BilmBlog500

We at JABberwocky put up our first e-book this week, for Simon Green's Beyond the Blue Moon, which is now available for the Kindle . Why when I knock the Kindle early and often is this first? Well, Amazon has had a one-time NYC editor Dan Slater working in their digital department for many years, Dan has always been available to us and pushing and prodding on getting content for Amazon, first for their Amazon shorts program and then later for Kindle. He's there to meet with us, he's there to put us in touch with people if we need help, or even if we really don't need the help but it's nice to have the person there at the other end (kind of like the security of having the music in front of you even when you know the song by heart). Barnes & Noble, emails vanish into the mists and there's nobody to talk to without writing a certified letter to the head of the company to get some attention. Some other places even worse. We'll have more books up soon i...

I'll let the Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein have the last word on the deal President Obama cut with Republican leaders on taxes. His column explains much better than I what Obama maybe shoulda done, why the Democrats in Congress have to take a big hit on blame themselves, and why maybe though I'd wish it weren't so the deal isn't as bad as we professional lefties would like to think. And in his subsequent column which you can find here , Pearlstein goes after one of my favorite targets, the Democratic Senator from Montana Max Baucus. He was one of the only Democrats to support the Bush tax legislation in 2001 (believe you me, I don't need Steven Pearlstein to remind me of that!), and helped stall the health care bill this year with months of pointless negotiations. Now, somebody should have reined him in during that time (Reid, Obama, someone), but he's a poster child for the kind of off-rez stupid behavior that Democrats seem to put u...

Ralph Vicinanza was one of the leading agents in sf/fantasy/horror and a leading agent for foreign rights. Like me -- and like many other leading agents in the genre -- he was an alumnus of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. He passed away quite unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm in late September. I did not have time to properly salute him at that time. A memorial service was held in New York this past week to celebrate his life and accomplishments, and this is a second chance I will take.  If you want to know who Ralph was... Stephen King came down from Maine for the occasion and spoke.  Ralph handled King's foreign rights for some thirty years and credited Ralph for the idea of serializing The Green Mile.  John Crowley spoke.  The author of the wonderful Little Big , a dear fantasy novel to me and a novel whose closing lines have long comforted me when I think of loss.  John was grateful to Ralph, because he always felt that he was, in Ralph's eyes, every bit the important...

Somebody with a cold weather Kindle casualty clearly doing the Google thing, as this comment was just added to my post from two years ago... I can sympathize with you on this topic. I left my 12 day old Kindle in the pocket of my car door for a few hours while the temperatures here were between 5 and 23. I thought about it at the end of the day and brought it inside. The next day when I turned it on, I had a screen similar to what you describe - top 2/3rds is wallpaper and the bottom 3rd is barcode-like. Amazon is being kind to replace it, but considering that I haven't even had this one 2 weeks, it shouldn't be having this problem. By LDZPLN1 on Death of a Kindle on 12/7/10 ...which makes me wonder again on whether or not to look into a class action suit that might force Amazon and other marketers of eInk devices to be more upfront about their limitations. In a day and age when everything we buy comes buried with warnings on things that are so very obvious, why don't th...

Lots and lots and lots of bookstores visited during my trip to Australia in September. Finally getting around to sharing some thoughts about the book market Down Under... For better or worse and probably both, the retail scene in Australia is a few decades behind ours. For one, and for what I'm used to not a plus, it's one of those places that still believes shopping should only be done during the day. Stores open from 9-5, 10-6, Thursday is the one day when places open late, at least they're as generous with their shopping hours on Sunday as they are the other days of the week. This also effects restaurants, most of which close by 10PM. And in Sydney, enforced; one of those Bald Guy chocolate places I walked by on a fancy boutique street full of shops shuttering 6ish had a sign in window that the local council was forcing them to close early because they weren't in a part of town suitable for a later closing. But as far as the book business goes, there are some pl...

"And I’m confident that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer." That's a quote from President Obama's statement on Dec. 6 about his deal with Republican legislative leaders to undo The Great Republican Tax Increase of 2011 . Wow! And then in his press conference on Dec. 7 to defend the deal, he says (and I'm paraphrasing, but I don't think misquoting) "no I don't think extending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the American people think it's a bad idea, but since I haven't been able to persuade Mitch McConnell and John Boehner that it's a bad idea, I have to deal with that reality." Wow, wow wow. The Great Republican Tax Increase of 2011 was agree...

Following up on the last Funny Book Roundup , I purchased only four comic books the past two weeks. One I didn't purchase: I noticed there was no Firestorm to be found in the latest issue of Brightest Day, and I didn't keep buying it because some of the issues have had Firestorm in an important role. The amazing adaptivity of the human mind! The most delightful way to spend $2.99 was with Futurama #52. Bender decides he needs plastic surgery, becomes addicted, and it's just funny and adorable and true to the characters. I've said many times before and will again that I've gotten more consistent enjoyment from this comic book than I ever did from the TV show. And this issue continues their series of black light posters being included free, so what are you waiting for, go, by. Eric Rogers wrote this pleasing script with art by Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy. There's also a decent enough back-up story where Zapp Brannigan gets a medal he doesn't deserve. ...