The Sword and Laser discussion

We wrap up our thoughts on Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty and Tom tries out his 4-part way of evaluating books to explain why people enjoyed it differently. Plus we kick off our December pick, Elric of Melniboné, encourage you to save Locus Magazine and Veronica is IMPRESSIVE at reading author names now.

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Nice accent on the e. I pronounce it MELnibonay

Tom's discussion of why he and Veronica had different reactions to Six Wakes reminded me of a Nancy Pearl lecture I attended years ago.

A quote from a Publishers Weekly article she wrote:

"It seems to me that all works of fiction and narrative nonfiction are broadly made up of four experiential elements: story, character, setting, and language. I call these “doorways,” because when we open a book, read the first few pages, and choose to go on, we enter the world of that book."

The full article:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

Chris K. wrote: "Tom's discussion of why he and Veronica had different reactions to Six Wakes reminded me of a Nancy Pearl lecture I attended years ago."

Nancy Pearl is the patron saint of reader's advisory - the practice of matching books and readers. Some of you might have public libraries with access to NoveList which is a really cool database of books cataloged by "appeal." For Six Wakes they list these:
Character: Authentic
Storyline: Nonlinear, World-building
Tone: Suspenseful
Writing Style: Compelling, Descriptive

Then they offer matches based on those criteria (or combinations you choose) - it's pretty neat.

When it comes to Nancy's doorways, I'm definitely a Setting reader - it's nice to have that sort of self-awareness when picking and rating books.

Novelist is awesome! My library district has had it for decades. I recommended it to many patrons over the years.

I've always been a character reader but I also like a strong story (plot).

The author haunting my upcoming list is not King, Sanderson nor Scalzi. They are prolific, but can not compare to one James Patterson. According to Wikipedia he published nine books in 2021 and nine more in 2022.

Joanna wrote: "The author haunting my upcoming list is not King, Sanderson nor Scalzi. They are prolific, but can not compare to one James Patterson. According to Wikipedia he published nine books in 2021 and nin..."

I've got some bad news for you. James Patterson writes hardly any of the books with his name on it.

He is a brand that he lends to other writers. For a while he was doing some work. providing the ideas and reviewing the other authors work, but now all he is providing is the name on the cover. Usually with the "co-author's" name in small letters.

The only novels he seems to still write are the Alex Cross series which come out about once a year. I wouldn't even guarantee that those now are not ghost written.

Sounds like classic rock bands without any original members. But hey the name sells. You'd be lucky if they were playing their instruments live.

Pictured: Tom and Veronica on different gradients about Six Wakes.

So not a part of this but Tom asked for book ideas live when the podcast ended, and I came across a blog post on Scalzi's website about this book.



Here's the blog post: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/12/0...

Read that as "Where the White Nerds Are" and was confused.

I've got some bad news for you. James Patterson writes hardly any of the books with his name on it.

Yeah, I know. But HIS NAME is still on nine titles a year, every single one showing in in my upcoming book list…

Jason (jkb) wrote: "So not a part of this but Tom asked for book ideas live when the podcast ended, and I came across a blog post on Scalzi's website about this book.



Here's the blog ..."

Excellent! Thanks for this!