Heads up to all authors with Kindle Editions and to Goodreads users

I started spotting notices on various editions of books on Goodreads last night talking about how as of January 30th, they’re going to stop using book data from Amazon. Affected book editions are showing notices at the top of their pages that look like this:

Goodreads Data Alert

If you click on the Learn More button a new page pops up talking about Goodread’s reasons for doing this, and displaying a form where you can fill in data from other sources to make sure that the book doesn’t vanish out of their database.

AUTHORS: Go check your books on Goodreads and make sure you’re not about to lose your only entry in their database. ESPECIALLY if your only listed edition is a Kindle Edition.

GOODREADS USERS: Check your bookshelves and see if you’re about to lose any Kindle Editions out of your various shelves. You do NOT need librarian access to rescue a book–anybody can fill in the form, apparently. But you should rescue any obvious Kindle Editions in your lists. All you need is a legitimate source of data about the book, from somewhere other than Amazon.

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Heads up to all authors with Kindle Editions and to Goodreads users

I started spotting notices on various editions of books on Goodreads last night talking about how as of January 30th, they’re going to stop using book data from Amazon. Affected book editions are showing notices at the top of their pages that look like this:

Goodreads Data Alert

If you click on the Learn More button a new page pops up talking about Goodread’s reasons for doing this, and displaying a form where you can fill in data from other sources to make sure that the book doesn’t vanish out of their database.

AUTHORS: Go check your books on Goodreads and make sure you’re not about to lose your only entry in their database. ESPECIALLY if your only listed edition is a Kindle Edition.

GOODREADS USERS: Check your bookshelves and see if you’re about to lose any Kindle Editions out of your various shelves. You do NOT need librarian access to rescue a book–anybody can fill in the form, apparently. But you should rescue any obvious Kindle Editions in your lists. All you need is a legitimate source of data about the book, from somewhere other than Amazon.

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Another year, another round of LJ fail

For those of you who may not have seen this yet, this story started going around last night. I saw the LJ Twitter account link to it, so one presumes this is indeed legit. The article’s talking about future plans for LJ, and it’s looking like the ongoing trend of not giving a damn about the old-school LJ user base isn’t stopping for the foreseeable future. The money quote is this one:

LiveJournal’s leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service’s current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand’s identity in a crowded media marketplace.

The ONTD_political community is not amused. Neither is JF’s fandom_lounge.

I am not abandoning LJ quite yet. But I HAVE shifted a lot of my primary reading over to Dreamwidth–so if you’re on both sites, and if you are actively posting to DW, I’ll be reading and replying to you on DW. So if you plan to make the jump and you’re on my LJ friends list, let me know so I can add you on DW.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Another year, another round of LJ fail

For those of you who may not have seen this yet, this story started going around last night. I saw the LJ Twitter account link to it, so one presumes this is indeed legit. The article’s talking about future plans for LJ, and it’s looking like the ongoing trend of not giving a damn about the old-school LJ user base isn’t stopping for the foreseeable future. The money quote is this one:

LiveJournal’s leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service’s current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand’s identity in a crowded media marketplace.

The ONTD_political community is not amused. Neither is JF’s fandom_lounge.

I am not abandoning LJ quite yet. But I HAVE shifted a lot of my primary reading over to Dreamwidth–so if you’re on both sites, and if you are actively posting to DW, I’ll be reading and replying to you on DW. So if you plan to make the jump and you’re on my LJ friends list, let me know so I can add you on DW.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

2012 Book Log #6: Ganymede, by Cherie Priest

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The fourth installment in Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series, Ganymede is now finally getting into actual sequel territory. Like Clementine and Dreadnought, it’s a standalone story–but this time, one of the spotlight characters in fact someone who previously showed up in Boneshaker, and we’ve got clear followup to the events in that book. So if you want to jump in on this series–and if you like steampunk, zombies, and/or the Civil War era, you should–this is not the place to start.

New Orleans madam Josephine Early is spearheading a secret Confederate attempt to hand over the submersible Ganymede to the Union, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the ongoing war. But no one’s left alive who knows how to safely operate the machine, and so Josephine’s forced to call for help to an old flame. She’s fiercely hoping that the airship pilot Andan Cly will be able to use his skills to pilot a machine that goes underwater instead of through the air, and she’s desperate enough that she isn’t exactly ready to tell him that the machine’s drowned all its previous crews.

And without a doubt, the relationship and backstory between Josephine and Andan is one of the high points of the book. I’ve found Priest to always be excellent at what romantic notes she introduces into a story, and this one’s no exception; the prior state of this relationship is played off with the exact right understated note against the bigger picture of the current intrigues. Toss in some glimpses at New Orleans’ zombie problem AND the issue of how the problem’s spreading across the country, references back to characters in all three of the previous books, and a supporting cast of colorful characters (one of whom has a secret revealed that amusingly blows Andan’s mind) and there’s a whole lot to like here.

Bonus points as well for the amusing use of actual Civil War history. It was particularly amusing to me to see a news link going around about the restoration of the Hunley–the actual vehicle named for the man who’s referenced in this novel as the creator of the Ganymede.

All in all, great fun. Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Americanization of Sherlock Holmes: how bad an idea is this?

I’m seeing initial waves of nerd rage over this news that CBS is trying to develop its own pilot for a modernization of Sherlock Holmes, set in New York City. The timing of this, given that there is another active modernization of Sherlock Holmes in production with the BBC, is not a coincidence; note that this article says that the producers of Elementary apparently approached the producers of Sherlock to ask about taking their show over to the States, and were rebuffed.

I’m just full of “buh?” about this, myself. Mostly negative “buh?”, too, expanded out from the comment I just dropped on criminalelement.com’s post on the matter.

Part of it is the ongoing weariness of the trend of remaking every single idea that was ever popular in the last 50 years over and over and over and over and over. This goes for TV AND for Hollywood movies. Enough with the remakes and reboots already.

Part of it is the disgust with the idea that any fun concept out of non-American media or culture has to be Americanized in order for American audiences to actually watch and enjoy it. Certainly this doesn’t seem to be a problem at all for American geek culture–though I sadly admit that it’s a legitimate concern once you’re outside said geek culture.

Part of it is certainly the bad timing of trying to launch this show while Sherlock itself is still in active production.

But really, what it boils down to for me is just not trusting that the idea won’t suck. Mostly because of the fear that in transferring Holmes and Watson not only to the modern day but out of England entirely, too much will be lost that make these characters recognizably Holmes and Watson. And even more importantly, I’m leery of the risk of cultural appropriation, since so much of what makes these characters who they are is that they are, in fact, British.

I’m not inherently opposed to another attempt to modernize Holmes, mind you. I’m not even inherently opposed to porting Holmes and Watson over to the States–in the hands of suitably awesome writers, such a porting could be pulled off. There was a graphic novel a while back that explored an alternate history for Superman, asking the question of what would have happened if baby Kal-El’s ship had crashed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. solarbird, who’s read it, liked it quite a bit.

However, I’m much leerier about American TV writers, who by the very nature of their work are trying to attract as many viewers as possible and therefore have to think about things like “how much do we have to screw around with the source material to make it appeal as much as possible to our target audience?”, doing this with non-American cultural icons. Even if those icons are now in the public domain.

So yeah, I’m extremely dubious. Though I also have to admit that I’m curious enough that I’ll keep half an eye on this and see what reviews are like once the show finally shows up.

What do you all think? Does this have DO NOT WANT stamped all over it for you, or are you willing to check it out when it airs? Here, have a poll! (And if you’re reading this on LJ or DW or Tumblr, please to click over to the original post to leave your answers!)

Americanization of Sherlock Holmes: Good idea, bad idea, or wretched?

• I am ALL over this! Sign me up!
• I'm dubious, but intrigued enough that I'll watch this when it airs.
• Don't care. Holmes in any form is not my thing.
• I'm steering clear of this unless the reviews are awesome.
• There are not enough words in ANY language to express my DO NOT WANT!
• Tickie, my dear Watson. Tickie.
• ETA: Not interested, too busy watching BBC Sherlock!

View Results

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Americanization of Sherlock Holmes: how bad an idea is this?

I’m seeing initial waves of nerd rage over this news that CBS is trying to develop its own pilot for a modernization of Sherlock Holmes, set in New York City. The timing of this, given that there is another active modernization of Sherlock Holmes in production with the BBC, is not a coincidence; note that this article says that the producers of Elementary apparently approached the producers of Sherlock to ask about taking their show over to the States, and were rebuffed.

I’m just full of “buh?” about this, myself. Mostly negative “buh?”, too, expanded out from the comment I just dropped on criminalelement.com’s post on the matter.

Part of it is the ongoing weariness of the trend of remaking every single idea that was ever popular in the last 50 years over and over and over and over and over. This goes for TV AND for Hollywood movies. Enough with the remakes and reboots already.

Part of it is the disgust with the idea that any fun concept out of non-American media or culture has to be Americanized in order for American audiences to actually watch and enjoy it. Certainly this doesn’t seem to be a problem at all for American geek culture–though I sadly admit that it’s a legitimate concern once you’re outside said geek culture.

Part of it is certainly the bad timing of trying to launch this show while Sherlock itself is still in active production.

But really, what it boils down to for me is just not trusting that the idea won’t suck. Mostly because of the fear that in transferring Holmes and Watson not only to the modern day but out of England entirely, too much will be lost that make these characters recognizably Holmes and Watson. And even more importantly, I’m leery of the risk of cultural appropriation, since so much of what makes these characters who they are is that they are, in fact, British.

I’m not inherently opposed to another attempt to modernize Holmes, mind you. I’m not even inherently opposed to porting Holmes and Watson over to the States–in the hands of suitably awesome writers, such a porting could be pulled off. There was a graphic novel a while back that explored an alternate history for Superman, asking the question of what would have happened if baby Kal-El’s ship had crashed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. solarbird, who’s read it, liked it quite a bit.

However, I’m much leerier about American TV writers, who by the very nature of their work are trying to attract as many viewers as possible and therefore have to think about things like “how much do we have to screw around with the source material to make it appeal as much as possible to our target audience?”, doing this with non-American cultural icons. Even if those icons are now in the public domain.

So yeah, I’m extremely dubious. Though I also have to admit that I’m curious enough that I’ll keep half an eye on this and see what reviews are like once the show finally shows up.

What do you all think? Does this have DO NOT WANT stamped all over it for you, or are you willing to check it out when it airs? Here, have a poll! (And if you’re reading this on LJ or DW or Tumblr, please to click over to the original post to leave your answers!)

Americanization of Sherlock Holmes: Good idea, bad idea, or wretched?

• I am ALL over this! Sign me up!
• I'm dubious, but intrigued enough that I'll watch this when it airs.
• Don't care. Holmes in any form is not my thing.
• I'm steering clear of this unless the reviews are awesome.
• There are not enough words in ANY language to express my DO NOT WANT!
• Tickie, my dear Watson. Tickie.
• ETA: Not interested, too busy watching BBC Sherlock!

View Results

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.