Cockeyed

Author – Ryan Knighton

Paperback
Page Count: 256 pages
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Release Date: April 28, 2006
ISBN-10: 0143051857
ISBN-13: 978-0143051855

A Dribble of Ink is a blog with a unashamed genre bend; I enjoy Science Fiction and Fantasy, but that doesn’t stop me from stepping outside the genre and taking a look elsewhere when I feel myself getting burnt out. Because of this, every so often I’ll read a non-genre novel so good that I feel it’s worth breaking stride and bringing it here to the blog. Cockeyed, a memoir by a fellow named Ryan Knighton is one of those novels.

Cockeyed is Knighton’s story, but it is also a story of society and disability, of humour in the face of shitty situations, a story of accepting oneself, and a story of accepting others. On his eighteenth birthday, Knighton, a capricious youth living in Vancouver, is told that he’s slowly going blind and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. He doesn’t let this fact get in his way, though, and his travails through life – getting his first white cane, teaching english in Korea, travelling down a mineshaft in Poland, losing his pants in a nightclub – are peppered with a self-deprecating humour and an astute perception of life that many of us sighted people would kill for.

Memoirs, as a rule, thrive on their narrator being an compelling figure and Cockeyed doesn’t let down. Knighton never lets life get him down too much, and his disability is just another reality that he has to deal with – he struggles with worries that his disability defines him and how to make sure it never rules him. Humour is a constant in his life (specifically a scene near the end involving a fire drill at a blind camp) and Knighton has a way of looking at the world that could only really be achieved by someone who can’t look at the world. Where the memoir excels is that the reader never feels sorry for Knighton because he never feels sorry for himself. Knighton never asks for pity for his blindness, in fact he doesn’t himself see it as something that should be pitied.

Despite the few flaws (Knighton’s easy to read prose can be slightly sloppy in places and the last quarter of the novel feels rushed), the amusing situations and Knighton’s unique perspective on life make this an easy book to recommend. Knighton proves that real life often proves much more interesting than anything an fiction author could ever think up.

Just in time for the weekend, I present to you the juiciest edition of Free Readin’ yet! Many of you are probably aware of Tor’s Watch the Skies campaign in celebration of their upcoming web site relaunch. Every week they send out a full, free e-book to those who have signed up for their mailing list.

So check out their web site, sign up for the the newsletter (I certainly did!) and reap the rewards. Below you’ll find PDF and HTML versions of each of the novels they’ve already given away, including one from A Dribble of Ink favourites Brandon Sanderson and Tobias Buckell!
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So, apparently my insane obsession with tracking A Dribble of Ink’s stats has come in handy for once. I noticed I got a referral from a web site called Goodreads. Curious, I followed the link and found on the other side a terrific web site that I can see myself using a lot in the future!

From their web site:

Goodreads is, in many ways, a social networking web site, like Facebook. It allows you to index, rate, review, sell, trade and more. It even allows published/aspiring writers to upload downloadable pieces of their own novels. It’s definitely a place where I can see myself spending a lot of time, I’ve only indexed a small portion of my library and I’ve already got over 400 novels! It’s easy (and fun) to go through your library and take a look at some of the novels you haven’t read for years and then compare it with your friends.

Goodreads also seems like a terrific place to find reviews of nearly every novel out there, I haven’t found a single novel that I own that isn’t in their database, which is quite a feat.

You can sign up for Goodreads HERE and check out my profile HERE.

If you sign up, be sure to add me as a friend!

Pat, from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, brought to light this terrific article by Richard Morgan, author of the upcoming The Steel Remains, where he rips into a lot of the elitism that surround the Science Fiction and Fantasy fields.

It’s always appreciated when eloquent, intelligent arguments are made that grind ignorant, elitist assholes into the ground. Morgan puts a lot of things into perspective and – whether you’re a fan of Terry Brooks or R. Scott Bakker; a fan of Raymond E. Feist or Hal Duncan; or have a liking for them all – it’s an article well worth reading.

You can find the whole article HERE.

Fresh off a Hugo nomination, Solaris Books has published Stephen Baxter’s short story, Last Contact, on their web site for (free) public consumption! The story, along with many others, was first published in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction and was edited by George Mann.

You can find the story HERE.

Thanks to James at Speculative Horizons for the heads up.

A couple of weeks ago there was a lot of discussion about reviews, their purpose and how best to write one. A lot of bloggers popped in (especially over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist and OF Blog of the Fallen) and left their ideas about how they wrote reviews and how they thoughts others could improve.

It was all well and good… except for the fact that it was a bunch of bloggers telling each other how to blog without much input from the people who’s opinions really matter: the readers. So, leave it to Tobias Buckell (INTERVIEW), author of Crystal Rain (REVIEW) and Ragamuffin, to come up with a novel approach to the subject…

He asked – wait for it – his readers!

No endless dissertation on what he wants in reviews. No lamentations on the state of online SFF journalism. Just three simple questions:

It sparked some interesting discussion in the comments section and is definitely worth a look for any bloggers, readers or writers. While you’re at it, why not leave your own $.02? What do you appreciate in a review?

You can find the whole discussion HERE.

The Forever War

Author – Joe Haldeman

Paperback
Page Count: 288 pages
Publisher: EOS Books
Release Date: September 2, 2003 (First published by St. Martin’s Press in 1974)
ISBN-10: 0060510862
ISBN-13: 978-0060510862

Knock one off the Pile o’ Shame.

My Pile o’ Shame is full of Science Fiction novels, a genre I’ve sadly ignored over the last several years as I’ve been wrapped up so heavily in Fantasy. Deciding it well past time that I rectified this mistake, I picked up an old, ratty copy of a novel constantly caught my attention as I perused Internet message boards. That book was The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and within pages I was regretting the fact that I hadn’t picked it up sooner.

My edition of The Forever War clocked in at a lean 218 pages and Haldeman doesn’t waste a word of it. Like the last SF novel I read, Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain (REVIEW), The Forever War packs more content between its covers than many novels three times its length do.
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Michael Swanwick’s been around a long time, seen a lot of things and written a lot of stories. In fact, to use a classic cliché, he’s probably forgotten more about writing genre fiction than most authors remember and he’s got the hardware to prove it – how does 5 Hugos, a Nebula (along with a few more nominations), a Theodore Sturgeon, and a World Fantasy Award sound? On top of all of this, he’s got to hang out with a Koala at some point in his life and had stories published by Penthouse. If that isn’t enough to qualify him for your attention, I don’t know what is.

He’s known for taking conventions of the genre and spinning on their head, often with thought provoking and comical results. His latest novel, The Dragons of Babel is his riff on the classic quest-fantasy, only this time it includes Dragons that double as fighter jets, motorcycles and a post-industrial version of the Fey World.

So check out the interview and you’ll find out why Michael Swanwick is the best author you’ve never heard of… yet. And when you’re done, be sure to head on over to his terrific blog, Flogging Babel, to further find out just why you should care about him.

So, without further adieu, Michael Swanwick, everyone!
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So, apparently Tor doesn’t read my reviews. Why? Because a day after I lamented over R.A. Salvatore’s latest lackluster effort (found HERE) I received an email from Tor asking if I’d be willing to show off this little widget. Now, not one for offering free advertising to huge publishing houses, I normally wouldn’t worry about it, but… the web designer in me just thought this was too damn cool too pass up.

The Widget there is chock full of cool information about The Ancient, including an audio/video interview, an excerpt from the novel, news and more. Despite my less than stellar review of his novel, I’m still a fan of Salvatore; and hey, who knows, I may not have liked The Ancient but maybe you will. If anything, this is a great example of how publishers can use the web to properly promote their authors.

The Ancient

Author – R.A. Salvatore

Hardcover
Page Count: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: March 4, 2008
ISBN-10: 0765317893
ISBN-13: 978-0765317896

It’s funny how perspectives change. Back in high school, when I first discovered R.A. Salvatore’s DemonWars series, I was an instant fan. I loved his personal take on fantasy, drawing endearing characters through hard situations that really allowed the reader to get close. Layered on top of this were the interesting world of Corona and a unique gemstone-based magic system, both of which resonated with my younger self. Mortalis, the fourth novel in the cycle, still stands as one of the most emotionally powerful novels I’ve read.

Second to Mortalis is The Highwayman, a formerly standalone novel set in Corona, the world featured in the DemonWars cycle. It features Bransen Garibond, a young cripple who, through circumstances only available in a work of fantasy, gains full mastery over his formerly palsied body. Bransen’s struggles through the novel, as he faced a world full of rejection and misery, were a joy to watch.

Needless to say, when I first caught wind of The Ancient, the first in a new Corona based series called The Saga of the First King, I was excited. Any further explorations of Corona, a world where Salvatore was not confined by the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, were always welcome; doubly so when they featured one of my favourite characters written by the author. I eagerly dove into the novel when it arrived in my hands, will to be lost again in Corona, but almost immediately I knew something was different. Something was wrong. The Ancient is nowhere near the level of its predecessors; it fact it shares many of the pitfalls that plague Salvatore’s other series, The Legend of Drizzt.
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Bad News.

According to both Mithfânion from SFFWorld and Pat from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, it looks like Scott Lynch, the ever heralded author of The Lies of Locke Lamora (go read it, you won’t be disappointed) has been late handing in both the manuscripts of the novels that many of his rabid fans hoped to get their hands on this year.

Mithfânion contacte Bill, from Subterranean Press, the specialty publisher with first rights to The Bastards and the Knives, and the response wasn’t very promising:

On top of this, Pat’s reporting that The Republic of Thieves, the third novel in Lynch’s successful Gentleman Bastards Sequence, was also handed in late:

As a fan of Lynch’s work, it’s hard to see it all pushed back, but the writer in me also understands that novels take time to come together and I wouldn’t want Scott to publish anything that would tarnish the high level of quality he’s becoming known for. Either way, when we finally do get our hands on these novels, I’m sure they won’t disappoint!