Serials, Vampires, and Serial Vampires
A couple of links today. The first is to the new Slate online serial novel, My Darkling, which, along with its weekly posted prose, features characters with facebook and twitter accounts, where they will give readers extra clues to solving the mystery. The novel is apparently a send-up of the YA vampire craze, though whether it's kind to that genre's fans or not, I'm hesitant to guess. But here's the best sentence in the article: we have long been amazed at how young-adult novels make up one of the most popular and dynamic segments of the publishing industry. Hurrah for YA being acknowledged in this way!
Speaking of popular, dynamic, and vampiric, the New York Times ran an article today about Justin Cronin's new novel, Passage. This is apparently going to be the hot book of the summer, and it's news because Cronin, previously, was a literary novelist making no money, and now he's expected to be a hit marketplace seller. It sounds like he's always been a vampire and horror guy -- in other words, one of the "us" that includes UF writers and fans -- and he notes in the article that he feels the difference between the literary and commercial markets is overblown. It'll be interesting to see the kind of critical reception the novel, the first of the trilogy, receives, given the too-often-hostile relationship between established critics (in, for example, the New York Times) and the SFF genre. rosefox and her Genreville partner Josh Jasper have written about several times on that blog (most recently here), and I hope they'll follow (or comment on) this story as it develops, as well.
Speaking of popular, dynamic, and vampiric, the New York Times ran an article today about Justin Cronin's new novel, Passage. This is apparently going to be the hot book of the summer, and it's news because Cronin, previously, was a literary novelist making no money, and now he's expected to be a hit marketplace seller. It sounds like he's always been a vampire and horror guy -- in other words, one of the "us" that includes UF writers and fans -- and he notes in the article that he feels the difference between the literary and commercial markets is overblown. It'll be interesting to see the kind of critical reception the novel, the first of the trilogy, receives, given the too-often-hostile relationship between established critics (in, for example, the New York Times) and the SFF genre. rosefox and her Genreville partner Josh Jasper have written about several times on that blog (most recently here), and I hope they'll follow (or comment on) this story as it develops, as well.