Two pandas and some commas

Now here's a funny thing. Odd, anyway.

I am reading Steering the Craft, by Ursula K. Le Guin. This is a how-to book for writers, based on a workshop for writers which the author gave in 1996. In the introduction, Ursula says that she offered the course (and wrote the subsequent book) because she had met a lot of writers who were 'afraid of semi-colons and didn't know a Point of View from a Scenic Vista.' Not surprisingly, therefore, an early chapter deals with punctuation.

Midway through the chapter, Ursula offers a story which I will reproduce here absolutely verbatim:

I will now tell the Panda Story to illustrate the importance of the presence or the absence of a comma. This panda walked into a tea shop and ordered a salad and ate it. Then it pulled out a pistol, shot the man at the next table dead, and walked out. Everyone rushed after it, shouting, "Stop! Stop! Why did you do that?"

"Because I'm a panda," said the panda. "That's what pandas do. If you don't believe me, look in the dictionary."

So they looked in the dictionary and sure enough they found Panda: Raccoon-like animal of Asia. Eats shoots and leaves.

Now -- ladies and gentlemen -- those of you who are English, and possibly those of other nationalities too, will immediately recognise that this (very old, I suspect) story is essentially the same as the one which Lynne Truss used to give her the title, and raison d'etre, so to speak, of her big hit of last year Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

With one critical exception.

In Lynne's version of the story, and hence in the title of her book, she has an extra comma. As in Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

What are we to make of this? I have given the matter deep thought, and I have decided that what we have here is two pandas with differing standards of education; or possibly outlook on life. Or both.

First, Ursula's panda is clearly, and sadly, a bit of a dimmo. His dictionary tells him that a panda 'eats shoots and leaves'. This, I dare say, is literally true. I have to admit that I have no first-hand knowledge of the diet of pandas, but as a piece of zoological data the statement seems unexceptionable. But this particular panda lacks a sound working knowledge of the importance of correct punctuation, and so he regards the four words as an instruction to take three separate actions. Indeed he goes further, and seems to read into the alleged instruction an implication that he must not just 'shoot' harmlessly into the air but commit murder. This demonstrates a lack of proportion, in addition to, in all probability, a misspent youth.

Lynne's panda, on the other hand, appears to be a little brighter. He derives the justification for his extraordinary behaviour from a 'badly punctuated wildlife manual' (at least if the Guardian is to be believed). So he evidently went to a tolerably good school, or paid attention during the lessons, and as a result he has some appreciation of the importance of a strategically placed comma. He grasps the point that 'eats, shoots and leaves' carries a different meaning from 'eats shoots and leaves'. Nevertheless, he too is of a somewhat literal turn of mind. He fails to appreciate that if his wildlife manual is indeed badly punctuated, then it might be wise to exercise caution about the interpretation of what appears in it. But no. He likewise regards the four words quoted as an instruction which it is compulsory to obey on every occasion, rather than merely an observation about what happens from time to time -- perhaps among badly behaved pandas. So he too equips himself with a firearm and proceeds to perform the three steps of the instruction. Though in Lynne's version of the story homicide is avoided; possibly because he has consumed a ham sandwich in a bar rather than a salad in a tea shop.

Hmm. There is considerable food for thought here.

Mind you, I myself am inclined to agree with the reviewer in the New Yorker, who pointed out that, if we are going to introduce commas into our list of three terms plus a conjunction, we really ought to have two commas: as in 'eats, shoots, and leaves'. The regular use of this second comma is one of the early admonitions of our old friends Strunk and White, who tell us that the second comma is often referred to as the 'serial' comma.

We must earnestly hope that neither of our two pandas went on to become a serial killer.

WH Smith again

'There is much to be said for failure,' remarked Max Beerbohm. 'It is more interesting than success.'

If Max was right, then WH Smith is currently the most interesting business on the high street, because it is, let's face it, a bit of a disaster area.

In the last few months I have been in three branches of WHS, and they have all been distinctly unimpressive. In fact 'bloody awful' was the phrase which first came to mind.

The first shop was in a small town in Scotland. The premises looked as if they had been taken over from a local draper in 1930, without much having been done to the place since. A wooden floor, with patchy stock. I could not help feeling that, if the shop had belonged to a local mom and pop, instead of a national chain, it would have been much smarter, sharper, better stocked, and generally on the ball.

Shop number two was in a major city. A big shop, on two floors. The problem here was twofold. First, it was Christmas, which meant, as usual, that there were mountains of crap everywhere, and will be, presumably, for the next six weeks. After which there will be a desperate attempt to unload everything which hasn't sold up to that point, which looks like being quite a lot.

The second major problem in shop number two results, I believe, from a recent management decision. I seem to remember having read a statement from Kate Swann, the newish chief executive of WHS, to the effect that the bookshelves cum display cabinets, or whatever the correct technical term is, were not high enough, thus failing to display enough material to tempt the eager customer.

Well, in this particular big city branch of WHS the new improved display shelving had recently been introduced. With the result that I found myself in a narrow canyon, surrounded on all sides by Christmas rubbish, and unable to see any indication whatever of where anything that I might actually want to buy might be. I did eventually find what I was looking for (a copy of The Stage, a weekly trade journal for the theatre and related media); but only with great difficulty and after a longish search.

In this particular store, books were on the first floor (second floor if you're an American), but my courage gave out before I got that far. I became claustrophobic, experienced breathing difficulties and had to run outside for a bit of fresh air.

The third shop, which I called at only this morning, is located in a small country town near my home. It is the branch which I visit most frequently, if only to see how things have deteriorated since my last outing. Here too we now have the new improved shelving. And lots of Christmas cards.

Like most (if not all) branches of WHS, this one still purports to be a bookshop. I asked a member of staff if they had a copy of last year's big hit, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. She asked someone else, who asked a third party. This was kind, and helpful, but does not exactly generate confidence in the top management. Once again, because of the new, above-head-height shelving, it is hard to navigate from one area to another.

There are no doubt at least 150 highly paid consultants currently advising the management of WHS on what to do in the present crisis, but here are the GOB's comments, entirely free of fee.

First of all, WHS needs to make up its mind what the bloody hell it is supposed to be selling. My nearest WHS has a floor area of roughly 35 feet by 90 feet. (I paced it out, to frowns from the staff.) In that area WHS are currently selling: magazines; books; videos and DVDs; CDs; stationery; and cards. Lots of the latter. They sell none of these well.

A recent head-office ruling has declared that in future WHS will not attempt to stock any but the most popular magazines; but this decision is not applied, so far as I can see, rationally. This morning WHS had a copy of Fortean Times (circulation 30,000) but not The Stage (circulation 40,000 -- both figures from 2003 but I doubt whether they have changed much). There are two smaller, non-chain newsagents within a stone's throw which offer at least as good a range of magazines, if not better. Certainly better if you want soft porn. Not, of course, that I do. Far too old.

Then there are books. Well, yes, WHS has books. But if I'm seriously looking I got to Ottakars, perhaps a hundred-yard walk away. Far better range of stock.

Stationery? I go to a dedicated and really rather good stationer, more or less opposite Ottakars.

Videos and DVDs? The range of stock in WHS looks pretty thin to me. OK if you want the top 10, but if you're looking for anything a bit specialised -- e.g. a DVD of The Third Man or The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer version) -- forget it. Amazon seems a much better option.

And so on. All rather depressing really.

Today's Times reports that WHS have appointed a new chairman: Robert Walker, who will take over next February. He will work one day a week, whereas the present chairman works four.

The Times makes much of this appointment, but what, I wonder, is Walker expected to do? Here is a comment from Thinking About Management, a much underrated book by Bob Holder:

A chairman should either also be chief executive, or have so much work outside the company that he cannot meddle with its executive management. It is disastrous when he, through want of anything better to do, or through conceit, establishes himself as a parallel source of authority to the managing director.

Walker is at present chief executive of Severn Trent, but according to Retail Bulletin (linked from booktrade.info) he will stand down from that job in February next; he is also a non-executive director of jewellery retailer Signet. So he will evidently have time on his hands. Plus, it would seem, he will have ample incentive to get involved in day-to-day decisions, because -- according to the Times -- 'he's taking a big professional risk by taking on the challenge' of WHS.

Will Walker start to interfere? Will the lovely Kate tell him where to go? Will either of them, or both, be able to turn the company around?

The Times says that city analysts remain bearish, and so by golly do I.

Ian R. MacLeod: The Light Ages

The Light Ages is a remarkable book. It's not commercial, and it does present a dark image of an imagined world, with not so much as a smile anywhere in it. But it is a memorable piece of work.

Why so? Chiefly, I think, because of the quality of the prose. I am the last person to witter on about the importance of style; a good style, as far as I'm concerned, is a style you don't notice. And various critics seem to have had a little difficulty in forming the right words to describe Ian R. MacLeod's style.

'Written in dense, cadenced prose,' says Locus, and sorry, but I don't know what cadenced means either, but it sounds OK. 'Rich as treacle and equally black,' says the Guardian.

I myself would go for hypnotic, and perhaps lyrical, without being particularly happy about either of those terms. But whatever it is, MacLeod's sentences, at their best, seem to induce an almost trance-like state in the reader.

In the right reader, that is. On reflection, I think this book will appeal to the following sort of person. Ideally, you need to be English; old enough to have some sense of the flow of events during the last fifty years at least; you need to know something about the industrial north, preferably from personal experience; a knowledge of Marxist theory wouldn't do any harm; and you need to be prepared to consider an alternative view of history.

I fit this bill pretty well. I am certainly old, and have studied the history of England in the last two hundred years, both formally and informally, for decades. My parents were born in Bradford, Yorkshire, and I can remember the days when all you could see of Bradford, from a hill, was a mass of smoke from the chimneys of the mills and factories. And I am certainly receptive to alternative views of history.

By now you may be wondering what The Light Ages is about. Well, it's a first-person account throughout, telling the life story of one Robert Borrows. He lives in an England which lies in a universe which is parallel to ours -- a world where Joshua Wagstaffe discovered aether in 1678. And aether, with its associated magic, powered the industrial revolution. That revolution brought with it massive wealth and privilege for the aristocracy, and reinforced a rigid class structure. Robert Borrows is a witness to, and a participant in, what happens when the aether runs out and the resentment of the masses boils over into revolution.

Fine though it is, this book is by no means 'commercial' in publishing terms, and I find myself wondering, not for the first time, how a writer like this manages to make a living; but on his web site Mr MacLeod tells us that he teaches English and creative writing. He adds that it has taken him a long time to get anywhere with writing novels, and even longer to sell them; I can't say that I am surprised by the latter circumstance.

The MacLeod web site includes an interview with the author in which he says this: 'In the current publishing world, I feel that novel-writing is much more compromised than short fiction. There are so many ridiculous preconceptions based around what's genre, what's commercial, and what the public appeared to like last year, all of which is then buried beneath a layer of dross.' Too right, brother, too right.

Specifically, The Light Ages took MacLeod about five years to write. Just don't ask about how much money it generated, or what that works out at per hour.

Robert Littell: The Visiting Professor

Sometimes a book proves to be disappointing; and this is not, I hasten to say, necessarily the writer's fault. Sometimes it is just that we, the reader, have selected the wrong book. Or we have approached it under a misapprehension. That, I suspect, is what happened to me with Robert Littell's The Visiting Professor.

Robert Littell is a familiar name from the past. He wrote, among a dozen or so other things, The Defection of A.J. Lewinter, and that was, I seem to remember, a halfway decent thriller. He also has some excellent reviews to show for books such as The Once and Future Spy and An Agent in Place. So I suppose I picked up The Visiting Professor imagining that it would be in the espionage mode.

Well, it ain't. I should have known that from the publisher alone: Faber. By and large Faber don't do spy stories. Far too vulgar.

The Visiting Professor proves to be about just what the title suggests: one Lemuel Falk, a Russian theoretical chaoticist who wins an invitation to join the faculty of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies in upstate New York. And, er, that's about it. Plus the various complications which ensue. In short, it is not really my kind of book. And if I staggered through to the end I did so because of rare titbits thrown to someone such as I along the way.

For instance, Lemuel Falk becomes friendly with a Rebbe (aka Rabbi), who tells him that Yahweh is high on randomness. And he gives examples, drawn from Exodus 19 and elsewhere. For someone who has spent a lot of time writing about Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness (see post on 28 September and earlier), this is an idea not without interest.

There are other ideas which also give pause for thought. On page 145, for instance, we learn that one of the constituents of pure, unadulterated randomness is the occasional flash of what Lemuel calls 'random order'. If you work out the value of pi to around three hundred million decimal places (insufficient room on the back of an envelope) you will come across eight eights in succession; these are examples of random order in an otherwise purely random sequence.

Pure unadulterated randomness, by the way, is not just the work of God. According to Lemuel, it is God.

On page 185 we learn, by implication, that Agatha Christie was a randomness simulator, in that she had a plot (don't ask me which book, but I think it was one of Agatha's) which featured a number of apparently random murders. But in fact, of course, the murders were carefully planned to appear random; the killer wanted to bump off one of the victims, but made that victim part of a series of seemingly motiveless murders in order to disguise the motive for that one particular death.

Should you find yourself investigating a series of such murders, you can tell whether they are truly random, and hence the work of a nutcase, or not, by checking for random repetitions. In a truly random series of murders, two of the victims are likely to have the same colour shirt, or be the same age; purely by accident, so to speak. If no such correlations exist, it is probable that the crimes are the work of someone seeking to simulate random murder. So, once you have reached that conclusion, you should then look for real and valid reasons for one of the victims to end up dead. Find out who benefits from that death and you have your killer.

All of which, I appreciate, is pretty slim pickings for someone who is looking for another thriller from Robert Littell. On the other hand, if you are in search of that high-flying literary object, a novel of ideas, then The Visiting Professor might just be for you.

Robert Aickman

Somewhere in my perambulations across the internet I found the name of Robert Aickman (1914-1981), a writer of what he referred to as 'strange stories' -- which are often referred to by others as ghost stories. And, among Aickman's non-fiction works, I found listed a book called The River Runs Uphill. Thinking that this might be an autobiography, I unearthed a copy from the archives of my local library.

Well, The River Runs Uphill is certainly autobiographical in nature. Written sometime in the 1960s, but not published until 1986, it tells mainly of Aickman's experiences in founding the Inland Waterways Association (IWA). The IWA was an organisation set up in 1946 (or so) by a group of true English eccentrics, and was dedicated to restoring England's derelict canals and other waterways to something like their old glory.

Aickman's book is chiefly of interest today in that it provides a wonderful case study of what it is like to become involved in the leadership of an entirely voluntary organisation which is dedicated to achieving something that runs contrary to existing government policy. The experience can, I think, be summed up by saying that banging your head hard, and repeatedly, against the nearest brick wall would be a lot more fun by comparison.

However, it is a measure of Aickman's achievement if I say that, from the very room where I sit writing these words, I can look across the valley and see boats of various sorts proceeding along the Kennet and Avon Canal, a waterway which was largely impassable as recently as thirty years ago. Now, thanks to the work of people like Aickman, it has been fully restored. Only last year Prince Charles came to the town to open some new part of it.

The River Runs Uphill does not tell us a great deal about Aickman's career as a writer. But there are mentions; the text includes various asides about literature and the arts in general. 'Literature,' he says at one point (and he was writing in the 1960s, remember) 'is palpably dying. Man, even the intellectual, is more and more ready to do without the written word.'

Later, he records producing a book of ghost stories in collaboration with the young Elizabeth Jane Howard, noting in passing that 'there are perhaps only twenty-five or thirty good ghost stories in European fiction'.

The chapters are mostly headed by quotations from various philosophers. Chapter VII, for instance, has this from Lao-Tzu: 'Whoever makes good progress in the beginning has all the more difficulty later on.' A good motto for writers to remember, I feel.

That Aickman was interested in the paranormal is made perfectly clear by several passages in the book. At one point, for instance, he tells of hearing (while trying to sleep on a boat) a number of strange noises. The most worrying of these was a sound like a mouse creeping about in straw. For some reason he, and his girl friend, found this terrifying, and Aickman tells us that he concluded that the noise 'related to psychic or mediumistic powers' in his girl friend, whom he refers to as X.

Miss X displayed other 'psychic gifts'. On one occasion, while they were both changing for dinner in Aickman's house, he looked at X's image in the mirror as she sat at a dressing-table. What he saw was an old woman with grey hair; though she was still unmistakably X. He never mentioned what he had seen, but some time later X told him that, one evening while in his house, she had looked in a mirror and seen herself as an old woman; the image seemed to last for quite some time, she said.

The book contains several other stories of paranormal events and experiences, many of them connected with the inland waterways of England, and reported by others as well as Aickman himself.

The regular users of the canals, those who made their living by operating barges on what remained of the waterway system in the 1940s, had an interesting way of dealing with dead bodies floating in the water; for the most part, they ignored them. Apparently, reporting a corpse in the canal would result in nothing but trouble and incovenience: having to give statements to the police, and being obliged to attend inquests. It was much better, the professionals considered, to let someone else have the fame and glory of finding a dead body.

This reluctance to accept the hassle of dealing with the drowned was not confined to bargees. Aickman describes how Geoffrey Percy, a friend of his, was once out birdwatching beside a lake when he saw a uniformed constable having some difficulty with a long pole. When Geoffrey drew nearer, he could see the body of a woman in the water; the constable was trying to move it.

'Let me help,' said Geoffrey. 'The two of us will soon get her out.'

'Get her out!' snorted the constable. 'I'm trying to work her into the next county.'

I have no difficulty whatever in believing this story because some years ago I read of a precisely similar occurrence in the memoirs of a journalist (Percy Cudlipp, if I remember rightly). As a young reporter, Cudlipp had stood on a bridge and watched several police officers and other officials doing their level best to get a body to move downstream, so that some other police authority should be stuck with all the paperwork and expense of dealing with it.

Nothing like that could happen today, I suspect, because of the mobile phone. The first person to find a body in a canal or river will immediately ring all their friends; this will be followed, if they happen to think of it, by a call to the police, and a crowd will have gathered long before any gentlemen in blue arrive on the scene. The TV cameras will not be far behind, as some enterprising soul will surely have rung them in the hope of earning a fee.

A little further (belated) research on my part reveals that Aickman did write a 'proper' autobiography, The Attempted Rescue, which looks intriguing. As for The River Runs Uphill -- it seems to be a rare book: copies cost £65 and upwards on abebooks. Volumes containing his 'strange stories' seem to be easier to find, thanks to Tartarus Press, and I will report back when I have read some.

On the undoubted honesty of publishers

All English publishers are, of course, gentlemen. Every one. (Except the ladies.) And a gentleman's word is his bond. You can depend on him. Above all, a gentleman is honest.

What follows should therefore not be interpreted as in any way a slur upon the good name of English publishers. It is an unfortunate fact, however, that English writers are obliged, occasionally, to do business with foreigners. Distasteful though this is, it can sometimes generate income. Always provided, of course, that you watch what the slippery blighters get up to.

These thoughts are prompted by a quarterly newsletter issued by my accountants. Like most people with financial affairs of anything but the most astounding simplicity, I have to pay an accountant to draw up my tax return. Originally, my accountant was part of a small family firm, but in the course of time that firm merged (as they do) with a much bigger company, and this company (The Fisher Organisation)sends out regular bulletins intended to provide useful information.

This quarter's newsletter contains an article about the licensing of rights. Now don't go off to sleep, because if you are a writer, or even a dedicated reader, the licensing of rights, and the collection of the income generated from such licensing, is a matter of supreme importance.

And, just to hold your attention, let me say immediately that what my accountants have to say reveals -- well, not dishonesty exactly, for that would be unthinkable -- but a certain, shall we say, carelessness with other people's money.

Suppose you are a firm which has developed a widget. You decide to make money from this widget by selling it abroad, and to do that you license the right to make and sell the widget to, say, a firm in Venezuela. Under the terms of the contract, you, the originator of the widget, will be entitled to a royalty on every widget made and sold in Venezuela.

It seems that this is so frequent a practice that the firm of accountants that I deal with has a whole division, the Forensic division if you please, which is devoted to nothing else but checking up, on behalf of British widget-makers, that they are being paid the full and proper amounts of cash for licensing their widget.

And what the writer of the article, the head of the Forensic division, has to say is this: 'When we are appointed to carry out a licensing audit for a new client, we invariably find that the businesses to whom it has granted licenses are not making an accurate report of relevant sales and allowable expense.'

Note that word invariably. The writer says that he is 'unable to recall a single instance where this has not been so.' But not always for criminal reasons. 'Sharp practice is not always involved.' Sometimes, as I mentioned above, it can be just carelessness.

Now -- you will have been wondering all along what this has to do with publishing. And the point is this. Every book which is published is issued under the terms of a contract between the writer and the publisher. Typically, an early sentence in the contract will state the 'the Author hereby grants to the Publishers the sole and exclusive right and licence to produce and publish...'

In other words, a book contract is a small-scale licensing agreement. Often a very small-scale agreement indeed, involving pitifully small amounts of moolah. But it is, nevertheless, a licensing agreement.

And if it is true that the Forensic division of a major firm of accountants invariably finds, on investigation, that businesses operating under the terms of a licence are -- not to put too fine a point on it -- underpaying the party from whom they obtained the licence (purely through carelessness and administrative error, of course) then perhaps it would pay writers to give a little thought as to what extent their publisher might, perhaps, be underpaying them.

Should an author wish to launch a formal investigation into the extent of payments, provision is normally there in another fairly standard clause of a publishing contract. Typically, it will say something like: 'Upon reasonable notice and during the Publishers' normal business hours the Author or the Author's representative shall have the right to examine the Publishers' records of account at the place at which they are normally kept....' And so forth.

There are, however, drawbacks. First, most authors are hopelessly ill equipped to investigate accounts themselves. Secondly, it costs a great deal of money to send in the Forensic division of a major firm of accountants (anything less than £150 an hour seems very unlikely to me). And third, the sending in of the heavy mob would be interpreted by the publisher as a declaration of war, and you could forget about doing any more books with that firm -- or, I suspect, any other, because the word gets around. It is, as I remarked some posts ago, but a short step from being labelled Difficult to being labelled Absolutely Fucking Impossible.

What do we actually know about the payment of sums due from publishers?

Well, the article in the accountants' newsletter referred to above quotes an example. The Forensic division was appointed by a firm of UK publishers who had licensed the rights to a bestseller to a French publisher. On investigation the Forensic boys found that 'our client was entitled to a much greater sum' than had actually been paid.

There are also some well documented instances of major underpayments to authors. In particular, I wrote about one such case on 12 April.

And, finally, it is worth noting that the Society of Authors regularly runs audits on behalf of its members. Every so often a few names are chosen at random, and, with the members' agreement, the Society looks into the publishers' records and checks whether the authors have been paid the right amounts. This independent procedure, checking up at one remove, so to speak, seems to protect the authors from any bad feeling in the chosen publishers' offices. I no longer subscribe to the Society's journal, The Author, so I can't quote any recent figures for the outcome of such investigations, but my memory tells me that errors were by no means unknown. None of them, naturally, were the result of deliberate dishonesty. But these days you just can't get the staff.

The lost boys (and girls)

Yesterday's booktrade.info provided a link to an interesting article in the Independent by Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski (hereinafter to be known as Tom).

Like most newspaper articles, this one was designed to do no more, I suspect, than distract the weary commuter from the discomforts of the cattle truck in which he makes his daily way to work; and as such it no doubt worked pretty well. Tom's article was not, in other words, intended to be a final statement of the whole truth about everything, as in, perhaps, the works of St Thomas Aquinas.

I make this point because I disagree with Tom about a number of things. But I do not want what follows in this post to be regarded as criticism of Tom's position, much less a personal attack. I choose to mention his article only because it provides a useful background against which to highlight some different ideas of my own.

Tom notes that some of the most prominent literary names of the 1960s are now completely forgotten. Well yes. Indeed. And hardly surprising, if I may say so. I myself was around in the 1960s, reading newspapers and books, and it was about that time when I began to notice a distinct discrepancy between what the learned literary journals were saying, on the one hand, and my own experience as a reader, on the other.

Quite often I would come across some writer who was regarded as a close associate of God by Cyril Connolly and Philip Toynbee, only to find, when I read his work, that on the whole I much preferred Ian Fleming.

Ah yes, you say. But that is because you are a moron and a vulgarian. And a vulgarian I certainly am -- time has proved that. But time has also proved that, whatever else I may lack, it is not IQ. So I would venture to suggest, on the basis of this limited sample, that young readers would be unwise, at any point in history, to place too much reliance on the judgements of the experts of the day. All too often the giants of literature who are identified by the experts of the day prove to be (a) unreadable by normal people even in their year of publication, and (b) soon forgotten, even in circles with exquisitely refined taste.

Another piece of Tom: 'Much of the best writing in this country is probably not even getting published any more.' I agree, in the sense that it is not published by the traditional mainstream book publishers. Where I disagree, I suspect, with Tom is in defining 'the best'. He clearly identifies the best as that which comes from the literary-fiction stable. Whereas I would define the best as something like 'fitness for purpose'. In other words, there are science-fiction books which prove highly entertaining to sci-fi fans, thrillers which entertain the thrillable, and so forth. The problem is, of course, that there are some excellent writers in all these genres who can't get much of a look-in in today's new improved publishing world.

Tom quotes Leo Hollis, who has some experience at the coal-face of publishing: 'Selling books is the point of publishing, it has no other reason to exist.' And this is absolutely true. I have no problem with the concept of publishing as a commercial enterprise; none whatever. The problem is, as I have pointed out before, that modern publishers (UK in particular) are fairly bloody hopeless at running commercial enterprises.

There are all sorts of reasons for this commercial ineptitude, of which the following are just a few: the relatively small size of even the biggest publishers; lack of capital; absence of training; naivety; nepotism.

Another publisher quoted by Tom: 'Major publishers can't be bothered with stuff they consider small-fry.' This sentence is presented as if it described a shocking and immoral state of affairs. But why should major publishers be bothered with small fry? They are only concerned with books which are likely to sell in large numbers; and so they should be.

At this point you may well advance an argument which I was rather fond of myself until recently. Ah, you will say, but if publishers don't bother with small fry, then eventually they will run out of big fry, because the big fry will have nowhere to learn their trade.

This was a valid point even as recently as ten years ago. And it has taken me most of that ten years to wake up to something which has changed things. And that something is the medium on which you are reading this message: namely the internet.

The advent of the internet/web/net has, to state the obvious, changed everything. And, in tandem with that, we have changes in printing technology, which have enormously reduced the cost of printing and publishing, even in traditional book form. The combination of these two developments means that young (or emerging) writing talents need never lack a platform on which to present their work. (See yesterday's post for more on this.) Of course they won't make much money; but I would argue that it is absurd for a writer to expect to make any serious money. When it happens, it happens mainly by accident -- or, in the case of big firms, through the expenditure of a huge advertising budget.

In general terms, Tom's article bemoans the way in which really fine writers of the past tend to disappear from view. He is chiefly concerned with literary fiction, but the same danger exists in every other genre. And it is indeed a pity if fine writing -- of whatever kind -- is lost sight of. But the world has changed, folks!

Once upon a time it would have been economically impossible, for all but eccentric millionaires, to republish the work of almost-forgotten whodunit writers, or early specialists in bug-eyed monsters, or the teenage work of Barbara Cartland. But now, all is changed. Enthusiasts, fans, weirdos and nut-cases of all sorts can bring out their favourites from the past and parade them for everyone's attention: either in ebook form, or in print-on-demand paperback.

If you doubt that, take a look at the long lists of reprints of the obscure and overlooked which are being presented by such firms as Renaissance and Wildside Press. (My current favourite is Arthur B. Reeve's Constance Dunlap, a 1914 classic which combines both detection and romance; and just think, you would never have heard of it had you not read this blog.) And there are plenty more highly individual and enterprising small presses like these two. Long, as I may have said before, and quite recently, may they flourish.

Negative Capability

Somewhere along the line, when I was writing yesterday's post about Ansible, it occurred to me that Ansible was a sort of fanzine. And, if you're wondering, as I once did, what a fanzine is, it's 'an amateur-produced magazine written for a subculture of enthusiasts devoted to a particular interest' -- mainly science fiction enthusiasts, it seems. At least that's the definition according to the online Free Dictionary. And no, I don't know how to pronounce fanzine either. You can find a much longer definition of the term, and a discussion of the fanzine phenomenon, in the Fancyclopaedia.

Strictly speaking, the fanzine seems to be a printed magazine, though I have a feeling that there is lots of stuff on the web which could sensibly be called a fanzine: Ansible being a case in point. And what immediately came to my mind, when I remembered the word, was a passage from the writing of one Josh Saitz, which I came across a year or so ago. So I looked up old Josh to see how he was doing these days. And you can easily do the same by clicking on the link to his web site, Negative Capability.

As you will see, Josh runs a fanzine (of sorts). Or at any rate a small-scale printed magazine. The front page of his web site tells us that it offers (among other treats) 'hidden celebrity nudes, MP3s and lots of other stuff that will get me cease-and-desist letters from lawyers, but I don't care.' I really like that sort of attitude, though it is of course grossly immoral and a flagrant breach of the copyright laws which all us writers worship and revere. And I haven't actually found any of these hidden nudes yet, but I live in hope.

Of course, the first thing that you will notice is that Negative Capability isn't a fanzine at all -- not in the classic definition of the term. It seems to be just a small and irregularly issued magazine -- edited, and largely written, by one short-tempered and outspoken individual who has been enraged, over the years, by the repeated failure of editors to recognise his talent and in the end has just decided, fuck it, if they won't publish my stuff I'll publish it myself. Josh's own definition of the thing, by the way, is 'a zine specialising in humor and anger.' Which is a pretty good combination. It has served Private Eye fairly well over the years.

Anyway, the bit of Josh Saitz's wisdom that caught my eye, a year or more ago, was his little rant on the submissions page. And as it's still there I thought I would give you the benefit of bits of it here. This is what Josh has to say:

If you are a talented writer and are thumbing through the writing market book looking for a place to send your submission, do yourself a favor and save yourself the postage. Publish it yourself. Write it, edit it, get pictures yourself, print it and sell it. You don't need anyone to validate you and you definitely aren't going to make any money or get any fame by having a short story published by the Pine Cone Journal in Wisconsin because nobody fucking reads that shit anyway. And if you only write sensitive poetry, please, for the love of god, please stop because it's a waste of paper.

I am sorry if this short spiel has left you feeling disappointed, but I really do have a great deal of empathy for you because I too was a miserable unpublished writer for a long, long time. I also sent out hundreds of short stories, essays, reviews and other wonderfully insightful pieces and I was rejected 99% of the time, usually by being ignored. The 1% of people who responded were either liars or total frauds,and none of the people I ever found from Writers Digest or any other book ever published anything I ever wrote. I have written for dozens of magazines and zines since then, but it was only because they had already read my zine. So my advice to you is to publish your own work, send it out, trade it, sell it wherever they sell stuff like that, and eventually you will be able to find your audience before you go crazy.

Now this is all excellent stuff, and I agree with every word of it. It so happens that once upon a time I had an 'orthodox' (if not very lucrative) career as a writer, publishing novels through mainstream firms in a variety of countries. But in the end I grew weary of dealing with such people (individually pleasant though they are), and in any case they decided that my work was not sufficiently commercial for them, so we parted ways. Ever since I have published my own stuff (Kingsfield Publications), and feel much better for it.

So I commend Josh Saitz's strategy to your attention. Why not buy old Josh's magazine? He deserves it, on the grounds of effort alone. At least he doesn't sit on his arse and whimper about the need for more Arts Council support.

Ansible, Langford and sci fi

Us pensioners have to watch the pennies, you know. I don't actually root through the neigbours' dustbins -- not in daylight, anyway -- but I will gladly accept free books from anyone. Thus it was that I found myself searching a plastic bag of books which my son was about to take to the charity shop; and I came across a novel by David Langford entitled The Leaky Establishment.

This is not a work that I was familiar with, though I do know of Dave Langford (of whom more later). The Leaky Establishment is described by its author as a nuclear farce. First published in 1984, it concerns a series of highly unlikely, but nonetheless amusing, events at Robinson Heath, which is a thinly disguised version of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston. A place where, oddly enough, Langford once worked.

The Leaky Establishment is quite a lot of fun. It entertained me well enough on the train home from London. The genre, I suppose, is comedy science fiction, which is not altogether a common species, at least as far as I'm aware. And if you are up to smiling at the removal of radioactive materials from top-secret establishments, plus the accidental firing of nuclear missiles at Stockholm (catastrophe averted by the substitution of some sort of football for the real warhead) then this could be the one for you. Warning: you do need a sensayuma, and not everyone has the same model, or indeed possesses one at all.

The history of this book is interesting in itself. It was first published in hardback by Muller in 1984, and then paperbacked by Sphere in 1985. It was revived by Big Engine in 2001, complete with an introduction by Terry Pratchett, and finally issued yet again by Cosmos in 2003. Big Engine was a small UK-based sci-fi publisher, and, sad to say, it went the way of many another big engine -- it sort of blew up. Cosmos is an American firm, an imprint of Wildside Press . All of which is interesting to me, at least, because it indicates that a book can still find a publisher and new readers even after twenty years; even if it isn't, in itself, the greatest thing since the transistor.

David (Dave to his friends) Langford was already known to me as the originator of a monthly newsletter about science fiction known as Ansible. This newsletter usually contains some worthwhile stuff, even if you're not a big fan of the genre. For instance, there is often an item called 'As others see us', which demonstrates that many publishers and critics will go to great lengths to deny that they have anything whatever to do with so sordid and vulgar a genre as sci fi, though they will happily publish and write about it under some other heading.

Oops. I see that an item in the latest issue of Ansible quotes someone else as suggesting (as I almost did above) that sci-fi writers seldom have a sense of humour. This implies that, in Langford's eyes, sci-fi writers and readers regularly fall to the floor clutching their stomachs and howling (with laughter). I bow to Langford's greater knowledge of these matters.

Even a partial exploration of Dave Langford's Ansible web site shows that he has written masses of stuff, including at least three other novels. He has also written considerable numbers of articles, reviews, and essays. In other words, he was a blogger long before blogs were invented. He has won, apparently, 23 Hugo awards, mainly for his work in publicising and popularising science fiction. All in all, Ansible is a site which will repay exploring.

Penguin problems

On 26 June I quoted a report from Publishing News to the effect that Penguin was experiencing severe problems with their new state-of-the-art warehouse. The problem was that the software didn't work, which meant that the firm couldn't deliver books to meet the booksellers' orders. Something of a catastrophe, really, and the estimated loss to Penguin was put by PN at £20m to £30m.

Then, on 25 October I again quoted from PN, which reported that Penguin authors were beginning to make noises about being paid compensation for lost sales.

And now PN reports that Penguin are currently saying that their new warehouse will not be fully automated until March 2005 'at the earliest'. In other words, men will still be going round collecting books in baskets over the busy Christmas season, which is absolutely crucial for both booksellers and publishers if they want to end their financial year in profit.

Penguin are naturally trying to emphasise that sales of new books are doing OK -- 43 bestsellers this year, as against 33 last, et cetera. But backlist sales are way down, both for Penguin and for booksellers.

What interests me in all this (since I am mercifully not a Penguin author) is how a firm like Penguin came to experience such a disaster with new software. After all, problems with warehouse software are far from new in UK publishing. The most famous failure was that of a distribution firm known as Tiptree, and the causes of that spectacular ballsup have been fully analysed by a group from the University of Wolverhampton School of Computing and IT. That case history is posted on the web and can be studied by anyone. Presumably (says he hopefully, but without any great faith) it was looked at by Penguin management before they embarked on their great adventure.

It is now at least eight years since I was involved with a major software development scheme. It involved the creation of new management systems for a group of about 15 UK universities. Between them, the universities could summon up some amazing academic firepower, but even so (as I recall) outside specialists were called in to do the actual software writing. What the universities did was to set up an elaborate procedure for laying down exactly what the new systems had to do, and then for monitoring and testing the output of the software developers as and when it appeared.

At the time I was inclined to think that the network of commissioning and monitoring committees was over-elaborate, but with hindsight I can see the point of it. After all, even then we knew all too well about the failures of software systems which had cost many millions of pounds. And since then there have been many more such debacles (for details, see almost any issue of Private Eye). Most of these failures seem to involve the national health service and other government departments.

What procedures did Penguin have in place, I wonder, for designing the specification for their new software? And what methods did they use to monitor and test the output of their software developers? If I was a Penguin shareholder, and even more so if I was a Penguin author, I think I would want to know. But I doubt if anyone outside the company will ever be told. Commercial confidentiality, don't you know.

Back to Tiptree for a moment. The case history referred to above includes one interesting sentence: 'As difficulties surfaced, Tiptree tended to play them down to the point where customers could not believe what they were hearing.' Does this ring any bells?

The case history also tells us that Tiptree faced substantial claims from publishers for lost sales and that these claims were eventually settled 'by negotiation'.

I don't know exactly what happened to Tiptree in the end, but an internet search reveals that the 'former site' of the company in Colchester is likely to become the home of a brand new Tesco supermarket. Which is not altogether encouraging for those of us who would like to see a new and improved look to UK publishing.

Can Penguin survive? Well, if it was an independent company I would be inclined to think not. But as it is part of the massive Pearson group I suppose the answer is yes. Though whether the present management of the company will survive is another question altogether.