As I’m a tech guy and digital publishing kind of goes with the territory of making webcomics, I’ve got pretty much every eReading device on the mainstream market — Kindle, 1st Gen nook, Color Nook, iPad, and iPhone. I’m very partial to the nook family and the iPhone. The iPad is pretty darn cool, especially because of the full page Comixology App, but as a device it’s a little unwieldy. I much prefer the nooks and the iPhone (that retina display is incredible!). I just wrote an extremely thorough review of the nook color over on the SOLDIERS Blog, so you can go over there to check out my thoughts on the device (I liked it). But for this article I’m a lot more interested in talking about the future of literature in the digital age.
Before this devolves into a paper/pixel debate, let’s go into this with the assumption that digital will win and we’ll all be doing our reading on a digital device in the future. Will there still be paper? Yes. But it will be getting less and less prevalent over the next few years and will eventually dissolve into more of a collector’s market than a mainstream one. How do I know this? Because I’m not typing this on a typewriter, my TV is a flat screen instead of a CRT, and my CD collection was replaced by my ipod long ago. Trust me, publishing is going digital.
Moving past that, a new company called Vooks just launched and B&N is already talking about how their nook color can handle video capable books. Their “nookbooks” for children include animations and narrators, and the entire thing is tied to social networks. Where is the written word? Will the written word remain dominant or will books become more like screenplays with the scenes video’d in? Where does the book end and multimedia entertainment begin? Will I have to start embedding soundtracks into each chapter? Would readers want that?
Writers stand on the edge of a precipice right now, as the book evolves with the technology that presents it. I’m sure when books were clay tablets or scrolls, brevity was certainly important. Pretty direct and to the point writing style, I’m sure. With the printing press, things got a little better, but it was still a lot of work to produce a book. But things improved over the years, to the point where, now, books are hundreds of pages long — many over a thousand. The ease of manufacture allows the writer to really expand on their content and tell bigger stories without the same financial limitations. With eBooks, this is taken one step farther, as books can now be hundreds of pages with another several hundred tacked on at the end. J.A. Konrath’s new ebook has, literally, hundreds of pages of extra content, ranging from outlines to actual correspondence between each of the co-writers as they coordinated their efforts on the book. Why all of that extra material? Hell, why not? It doesn’t cost anyone anything, and there’s a chance people would be interested. Slap on a $2.99 price tag instead of $24.99 and you get a lot of value for your dollar.
But, as readers, do we really want all of that extra content? Or is it a novelty that will wain with time and overuse?
And we haven’t really talked about the ability to include audio/video. When it was eInk readers only, this was nothing more than an idle dream. Now that the color nook and iPad have proven to be very popular, embedded video/audio/photo is a reality. The question is: will readers want it? Then the follow on question: is a “vook” still a book?
I don’t really want embedded video, part of a book is the author’s skill with words to fire the reader’s imagination. I like reading. My children, however, are growing up in a vastly different world than I did, however. In the world of the web, where all media combines in a technicolor mish-mash to convey information, what form will “reading” take for them?
Leave a comment and let me know what you think about the future of reading and the form & shape of literature to come.
I saw the little snippet of the GL trailer on EW, but wanted to wait until the full trailer came out before commenting. I’ve got to say, I was pretty disappointed. If you haven’t seen it, just click below and take a second:
What didn’t I like about it? Where do I start? Let’s just say I would have preferred it if Ryan Reynolds (who I’ve liked since his “Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place” days) should have played it a little more serious. And the GL Uniform? A little too much like body paint and too little like a uniform. In all honesty, I immediately thought of the “Batman and Robin” nipple/codpiece fiasco that nearly destroyed the Batman franchise. And while I appreciate the humor, it shouldn’t have been the showcase. Yes, I realize Iron Man succeeded in a good part due to its humor, but it also got the action/heroics right — GL looks like they overlooked that part. The flight sequence is a direct take off from “The Greatest American Hero” and the short fight scene is pathetic. And, why is Carol Ferris a pilot? I’m all for women’s empowerment, but she is Hal’s boss and the owner of the company — isn’t that enough? Why change something that has been canon for 50 years?
This is not a promising start to a movie I have been highly anticipating. Quite frankly, it looks like a damn mess. I pray that the actual movie is better than this hodge-podge of crap.
Now, in contrast to the big budget, famous director Green Lantern, let’s compare it to this fan made trailer that was cobbled together by existing movie/TV footage and layered over with computer SFX:
Now THAT is how you make a super hero trailer! Focus on action and story, throw in a little humor at the end. And, it has Nathan Fillion, who I still think would have made a better Hal Jordan than Ryan, who is more of a Kyle Rayner kind of guy IMO.
As a fan, I don’t really give a damn about the witty banter and winning smile of our hero. Should it be there? Absolutely — but its not why I’m going to see the movie. I want to see Green Lantern to watch GL kick some intergalactic ass! I could give two shits about Hector Hammond — I mean, seriously, who thought that was a good idea? Focus on SINESTRO! He’s the big bad, he’s the real challenge.
The winning mix to super hero movies is staying true to the material, playing it 85% serious 15% humor, and handling the CGI right. Many people didn’t like the recent Superman, but I will say one thing about it: it excelled at making you believe in Superman. The effects were perfect. Light on story? Yeah, it was. But Superman himself was exceptional.
Batman Begins/Dark Knight and Iron Man (1 not 2) were dead on — and they were all extremely successful. Fantastic Four, Iron Man 2, Jonah Hex — not so much. They lost the balance and strayed from the formula — and paid the price. Time will tell how Green Lantern fares on its debut, but based on this trailer it’s not looking too good…
Big Budget sci-fi movie as a comic book? Damn Skippy! Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse pull off a masterpiece in their epic “Ocean” and that’s why it’s this week’s pick!
Ocean
Written by Warren Ellis, Art by Chris Sprouse
A “hundred years from today” a research facility in orbit around Europa discovers thousands of coffins deep in the frozen ocean, each one containing a humanoid race in suspended animation. To make it even more extraordinary, they also found a weapon of unimaginable power smack in the center of them. They call back to their parent command, the United Nations, and they send one guy: Weapons Inspector Nathan Kane. Why send only one guy instead of an entire team of researchers and inspectors and scientists and God knows who else? Because when that one guy is Nathan Kane, that’s all you need to send. Guy’s a bad ass.
The story revolves around the sarcophogi, the weapon, and the fight over then between the UN and the Doors Corporation (a thinly veiled pass at Windows, with all that implies). The plucky crew of the research station “Cold Harbor” and UN Inspector Kane square off against a rogue district manager and his cybernetic drones. To top it all off, the aliens in the ocean are waking up and powering up their weapon — the same weapon that turned Mars from a paradise to a wasteland. It’s good stuff, and given the cost of movie tickets these days, a better bang for your buck than most entertainment alternatives.
It’s no secret I’m a big Warren Ellis fan, but I’ve never been a huge fan-boy to anyone, not even Warren. He’s written a lot of great books, and he’s written several that I didn’t like. Usually his stuff’s one time, but occasionally (cough! Anna Mercury! cough!) he runs a little off schedule. What I like about him the most is he dreams big, writes big, and does it with a cinematic flair, which I really like. Ocean is no exception. Booklist hailed it as “an ambitions, big-budget sf film” and I agree. In addition, it also made iO9′s top ten for Warren Ellis books. Ocean is an exceptional sci-fi story filled with Ellis’ usual wit, double entendres, and exceptional action sequences. The usage of station physics in the combat scenes during the last issue are flat out awesome — creative, believable, and perfectly executed.
Chris Sprouse provides spectacular artwork this time around. When Chris first came onto the scene lo so many years ago, I have to admit I didn’t really care for his style. He executed it perfectly, I just didn’t’ like it. But as the years have gone by, either he’s matured or I have ad now he’s one of my favorites. I think the turning point for me was when he started doing Tom Strong with Alan Moore — it just all clicked, and since then I’ve been following (and buying) his stuff much more often. I don’t think it’s any exaggeration on my part to say that Ocean is his best work to date. He just really knocked this one out of the park. The man is good at sci-fi, what can I say?
Ocean is a great sci-fi tale worth your time and, at $13 on Amazon, it’s worth your money. If you’re not satisfied with movies lately, go ahead and pick up this cinematic comic here: Ocean
Been thinking about Fan Fiction lately and wanted to know what you all thought about it.
Way back in the day, I wrote a piece of fan-fic, just to try it out. I enjoyed it, but never thought much about it. I guess I didn’t like playing in someone else’s sandbox all that much. Well, right now I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, which has been a heck of a ride so far (if you’re interested in that little project, you can catch it here at lancelot.underwatersamurai.com). Every couple of days they send me an e-mail with some encouragement to keep going. The latest was from Mercedes Lackey who recommended new novelists do a little fanfic to get moving. That e-mail got me thinking, is writing an Arthurian novel fanfic? It is playing with characters that the writer didn’t invent in a world they didn’t create, so it meets the very definition, but then again…
For that matter, The Guard could be considered fanfic under certain perspectives. There are no other Guard stories out there, but there are a lot of similarities (superficially, at least) to The Green Lantern Corps, or the Lensmen on top of that, or even The Galactic Railways. I’m not going to lie, the Guard started out as a Green Lantern story that DC didn’t pick up. I decided to take that initial story concept, change a few things, alter some others, and then turn it upside down and the result was The Guard. But the germ of an idea sprang from what I would like to see in a GL book. So, is The Guard fan fiction? Where does the line get drawn between inspiration and plagiarism?
Many of you probably don’t know this, but the modern US Military is in a continuous battle between the forces of the “Attritionists” and the “Maneuverists” and the heart of that battle is the very well known SF book “Enders Game,” by Orson Scott Card.
Enders Game, a novel centered around training the perfect general, has a lot to teach a junior officer about squad tactics, leadership, and maneuver warfare. Consequently, it’s been on the junior officer reading list for every branch of service since it was published as a novel in 1986 (it was a short story first, and you can read that short story online for free HERE). The discussion points for this book for young military officers, is the pay close attention to the unconventional thinking, empowerment of subordinates, training methodology, and ethics prevalent throughout the book. Of little interest is the technological aspect of the book, which allows Ender to direct a space battle fleet remotely.
Of course, in today’s military, the remote battle leadership is a zillion dollar program in the sky for many of today’s “Leaders”. A classic example of great sci-fi being taken way out of context.
And this brings to the aforementioned “Attritionists” and “Maneuverists”, which allude to two styles of warfare: central command vs distributed command. The “Attritionists” favor central command, with admirals/generals commanding the battlefield directly from a remote location, their soldiers little more than biological drones carrying out their orders. “Maneuverists” are the opposite, overcoming the fog of war through superior training, flexible tactics, and leadership. For the last 20 years, Maneuverists have had their way, but now, with the state of technology being what it is, Attritionist thinking is coming to the fore. The crux of this argument, on the surface, is the best deployment and safety/conservation of our troops in a chaotic battle space. This is total bull-shit, of course, but we’ll get to that in a second.
The Fog of War is a big deal and has stymied generals for thousands of years. It’s been touched on by every military mind of every decade since we’ve been counting decades. The best way to overcome this obstacle is superior training, discipline, tactics, and weaponry. Until now. With the advent of GPS, satellite observation, real time communications, computer networks, predator drones, and guided missiles the fog of war is starting to lift a little. This incredible technology is causing a lot of people to start thinking in very dangerous ways.
The idea is that with direct, simultaneous communications and reconnaisance, who better to direct every part of every battle than “superior” military leaders directly? I mean, if you could have Chesty Puller in your earpiece telling you what to do while he’s watching you patrol in real time, wouldn’t you want that? Throw in the fact that he’s got full aerial recon of your area with a direct view of the enemy forces over the next ridge and it sounds like a great idea, right?
NO! It is NOT A GREAT IDEA!
Giving that patrol leader the aerial recon footage IS A GREAT IDEA. Interpreting that data from thousands of miles away and trying to direct live combat like its a chess game is NOT A GOOD IDEA. But, a great deal of our leadership is pushing us in exactly that direction. And it’s not just combat, it’s pretty much everything from contracting, time cards, personnel issues, and Private Johnny’s dental appointment. It’s micromanaging in overdrive and we are spending billions on it (yeah, Billions with a “B”).
The rationale is to provide the best leadership and management possible, the reality is it’s a bunch of meddling busy-bodies who want to keep on living the dream. Every single JO in the force knows that if the Generals had been in these guys’ knickers back in the day, they wouldn’t have grown up to be Generals today. Also, if you’re going to get to this level of micromanagement, why don’t you cut personnel? If field reports will go directly to the division commanders and bypass the Company, Battalion, and Regiment commanders, then cut those positions and streamline the structure. But that’s not really feasible and they know it. Besides, if you cut out all the subordinates, who’s going to do the dirty work of actual personal leadership? And there’s the rub.
This entire managerial conflict is being handled beautifully by the USMC in the Marine Corps Gazette’s feature “General Screwtape” names for the famous Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
So, why is this blog post here instead of over on the SOLDIERS blog? One, because of the SF origin of the debate, and two because The Guard have the ability to have this type of central direct control through their Helm. I gave this a lot of thought when I created the Guard. The issue may come up in detail in a later arc (hint!), but the reality of this capability is, in my mind, a fundamentally bad idea and illustrates perfectly the concept that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should do something. Our technology is growing every day and we are now more science fiction that science fiction. The way we are pushing the boundaries of quantum physics, biology, computer science, control systems, energy creation, sensor systems — all of it — is amazing, intriguing, and way too fast. We are becoming drunk on our technology and if we’re not careful we’re going to get into one hell of a car wreck.
Big Budget sci-fi movie as a comic book? Damn Skippy! Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse pull off a masterpiece in their epic “Ocean” and that’s why it’s this week’s pick!
