(no subject)

My self is emerging from the virus. I can eat normally again (just not in large amounts) and the aches and pains have localised to the usual flu-ish ones and actually fade when I sleep. This means that I will be fine for the New Year. Yay!!

I have just one more Aurealis novel to read (unless the post delivers more, later in the week - the post is at least a week behind in deliveries this year, due to the strange placement of holidays) and so I shall finish that forthwith and then spend the rest of the day with things Medievalish.

I'm half hoping that friends will decide not to drop in tonight after all. I will make them fondue and antipasti if they do, but if they don't, it will be easier to get rid of this idiot virus.

Anyhow, I have three hundred pages to read and seven books to enter on the spreadsheet before I can turn into my academic self, so I'd better get a move on.

(no subject)

Well, I've finished the Aurealis novels (unless the post brings a last few in the NY). What's very clear this year is how conservative publishers are. So many of them are choosing fantasy novels that are set in this world, but with hidden alternate societies and magics. I suspect that this is the modern version of the portal fantasy, in many ways. The other type of novel that appeared over and over again was the fairy tale or its retelling. There were also a few time travel books.

I used to think that choices like this depended more on what writers sent in, but I know of a lot of good manuscripts that were explained by these same publishers as 'hard to market' or 'not quite what we want' and therefore not bought.

What's really daft about so many of this kind of novel is that they're all competing with each other. So many books and so few narrative structures...

That's the bad news. The good news is that this year's crop included some amazing novels and very few bad ones. You'll have to wait a few months, though, before I can talk about specific works. Besides, it's rather important to stop and think that in this new publishing age, where everyone is worried about the future, so many publishers are worrying about the future by making exactly the same choices for publication as every other publisher. This is not a good thing.