Opinions

Angus & Robertson buy Border's Australian stores

Karen — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:02:50 +1100

Something of great interest to those of us who are always looking for bigger Crime Fiction options in bricks & mortar stores in Australia is that the ACC has now approved A&R's purchase of the 22 Borders stores Australia-wide. I notice from an article by Jason Steger in The Age that there is a bit of disquiet from some publishers about the buying pattern:

Stephanie Johnston, of Wakefield Press, says Borders stocks all Wakefield's titles at a national level and is concerned that "this buying pattern and broad range philosophy might change under the new ownership".

(There are other positive points made about the buyout incidentally), but having spent Friday night browsing in a local A&R store, followed by a stroll through the nearby Borders - A&R's Crime Fiction listings at the moment are absolutely and utterly abysmal - big names only / titchy tiny small selection - no midlist authors - very few actually GOOD, unusual books. Borders by contrast, had a bunch of the midlists that I'd been looking for, had a good selection of unknowns as well as a best sellers list and some of the standout publishers such as SOHO (okay a damn small selection of those but they were there).

I've never really known what is going on with bookshops who do this sort of thing. Sure they may sell umpteen copies of the latest "Da Vinci Code" phenomena - but that's probably one book to people who won't come back into the shop for however long. On average, your educated, motivated crime fiction reader (okay, so fanatical crime fiction reader) (like me) will purchase around 6 books a month. If I'm flush, the number will go up. I buy books as a part of my regular lifestyle, not because everybody else on the train is reading one in particular. The fact that it's so blasted hard for me to buy those books here is annoying - but with the advent of online book sellers, it's now not hard.

Here's hoping that this trend is set backwards in Australia again, otherwise the winners will be http://www.bookdepository.co.uk and http://www.amazon.co.uk

We're not NOT reading the books we want, we're just going elsewhere to get them these days.

In Crime Fiction, the Crime is not always the point

Karen — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:06:05 +1100

Crime Fiction is often disregarded by readers as being "genre" which seems to be used to imply - entertainment / light / not literature. This absolutely could not be further from the truth.

Sure there is some crime fiction that is light and fluffy, and there is some that tends towards the gory and violent. There's a whole range of comic or entertaining books as well - but some of the best of these can have that twist, that moment when things get serious.

There are books that are written purely from the point of view of "the crime happens, find the perpetrator". There is the style where nobody ever gets away - the villian is always identified, the reasons behind the crime explained.

There are also writers who are exploring, to my mind at least, the more complex realities. The reality where the villian isn't necessarily profoundly evil; where sometimes victims are not automatically relegated to an "off story" role; where revenge or retribution isn't always achieved. There are also writers who are explore difficult social, moral or life issues within the framework of crime.

In these discussions I recall a remark by Swedish Author, Henning Mankell, at a Melbourne Writers Festival where he talked about the lead up to what became his first book - Faceless Killers. I'm going to paraphrase a lot because it was a few years ago. But he was talking about wanting to write a book about the refugee situation in Sweden, and as he regarded that situation as a crime, a crime novel was his chosen structure. He's since gone on to explore the "challenges" of aging via his central detective character and his father; international gangster's and the difficulties of non-democratic societies; high tech crime; the exploitation of women; corruption and scandal in government; big-business impact and in general, an underlying theme of social dysfunction.

One of the outstanding recent books I've read would undoubtedly be The Shadow in the River by Frode Grytten. This is a classic example of the crime being used to explore a plethora of human and social conditions. The book exposes what happens when a small, once strong industrial town, slowly dies. When the industry and therefore the jobs and money is drained out, and the town is used by an external government to house refugees (there's that subject again!). But in this case, how easy it is to scapegoat the different, to have your own situation make you feel threatened, the way that societies quietly die and people are scared to move on, or take change on as a challenge. It's a fascinating book.

Now I'm struck by Shame by Karin Alvtegen. This is crime fiction in which there really isn't even a clear cut crime. There's some past events in the lives of two women, accidental perhaps, perhaps something more so - but that's not the point. The point of that book is to explore the effect that events have on the psyche or two women. It's an incredibly harrowing book, but amazingly uplifting at the same time.

While we're at this - Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner is the most moving and unbelieve exploration of grief that you'll ever read. Not a happy, pleasant fun read. Not even a satisfactory (as in vengeful) ending, but an incredible book that stays with you, if you're reading for an insight into people that I think I've come across in a long time.

Locally there's the sublime The Broken Shore by Peter Temple. That book touches on so much about Australian society that's good and what's bad and says so much - often in what it doesn't say, that it's astounding. That book has such a feeling of reality about it, probably because it's multi-layered, and because it is brave enough to take the reader down the paths of prejudice and expectation that many would be uncomfortable to head down.

There are also lesser known local writers taking up many different versions of these sorts of thought-provoking themes - Dry Dock by Cathy Cole is one that I just read. It strikes me how much of that book followed something common in our society, the push for renewal in the face of tradition, the constant pressures between Developers and History.

There are thousands of other examples of this phenomena. Crime writers are often acute observers of society around them. They aren't always obsessed with the grime and the gore and the nastiness of society and often, more frequently these days it seems, they mix the traditional crime format (police procedural / private investigator / hard boiled / soft boiled / cozy) with an underlying message.

Musings on Doorstops

sunniefromoz — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:51:26 +1000

What is is with authors these days that they seem to feel the need to write mighty tomes that you need a system of pulleys to read in bed without causing yourself injury?

Remember when a book that was more than 350 pages was considered thick? When the average was around 250 pages?

I've just finished reading a doorstop. It's was over 500 pages long. It could have been less than 400 pages and not really suffered. Sometimes it feels as if the author has thrown a bit of everything (including the kitchen sink) in an effort to be worthy of the price the reader has to pay for the book. Sometimes more isn't more.

Even established writers who have developed a loyal following seem to be producing thicker and thicker books these days. Admittedly sometimes I don't mind: Reginald Hill recently wrote a 500 page plus book and I devoured every word, but he's rather exceptional.

Fortunately for me my next choice is just over 200 pages. Peter Corris' OPEN FILE. Not a spare word in sight. Every one of them used to tell the story and advance the plot.
What bliss.

So why are authors writing longer books these days? Any and all theories welcome.

Publishing Industry - Carbon Footprint

Karen — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:22:03 +1100

Here at Chez AustCrime we're more than a bit twitchy about things carbon emissions. We've only just completed migrating all desktop computers (and there are, alas a few of them) to laptops because they use less power - and we've done some serious server consolidation so that there are a minimal number of them humming away down in the basement. Next up is a big sheckles saving project so that we can switch to a solar system for electricity generation - we've got it sized / we know what we want - now we've got to pay for it (and not interrupt the book budget too much).

Anyway - so it was very very interesting to come across this snippet today on The Age's website:

The Rights and Wrongs of Publishing

Which has a brief comment about the carbon footprint of the publshing industry I'd strongly recommend a read of the entire point - it's very thought-provoking stuff.

But what is disappointing is that whilst it discusses the impact of tree usage in printing, and the level at which it's estimated is truly sobering, it doesn't also identify the appalling waste and over use of resources behind the latest gee whiz / this will be the end of the paper book / range of digital readers that are around.

At least I know that the trees can be replaced - especially if people snap out of their denial and stop thinking of them as a resource and start thinking of natural systems as assets - but I've yet to find any "asset" value for plastic's and digital waste.

Rank the Ned Kelly longlist - Best Fiction

Karen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:33:39 +1000

Time to have a go at ranking the Ned Kelly longlist into the order that you preferred the books - nothing terribly startling about how this will work and we'll run another poll later on, once CWA announce the short list to see how close we can get to the final result.

This selection is the long list for Best Fiction Book

Rank the Ned Kelly longlist - Best First Fiction

Karen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:28:41 +1000

This selection is the long list for Best First Fiction Book

Rank the Ned Kelly longlist - Best True Crime

Karen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:35:43 +1000

This selection is the long list for Best True Crime Book

The Series Character

voyagersaus — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:34:04 +1100

Let’s face it, in the old days, we didn’t do what we now today. And what may that be? We like to categorize the crap out of crime fiction, breaking it down into market segments for both bookseller and book buyer. It’s a crowded genre, and each author must find their place, perhaps keeping it by playing to rule with reader’s expectations. Woe betide the author who strays outside of his designated pigeon hole! Does an author need to wait for commercial success before they can ‘break out’ into different sub-genres or is this career suicide? A lot of readers aren’t fond of change, and tend to bond tight to a protagonist they have seen beaten up, broken up and set up to fail - yet ride to see the dawn of another day of crime-fighting. Enter the series character.

Whatever your bag, odds are that there is at least one series that you faithfully follow in the world of crime and mystery fiction. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot may not have changed much from book to book, but today our crime leading men and women journey and age in our series reads; master and creation revealing a little more of themselves with each new entry. New definitions have been given to what makes a series read. For example, secondary characters from one novel may assume greater importance in the next (the works of Michael Robotham, Tess Gerritsen), others may alternate the focus on leads with each subsequent book (Elizabeth George, James Patterson) or it may be all about the setting with an evocatively described landscape or thriving urban centre becoming as much a character in a series novel as the protagonist himself (Ian Rankin, Lesley Horton).

The series character, it might be argued, is more fully-fleshed and its creator has the luxury of time with which to tweak and mould even the most stubborn of muses into a work of great fascination. The stand alone character has a shorter time setting with which to establish their credentials and we are completely open to suggestion, to discovery as to what makes them tick; the series character is better “known” to the reader so also thus may be more likely to be caught in acts not true to “type”. The maturation of a successful series relies much on a believable process of real-time ageing, not so much with the incremental changes that go on over a person’s life, but with our view into what has affected change, what has made impact on this person’s life.

The best example of the success of a series character is found within the police procedural. Whether British, American, Australian or European – the cultural background can be familiar territory for us or not , it matters little if we are secure with both the function of the machine and what we know of the lead’s personality. There is comfort in procedure, the pre-determined process in which a crime is investigated, with all the minutiae of detailed evidence gathering, information logging, the on-going feasibility assessment of what and who to pursue next.

Is it inflexible of the reader to expect that the character always remain in that one job, in the one town, dealing with same colleagues book to book? Yes and no. It may cause great un-rest when someone “known” to us goes to the dark side and sheds the skin we’re used to seeing them in. It also may intrigue us to the point that it draws us away from the nuts and bolts of what goes into the crime solving and it becomes all about the strength of the characterization. Some crime fiction series should have been called to a halt long ago and this is not because the writer has run out of nefarious criminals and webs to spin – it is that their character has done all that can be expected, and to stretch credulity out even further does both the writing and reader a disservice.

Crime fiction has so much more it needs to achieve than many other forms of writing; it all falls apart with any weakness in structure or irregularity of composition. There is NO room for ambiguity or flights of fantasy here. A pox on authors who don’t offer some kind of resolution by book’s end! Whether its cozies, thrillers, procedurals, forensic or sharp P.I. novels that cause you to race out, VISA in hand when you hear a new book has hit the shelves – this is your special opportunity to catch-up with a favourite companion.

Video Trailers For New Forthcoming Novels - Whaddya Think??

voyagersaus — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:03:37 +1000

The e-mail newsletter of author Harlan Coben this week included a link to his website to view a trailer for his latest release, the thriller HOLD TIGHT.

www.harlancoben.com

This was the work of his publishers.

What do you think of this? Fantastic publicity or inappropriate for the medium?

As one who spends a ridiculous amount of time downloading movie trailers for films that I will never get the time to see (though I loooonnng to) I think this is a great way to go for users of the internet. We're all visual and time-starved people; watching a trailer may be quite a clever way to promote.

A.T.