Quoth the Scotsman | James Smythe on Physical vs. Digital

Since the dawn of The Speculative Scotsman, e-books have gone from the margins to the mainstream.

I remember seeing video of a prototype of Sony's first e-book reader at CES years and years ago, and thinking this could change everything. I wanted one then and there... but when the time came that I could actually buy one, I held my horses.

I told myself was waiting for the next iteration. Then when the next iteration became available, I told myself... something else.

Eventually, however, be damned my doubts: I had my heart's desire. Not a Kindle, oh no! Ever the contrarian, I bought myself an Asus Transformer tablet, which - though it's beginning to look a little long in the tooth - I still use to this day. Primarily to read comics on, and e-books when needs must.

I'm just not a lover of electronic literature, by and large. I mean, I'll make do with an e-book - and these days, I often find myself with e-ARCs instead of physical proofs - but it simply isn't the same.

Before the tech savvy tell me what my problem is, I actually don't find the resolution of the text my tablet renders to be a problem. But I do mind the sluggishness of my micro-library. And I do wish Amazon would come the hell on and incorporate some of the software-side features of the Paperwhite line into the Kindle app.

But here I am having trouble articulating why I find e-reading such a sterile experience, when this whole post  is supposed to showcase a quote that captures my feelings exactly. It's from The Explorer by James Smythe, who's been rereading Stephen King for The Guardian recently, and it's short, but sweet:

"I always said that the thing I was saddest about, when they had pretty much stopped printing paper books, was that I couldn't tell how long was left until the end. I could find out, but that feel, that sensation of always knowing was gone. I used to love the way that the cluster of pages grew thinner in my hand, how I could squeeze it and guess the time it would take until it ended. I loved endings, when they were done well: I loved knowing that it was finished, because that was how it was meant to be. An ending is a completion: it's a satisfaction all in itself." (p.251)

Well said, James Smythe! I agree completely.

But who's with us, I wonder?

Ironically, the e-book of The Explorer is out on December 20th in both the UK and the US, but Harper Voyager aren't distributing the paperback till January 2013.

The far-flung future, in other words. :P

Never mind my trumpeting about time: I'll be reviewing The Explorer on tor.com shortly, and - spoiler alert - it's incredible. But resist the temptation, readers: wait for the physical edition!

News Flashing | Li'l Indy Throws Down the Horns in the Movie of the Book

So. Do you want to hear the good news, or the bad news?

The good news is, having acquired the option before the book was even published, Mandalay Pictures are pushing ahead on their big-screen adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns.

Or --- wait... was that the bad news?

Well, my mistake. The other bad news is the so-called close involvement of Shia LaBeouf.

Yeah, you heard me right. Li'l Indy and erstwhile Transformers liaison Shia LaBeouf is attached to play the lead role, which is to say bereaved boyfriend Ig Perrish. Ig remains the sole suspect in the case of the brutal rape and murder of Merrin, the love of his life, and a year to the day, our man in Maine wakes up from a night of soul-searching with a brutal hangover... and a stubby pair of horns sprouting from his head.

The horns aren't just accessories, however. Ig soon realises that these inexplicable growths have given him the power of truth-telling, for in their presence, no-one Ig speaks to can lie. A particularly convenient power, he understands - that is just as soon as the hair of the dog's worn off - particularly particularly convenient considering Merrin's killer is still out there somewhere.

Thus, this devil goes to town.

###

I adored Horns. Here's the TSS review to that effect. In fact I was thinking about it just the other day, because it's been just long enough since Horns hit that I'm starting to wonder when we'll hear word one about Hill's next novel.

Alas, we'll all have to wait a little longer to hear good Joe Hill news. Instead, there's this, and you must understand I wasn't immediately down on these developments, not the moment I got wind of 'em. But Shia Labeouf, when Joseph Gordon Levitt seems a far more suitable (not to mention talented) choice. And moreover, Mandalay Pictures.

Look them up on IMDB yourself. This is the production company who gave us not Wild Things, which had at least two redemptive qualities, but Wild Things 2, which had none - confusing, as I recall, redemptive qualities for breasts. Which I most certainly did not just now. Mandalay must have agreed, because as if to make up for such an embarassing oversight, the house then pumped out Wild Things: Diamonds in the Rough and Wild Things: Foursome in quick succession, making up for the first sequel's qualitative shortfall with sheer, unadulterated quantity.

Then again they were also responsible for The Jacket, an ambitious genre flick which should have been far, far better, by all accounts, but settled in the end for status as Not Terrible. So there's hope.

Or hope of some tiny glimmer of hope somewhere, I should say. If you squint for it hard enough.

Anyone out there prepared to be positive about this news?

Unbooking: I Am Number Four

No Bag o' Speculative Swag for you today, fair readers. Something came in the mail a few days ago that deserves more comprehensive treatment than I'm afraid The BoSS allows for. Without further ado, have a gander at this little beauty:

This has to be the most luxurious proof I've ever laid eyes on - and I hate orange. As a flavour, it's fine; as a colour, it's so lurid as to be borderline offensive. And I Am Number Four is all about the orange.

But here, the orange is used, I think, to great effect, in striking opposition to the stark white of the symbol that adorns both the book and the slipcase. Oh, did I not mention the slipcase?

'Tis, truly, a beautiful thing. Publisher Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin here in the UK, have pulled out all the stops to ensure I Am Number Four by - get this - a gentleman called Pittacus Lore stands out from the crowd. As well it should do. Make no mistake: this is the next Next Big Thing in genre fiction.

I know, I know. The Passage is only barely behind us, and already we're looking ahead. The hype train simply cares not for such things. If Penguin have their way, and from what little I've read I tend to think they will, I Am Number Four will be everywhere you look in a month's time. Courtesy of Transformers egomaniac Michael Bay, in fact, the film adaptation is currently in production, with Timothy Olyphant in a starring role and Disturbia director D. J. Caruso at the helm. You'll have to wait till next Summer to see the movie; the book, however, can be yours as of August 26th. Here's the plot synopsis:

"John Smith is not your average teenager. He regularly moves from small town to small town. He changes his name and identity. He does not put down roots. He cannot tell anyone who or what he really is. If he stops moving those who hunt him will find and kill him.

"But you can't run forever. So when he stops in Paradise, Ohio, John decides to try and settle down. To fit in. And for the first time he makes some real friends. People he cares about – and who care about him. Never in John's short life has there been space for friendship, or even love. But it's just a matter of time before John's secret is revealed. He was once one of nine. Three of them have been killed. John is Number Four. He knows that he is next..."

Which is all well and good - if rather unremarkable, right? Well. The thing of it is, John isn't actually human. He's one of nine alien children sent away from his dying homeworld in the hope of prolonging his race. He has superpowers. And a bounty on his head.

It's all a bit Superman origin story, I suppose, but I Am Number Four has a fine hook, not to mention a neat lede-line, and from what I can tell, it's persuasively written, too. This is my current read, and you can count on a full review in the near future. For the moment, let's just say it's looking pretty good for Pittacus Lore - whom, I should add, is "a Loric Elder, from the Planet Lorien, which is three hundred million miles away. He is approximately ten thousand years old. He has been to earth hundreds of times, and he is here now."

That is when he's not busy being James Frey, whose A Million Little Pieces, a supposed memoir of drug addiction, came under fire on Oprah and in the American media for being, ummm... somewhat embellished.

But let's not end this unbooking on a bum note. I Am Number Four has zeitgeist written all over it, and though neither the regular edition nor the re-jacketed release for the YA market are as superficially remarkable as the ARC, I don't imagine that'll stop Pittacus Lore's blockbuster first novel from flying off shelves come publication day.

One to watch, people. One to watch.

Chibicats are Go!

The other day, as is their way, io9 republished a press release with no comment whatsoever on its content. But what a press release it was. For you, TSS readers, the highlights:

"Warner Bros. Animation has begun production on ThunderCats, an all-new animated series for Cartoon Network, based upon the iconic 1980s action classic... The 21st century reimagining of the series marks a creative collaboration between WBA and Studio4°C, one of the most vibrant animation studios in Japan, with credits including The Animatrix, Gotham Knights and Halo Legends. WBA is working closely with Studio4°C, utilizing the latter's expertise to give the ThunderCats characters a new cutting-edge look while remaining true to the compelling storylines and mythology of the original series."

Which has to be the best cartoon news since they brought Futurama back from the dead, don't you think?

Or is it just me? I wonder. ThunderCats was my cartoon of choice, when I was but a little lurker on the speculative threshold. My dad made a video tape of twenty episodes on grainy longplay for me, which I watched and watched until there were more scan lines on the screen drawn lines. He cut some black and red cardboard into that iconic cat-face, the show's logo, which I proudly displayed on my bedroom door.

The rest of the cartoons - your He-Mans and Ghostbusters and what not - I'd watch 'em, but they were nothing to me next to the bumbling adventures of Lion-O and Snarf and the rest of the crew. I loved me my ThunderCats.

This re-envisioning, then, leaves me with mixed feelings. There's the little kid inside me, stamping his feet and squealing with excitement, and the rational, critical adult I wear on the outside, thinking... what? ThunderCats, of course, isn't the first treasure trove of 80s nostalgia to be brought kicking and screaming into the modern day, but let's not speak of the others, for fear we jinx this one.

In fact, let's look to the positives. The anime production house lined up to assist in the creation of the new world order of ThunderCats is certainly a promising one. Yes, they've done some passable work in service of Western intellectual property in the past - namely Batman: Gotham Nights, Transformers Animated, The Animatrix and Halo: Legends - but Studio4°C have knocked out a few gems of their own, too: the 1995 film Memories and the mind-bending Tekkon Kinkreet in 2006, not to mention Tweeny Witches (better than it sounds, I swear) or the superlative Detroit Metal City OVA.

Studio4°C is a fine studio, in short, and if it brings its A-game, we can be certain of at least one thing: the new ThunderCats sure will look great. The notion that it will remain "true to the compelling storylines and mythology of the original" makes me giggle a bit, though. I mean, come on. I bought those ThunderCats DVDs collections a few years ago, and you know what? I even tried to watch a few episodes. But no.

I'm not at all sure what to make of this announcement, even now, but consider my interest piqued. To be sure, I'll be keeping my eyes open for the new series, whenever it airs.

Anyone else have happy memories of Lion-O and co. to share?