of praise on the cover but have left me thinking, “Did these guys ever read this??”
Getting my booked “blurbed” by an author never crossed my mind when I started out. I have still never asked someone to do one for me. I never will.
So, how did some of my books get to have another author’s comment on it?
Havenstar English cover: None. But it did have a 10/10 rating from Starburst magazine mentioned.
Havenstar German cover: None. It has a quote from Publisher’s Weekly about being in the upper league of fantasy
The Aware Australian cover: “Witty, gritty and enthralling” comment from Trudi Canavan. This one has a story behind it. Voyager sent a pre-publication print to a Melbourne sff specialist bookseller. He didn’t have time to read it, so passed it to Trudi, author of The Black Magician Trilogy. She loved it and wrote a magical blurb, bless her. At this stage, I had not met her.
Other Isles of Glory covers – even American ones – have repeated this or give quotes gleaned from one of more Australian reviews. Happily, I have been reviewed fairly well in Oz so there was plenty to choose from…
Heart of the Mirage Australian cover: Quotes Trudi on The Isles of Glory trilogy “Hard to put down. It’ll keep you up late and make you stay home all day”
Heart of the Mirage UK cover: Quotes Kate Elliot saying : “Exciting, robust adventure. Glenda Larke is a fabulous writer.” Another story here. I read some nice things Kate had to say about my previous books on the blog Deep Genre, which just blew me away – because I admire her writing so much. We have the same editor at Orbit UK, and he read what she had to say and asked if she would mind writing the blurb for the new book.
The Shadow of Tyr UK cover: Quotes Karen Miller saying, “Glenda Larke is magical. If you don’t read her, you’re missing out a treat”. (Karen is much more famous than me, so I feel she lost out when I was asked for a blurb for her first book in the UK.)
Song of the Shiver Barrens UK cover: Karen Miller’s quote on the front, and Kate Elliott’s on the back.
As you can see, I have benefited from some really splendid writers being kind enough to write a blurb – and each of them was asked by the editor, not me. Similarly I wrote a blurb for Karen Miller when an editor asked me. And yes, it was honest. I had already read the book in the Australian edition and was delighted to be asked.
So my question now is this: do you readers take any notice of famous writers writing nice things for a book cover?
[Russian covers? Absolutely no idea what any of them says…]
He has a good teacher…! That’s bassist Eric Holden, who has played with Five For Fighting, the BoDeans, Josh Groban, etc, etc, and closer to (my) home, Corinne May…
I hope you have all looked at that cool video I told you about yesterday. If not do it now before reading further.
Because I want to ask you something.
If you were walking through a large space in a public building – like the departure hall of an airport or the ticket hall of a railway station – and all of a sudden you noticed that there were tens and tens of people frozen in place around you… ordinary folk who were doing ordinary things but are now suddenly looking through you blankly. And not moving.
That man there, about to take his next step, that one over there, doing up his shoelaces, that girl eating an icecream with it now dripping all over her fingers, that guy frozen as he bends to pick up some sheets of paper he dropped, that group of people looking at a map…all not moving. Several hundred people, in fact, not moving. They aren’t laughing. They are just…fixed. For minute after minute.
If you were there and saw all that happen in front of you, what would you think?
Aliens have come from Alpha Centauri and stolen their souls away?
They are aliens, and have suddenly all succumbed to earth’s toxins?
They are aliens and have been recalled home, so they just shucked off their borrowed bodies?
They are all good Christians/Muslims/Whatever, and God has whisked their spirits up to heaven as a mark of His favour, leaving their bodies behind ?
They have all somehow breathed in a poison – released by wicked terrorists – which has stopped their ability to move or speak?
They are an acting class sent out by the teacher to see how good they can be before an audience?
They are just a group of people having fun just for the heck of it?
Bet you’d come up with something along the lines of one of the last two explanations.
Now, if something odd happens to you – e.g. you are about to ring your dad – first time in two weeks – you reach out to pick up the phone when it rings. Lo and behold it’s your dad.
You immediately think:
Wow, I’m psychic
Wow, he’s psychic
Wow, we have a psychic connection
Aliens are at work
God’s ways are mysterious to behold…
Not to be wondered at, seeing as I haven’t rung him in two weeks…
Coincidence
So tell me, why do so many people NOT go for the logical non-magical answer with things like the phone call, when that was the kind of answer they looked for in the first scenario? (Which I deduced from listening to the sound track of the video, and from the fact that none of the normal, non-frozen people were running screaming from Grand Central Station or even punching in 911 numbers on their mobiles…)
I’m reworking Rogue Rainlord at the moment before “real” work catches up with me again.
And it truly is amazing how many times two different readers can read exactly the same thing and see two different things. And how humbling it is when you are the writer and you discover what you thought was crystal clear was not clear at all…
For example:
One of my characters is a woman who cares for her husband but doesn’t want to show it, for reasons I won’t go into here. There’s a short scene where he is about to go off to rescue someone, a woman, and she is a bit bad-tempered. I was trying to point out to the reader that she is sick with worry for him as he is going into danger, but doesn’t want him to know it. The beta reader thought I was trying to say she was jealous. Which never occurred to me.
And that’s just one example. Back to the drawing board…
And have you all seen that wonderful video about the frozen folk of Grand Central Station? If not, do look. It is marvellous.
Yes, it’s not the tyre track of a large mechanical monster, but the pathway of a single Green Turtle, going back to the sea after nesting on Sipadan Island.
The eggs are collected – mostly to keep them safe from the huge monitor lizards, and the young released at night when they hatch. Human interference is not a problem here, due to the military presence on the island.
This particular turtle laid under some bushes, well up the beach. You can see her shifting sand with her flippers. She must have been more than a metre in length.
Note how deep she laid the eggs, being collected here by the wildlife officer. His right arm is buried up to the shoulder as he extracts them. The eggs are soft-shelled but tough and therefore not easily broken…
And here’s a tongue-in-cheek etymological lesson for Americans: turtles have flippers and spent most of their life in water. The other guys – the ones with legs and feet and claws are called tortoises, and live mostly on land…
Oh, for a camera in my hand at the right time… Yesterday I was pulled up at a set of lights with a motorbike rider in front of me. So I started to read the back of his t-shirt.
There was a whole list of “Dont’s” obviously aimed at young adults, scribbled in red print on a black background. Probably locally manufactured.
It started off pretty much as one would expect:
Having blog-blasted Microsoft because my new Ergonomic Microsoft Keyboard 4000 stopped working after one week of use, I now have to praise them.
I took me a while to establish that I had indeed bought the keyboard in the USA and brought it back here (my fault for the delay, not theirs), but once that was done, they were amazing in their response. I now have a brand new keyboard that works beautifully, and the swelling and pain in my wrists has vastly improved. Microsoft staff were helpful, followed up everything, and the result was excellent, the matter solved quickly.
So, credit when credit is due – thanks Microsoft.
When I put up the cover of the French edition of The Aware, they didn’t have the blurb on Amazon. Now they do, and I’ve pasted it below.
I haven’t spoken French since 1994, which is when we left Tunisia, so my French is a bit shaky. But I think they said that this trilogy has identified me as a rising star of the Antipodes. Wow.
I have a strange reaction to the translation of Blaze Halfbreed, though. Somehow Braise Sangmêlé sounds – to my English-attuned but vaguely-French-conversant ears– like a rare steak. You know, braised mixed blood.
Présentation de l’éditeur
Braise Sangmêlé s’était juré de ne jamais remettre les pieds à la Pointe-de-Gorth, repaire de tout ce que les îles Glorieuses comptent de désespérés, de trafiquants, d’escrocs et de criminels sans foi ni loi prêts à tuer père et mère pour quelques setus ou une choppe de bineille. Mais les Vigiles, qui règnent en maîtres sur l’archipel, ne l’entendent pas de cette oreille. Braise est la seule à pouvoir mener à bien une mission délicate pour leur compte : ramener le plus discrètement possible la castenelle de Cirkase en fuite. Et on ne lui demande pas son avis. Mais à peine débarquée, braise se rend compte que quelque chose ne tourne pas rond : son enquête se heurte au mutisme des matelots et une odeur inquiétante de magie carmine semble s’attacher au moindre de ses pas. Car en plus d’être une combattante hors pair, armée d’une épée aux proportions exceptionnelles, Braise Sangmêlé possède le don de Clairvoyance qui lui permet de sentir la magie à l’œuvre. Quoique pratique, ce talent fait d’elle une cible de choix pour les sorciers de tout poil qui n’apprécient guère qu’on se mêlent de leurs projets de domination du monde. Bref, Braise s’est encore mise dans de sales draps.
Biographie de l’auteur
GLENDA LARKE. Elle est née au pays des kangourous mais vit en Malaisie. Bien plus ambitieuse qu’elle n’y paraît de prime abord, la trilogie des îles Glorieuses l’a consacrée comme une des étoiles montantes de la fantasy des antipodes.
