Joseph L. Selby

Occasionally Joe posts what he's been reading and why he's been reading it. It seemed a loss to dump those comments, so instead they'll be archived here. Chronologically, the page reads with the most recent books at the top. Book covers are snagged off the internet and used without citation because Joe is a bad, bad man.

I picked INCARCERON up from the local library on recommendation of Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. I haven't gotten that far into it. The premise is similar to other stories but in its own way incredibly creative. So much so that I'm not making any progress. I keep thinking of ideas for my own stories. I reread page two four times. So yeah, I think this one is going to take me awhile. Still, Joanna has a keen sense for quality stories, so if she says it's good, I'll make the effort to pay attention and not just ruminate on my own projects.  It's a cool title too.

Confession time again. I've never read STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. I know it's supposed to be Heinlein's seminal work, but I don't read that much science fiction. I will say that STARSHIP TROOPERS had a greater impact on my writing than I ever really understood until recently. And before you say anything, we're not talking about the movie. I mean the book. If you've seen the movie, this is the exact opposite. It's wonderful satire and a great speculative fiction. This book taught me how to look at the world sideways. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND isn't doing it for me. I liked the first half, but the second half just seems to be bumbling around and uncomfortably sexist. I don't know if I'll finish it. It's really ground to a halt. Someone let me know if it's worth it.

With A DANCE WITH DRAGONS slowly approaching and the exciting HBO trailer made public, I decided to read this one again. This was an amazing book the first time I read it. I devoured the entire available series and anxiously awaited the next. (And anxiously waited...anxiously waited...anxiously waited...) I have to admit that it's hard to read the second through. Martin really loves to describe people's clothing, everyone in a scene, even the people who don't matter. I love the series, but on a second read-through, I skip those chapters I'm not interested in. Some characters are awesome. Some I could do without.

Wait, what is this? Is that a cover for BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE? Why yes it is. What does this mean? Does this mean I was published. ...er, no, not yet. Agent? Nope. Self-published? Lord no. Then what? Well, I happen to be friends with award-winning cover designer, Julia Dummitt. We were roommates in college, and she helped me land my first job in the publishing industry. She was also one of the readers for BLACK MAGIC and gave some tremendous feedback and that really improved the story. As if that weren't super-awesome already, she designed a cover for the book. The illustration is by Aaron Acevedo at Savage Mojo and Julia did the design. Like any aspiring author would do, I am now staring obsessively at the cover. Dear publishers, hurry the hell up and publish me. A full manuscript for this manuscript has been requested and I have my fingers crossed. But I'm not resting on my laurels. I am finishing the revision to WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING this weekend and will be sending the ms to Julia and others for their input. And then, to agents! Publishers!! The WORLD!!! Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! *cough* ahem, excuse me. That happens sometimes.

I am friends with Aron, one of the founders of Ideology of Madness. It's a good blog, especially if you like comics, and I go there often. They also have frequent contests. I won a signed copy of Detective Comics that introduced Batwoman as the main character (I loved the art, but was underwhelmed by the writing). Well, I also won MALICE, a combination YA novel and comic. It's an inventive and engaging idea. I haven't gotten very far, but so far, I'm enjoying what I'm reading. Except for the first paragraph. The first paragraph does the "weather/sky/moon" description that I think is overdone. Still, other than that, I like it. Now if only FedEx hadn't held onto it for two months, I might be farther along than I am.

In between writing projects, I often reread one of Lois McMaster Bujold's novels, usually something from the Miles series. Most often from that, it is either CORDELIA'S HONOR or MEMORY, which are my two favorite novels from the series. (Yes, I know that CORDELIA'S HONOR is really a combination of SHARDS OF HONOR and BARRAYAR, but the two stories are perfect together and really make a better book as one collection.) I'm particularly in the mood to read the scene where Cordelia is buying a sword-cane for LT Koudelka. The thing is, I read that book. A lot. I need to read something different. That's when I spy MIRROR DANCE. This book rates in my top five Miles stories. A lot of authors talk about how they have difficulty with titles, and it's often the last thing they do. (Some will even say they'll just throw anything out, knowing their publisher will pick a better one which shocks me to know end. I make my titles first.) MIRROR DANCE is its title. This book is the mirror dance and that wondrous craft and balance between the dance and the story just makes it a great read. (Confession: I remember my thrill when I realized the story matched the title, but I didn't remember the story when I picked the book back up. I thought I was going to read CETEGANDA. Clearly I'll have to read that one next. :) 

I received an ARC for SHADOWRISE, the third book in Tad Williams' "Shadowmarch" trilogy. If you've been to my Recommendations page, you'll note that I am a HUGE Tad Williams fan. When I am finished, I will write a review for the book on the blogroll of the Podcast dell'Arte. I am not finished with it yet. If you've read Tad's work, you understand why. The books are HUGE. Not huge, HUGE. They require caps. They're that big. First impressions? The book is a significant improvement over SHADOWPLAY, which I thought dragged out a few character's arc's to make the timing of the story work. The world in this one is gaining the cohesion of the endgame, and you see how the societal threads all connect. It's an amazing study in world building in addition to its epic story. Now, originally this was supposed to be the last book in the trilogy, but Tad wrote too much and now it's a four-book series. The cool thing? The fourth book is already finished. It comes out this November. Two books. One year. Awe yeah!

A friend of mine is reading THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY as part of her book club. She told me about it, so I downloaded the sample for my Barnes & Noble reader (an application on my Blackberry, not a nook. Nook money got spent on new tires). The sample hooked me, and I purchased it immediately. Some of the nuances and minutia of the book I find really interesting. I like the historical and sociological aspect of the book. (You feel the "but" coming, don't you?) But I haven't finished the book. I'm in month four of his 12-month sojourn. More and more often he's discussing how what's he's learning is different from how he conducted himself in his normal life, and he can see how some of the rules in the bible make you a better person. He then describes how he comported himself previously. I am not inspired by his journey because by his own accounts, AJ Jacobs in his "regular" life is an asshole. Grow up with some old fashioned Midwestern manners and the Bible wouldn't be such a revelation to you.

I read "The Godwars" trilogy when I was in high school. I had finished Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorry, and Thorn" trilogy and become hooked on fantasy. My mother had enjoyed the enthusiasm for reading that trilogy had fostered (watch TV? No. Spend 14 hours on a Saturday reading TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER? Yes.) And she didn't mind that it was fantasy. Dragons were in all kinds of famous stories and there was nothing objectionable on the cover. Bring home a book that's part of the "Godwars" trilogy with MAGIC in the title and that didn't go over as well. Not going over well = forbidden from reading it. But it was FORBIDDEN MAGIC. See? It has Forbidden in the title. Meh, that's thin, I know. But I had to read fantasy and magic was a major part of the genre, so only reading those books that didn't include magic would be severely limiting. Instead, I hid the books and read whenever I could. I wanted to go back and see if it held up all these years later. It's still good, but there are preferences I've grown into that this no longer satisfies. I don't like it when the book's quest is handed down and explained to the main character by mystic forces. It's too much like telling the reader the premise of your story. In most things we bumble around until we get it right and then rationalize it when we're finished. That's more my cup of tea.

Kristen Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency mentioned the debut novel of one of her clients, THE SHIFTER by Janice Hardy, a couple of times on her blog. The concept sounded interesting, but I was never in the mood to read it. Something about it just wasn't clicking with me. I don't know what it was. But I passed over it time and again. Then, as an example of a program she conducted at a local library, she posted the first few pages of Janice's submitted manuscript (which match the first few pages of the book). I read them, bought the ebook, and finished the novel two days later. This is a great series and I can't wait for the next book to come out.

Johnny Carson is the god of late night television. This is undisputed fact. But like the children of Zeus left to their own devices, we have Dave and Jay and Conan and Jimmy and Jimmy. My favorite, my absolute favorite among them by a billion light years is Craig Ferguson. Craig is laugh-out-loud funny and still knows how to get at your heart strings. His call for help when Britney Spears was losing her mind (the first time) deserved a flipping Emmy. And you know what? He wrote an autobiography. Yes please, thank you. Most of it is his life in Glasgow, but the overarching premise and the spectacular ending is why he became an American citizen. It's the best kind of patriotism.

I've only just started this book. My wife won't read my manuscript, but she devoured this book in a couple of days. Yeah, that's love for you. She wouldn't stop telling me about it, which seems only fitting since I do the same to her with the stories I'm writing. Given that everyone else and her mother has read this book, I figured that it was my turn to do the same. I'm stealing her nook when she's not home and reading her copy. The benefits of marriage, yes?

At the risk of you leaving this site and never reading any of my work, I have to make a confession. I don't enjoy the Dresden Files. A friend let me borrow the first of the series, and I didn't make it past the second page. I know this puts my geek cred at great risk, but it just did not ring my bell. Dresden is in fact the exact opposite of the type of protagonist I enjoy. I offered my opinion, asked if it changed, was told it did not, and abandoned the entire series. Jim has written other stuff though so I thought I'd give that a try and started the Codex series. I made it to chapter two before I put furies down. That's certainly better than two pages!

I own every omnibus edition of Howard's characters (they were all published with similar covers, four Conans, Soloman Kane, Kull, and Bran Mak Morn). I cycle through them based on what I'm in the mood for. I return to Howard at least once a year. Right now, that's Kull, Exile of Atlantis! Now, if you saw the Kevin Sorbo movie, you might be thinking that Kull is Conan's father, but that's not actually the truth. Kull exists long before Cimmeria comes into being as a political entity (political meaning it has a border, not that it has an organized government). Now, Cimmerians are descendants of Atlantis after Atlantis fell into the sea, so there's some heredity there, but this isn't a Conan clone. ...well, not any more than all Howard's characters. He pursues the wild against the established and the wild always wins. That's his theme. Even the puritan Kane forges his own path.

I took an atrocious fantasy class in college. It was horrible. Among the ten books we were supposed to read was Tigana. By the time it came along in the course of the class, I had already given up and didn't read it. In need of a book to read and not wanting to spend money, I pulled this one off my shelf. (Yes, I still had it. I still have all my choose your own adventure books as well.) I'm four chapters in and still going. Other than the mythology of the setting, I am enjoying myself. I'm very particular in how I like my religions, though, so it's no slight against Kay that it doesn't suit me. Few mythologies do.

In 1997, Joe was driving by himself from Kirksville, MO, to Tampa, FL, for a fraternity conclave. He stopped for gas and saw a rack of audio cassettes. With no one to talk to and his collection of Metallica and KoRn well worn, he decided he'd look for a book. That's when he saw a cover with a Scottish kilt and a broadsword. He read the back, and, seeing nothing objectionable, purchased. That was his first exposure to Outlander (and this was back when it was still billed as a romance--boy was that first sex scene a shock!). He owns the entire series in text as well as three of them on audio cassette. He also owns the Lord John series. An Echo in the Bone is Diana's most recent offering. It had some really good parts, but some really weak parts. The seams are visible and, in Joe's opinion, it should have ended earlier than it did.

Joe has not read the Wheel of Time. Go to the Contact page if you'd like to send him hate mail. He was introduced to the series through the d20 role-playing game (which he liked), but by that point, the series had grown beyond its original concept and that showed. At least that's what the geek grapevine says. So he didn't read it. Still, it's a big deal when a relatively unknown author is picked to finish a series as gargantuan as the Wheel of Time. So Joe picked up Elantris to see if the guy had some chops. It was Sanderson's first novel and it shows at times (it can be very repetitious when speaking of Elantris and the Reod), but the ending and the explanation for the premise of the book is top notch.

Lois McMaster Bujold's books frequently appear on this page. The last listed was Joe's second read through of Memory. Since then he read the first two Challion books and all four Sharing Knife books (and is a poor measure of a fan for not posting those here and giving them the attention they deserve). The Hallowed Hunt is a Challion book, at least tangentially. It appeared to have a werewolf as the main character, which is a non-starter with Joe. Vampire and Werewolf stories are overdone, in his opinion, and it has to be a damn fine premise with amazing writing to convince him to give it a chance. This, of course, is Bujold, so after finishing Elantris, Joe went back to the book. Now that he understands the folklore of the story and that it's not a werewolf, he's being more tolerant of the story and giving it its due attention. Reading on the subway will get a lot easier once Joe buys a nook.

                    

I post new story ideas on my journal for my own reference. I don't start new projects until I'm done (or have abandoned) the one I'm working on now. Trying to remember ideas for later is just a bad idea, and I always forget them. So I write them in my journal so I can go back to them later. After posting a new idea (and I honestly don't remember which one it was without looking), one of my journal followers said it reminded him of the short story, "The Anything Box." I have the good fortune of working down the street from the Boston Public Library (the oldest free public library in the United States) and they have a couple copies of the anthology the short story was written in. I can't check it out, but I can go to the library and read it on my lunch break.

Telling a coworker about the general premise of Black Magic and Barbecue Sauce, she said it reminded her of Tom Holt's Tall Stories. This sent me into an immediate panic, but now that I have my hands on the book, I can calmly attest that the stories are significantly different. I would have cried otherwise.

I need to clense the palate before I start revisions. No one is better to go back to than Lois McMaster Bujold. The Miles series is frankly some of the preeminent modern fiction out there of any genre, in my opinion. I want to read it and learn all the things I'm doing wrong. I was in the mood for Memory (and a very specific scene where Miles wears all his medals that I won't spoil for you--it's awesome, though, I will tell you that). Of course, Memory includes an "outsider" for Bujold to explain a lot of the setting to, which is the standard method of world building. I don't have an outsider in my story. I have a character that wants to keep as much as possible from the people he knows. So I have to struggle building a secret world with no one but the reader to explain it to.