I’m off to Loscon for the day — so a very early Scroll.
(1) ARTISTS AND NEW WFA. Several tweets of interest about the call for submissions of World Fantasy Award designs.
https://twitter.com/plunderpuss/status/669314888657842176
The first three of nine tweets by John Picacio responding to discussion of his blog post “Artists Beware”.
Seen a lot of reaction today on my WF Award post. This award's new design is a job. It will be a process to fulfill it. 1/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
It's a specific, unique job outside of the normal purview of a typical conrunning experience, which is usually volunteer. 2/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
This unique job will require the insights and talents of experienced professionals, giving their best, value for value. 3/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
(2) FAN CRITICS OF TOLKIEN. Robin Anne Reid’s “The question of Tolkien Criticism” answers Norbert Schürer’s “Tolkien Criticism Today” (LA Review of Books).
Fans can and do write critical commentary of Tolkien’s work, and not all critics/academics distance ourselves from being fans, a distancing stance that was perhaps once required to support the myth of academic objectivity. I suspect, given Schürer’s commentary on Tolkien’s work and style as well as his conclusion, that he would not identify as a fan. But his idea that the primary audience for Tolkien scholars is only fans (instead of other Tolkien scholars) strikes me as bizarre as does the idea that fan demands would affect what a critic would say:
Just as importantly, Tolkien should not be treated with kid gloves because he is a fan favorite with legions to be placated, but as the serious and major author he is (para.22).
Since the quote above is Schürer’s conclusion, he provides no evidence for this claim that critics treat Tolkien “with kid gloves” for fear of these legions of fans.
(3) REACHER. Andy Martin observed Lee Child writing the Jack Reacher novel Make Me from start to finish. Martin, a University of Cambridge lecturer, and the author have a dialog in about their experience in “The Professor on Lee Child’s Shoulder” at the New York Times Sunday Review.
MARTIN I was sitting about two yards behind you while you tapped away. Trying to keep quiet. I could actually make out a few of the words. “Nothingness” I remember for some obscure reason. And “waterbed.” And then I kept asking questions. I couldn’t help myself. How? Why? What the…? Oh surely not! A lot of people thought I would destroy the book.
CHILD Here is the fundamental reality about the writing business. It’s lonely. You spend all your time writing and then wondering whether what you just wrote is any good. You gave me instant feedback. If I write a nicely balanced four-word sentence with good rhythm and cadence, most critics will skip right over it. You not only notice it, you go and write a couple of chapters about it. I liked the chance to discuss stuff that most people never think about. It’s weird and picayune, but obviously of burning interest to me.
MARTIN And the way you care about commas — almost Flaubertian! I tried to be a kind of white-coated detached observer. But every observer impinges on the thing he is observing. Which would be you in this case. And I noticed that everything around you gets into your texts. You are an opportunistic writer. For example, one day the maid was bumping around in the kitchen and in the next line you used the word “bucket.” Another time there was some construction work going on nearby and the next verb you used was “nail.” We go to a bookstore and suddenly there is Reacher, in a bookstore.
(4) ACCESSIBLE CONS. Rose Lemberg adopts a unified approach to “#accessiblecons and Geek Social Fallacies”.
“Geek Social Fallacies” are in themselves a fallacy. There are many people – not just the disabled -pushed away from fandom.
It’s not expensive to get a ramp in the US with pre-planning. Most hotels have them ready because they are ADA-compliant. If you invite a person in a wheelchair to speak at a con, and there is no ramp, you ostracized them. Own it.
It’s not because it’s too difficult, too expensive, it’s not because the fan did not ask nicely or loudly or politely enough. It’s because you did NOT accept them as they are. It’s because you ostracized them. Will you own it?
Year after year, I see defensiveness. I see the same arguments repeat. It’s too pricey. It’s the disabled person’s fault. Where are our Geek Social Fallacies when it comes to access? Can we as a community stop ostracizing disabled fans already?
(5) LON CHANEY. Not As A Stranger (1955) will air on Turner Classic Movies this Thursday December 3 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern; Lon Chaney cast as Job Marsh, father of Robert Mitchum, a moving portrayal that ranks among his very best.
(6) SF SCREENPLAYS. Nick Ransome, “Writing Science Fiction Screenplays” at Industrial Scripts.
Sci-Fi is the only genre, apart from the Western, still to resist the post-modern impulse. This could be due to the fact that Sci-Fi is not a genre at all, but the actual reason that Sci-Fi so completely resists the post-modern relativity of time and meaning is because that is what it was always about in the first place. There are no realities or meanings more relative than those revealed by Science Fiction.
In its purest form, the Sci-Fi narrative presents a polarity of moral choices and asks the most difficult of existential questions. This polarity is encapsulated by the utopian (ordered, no conflict, boring) and the dystopian (messy, intriguing, human).
LOGAN’S RUN is the best example in terms of story theory because although the action begins in a utopia, we soon realise that in fact we are in a dystopian nightmare (the Act One reversal). Films like BRAZIL, DARK CITY and THE MATRIX may start with a semblance of reality (the world as you just about know it) but then fairly swiftly make us aware that we are actually in a version of hell (or rather an allegory of the world as it really is).
(7) CIXIN LIU. A Cixin Liu interview about “The future of Chinese sci-fi” at Global Times was posted August 30, however, I believe this is the first time it’s been linked here.
GT: Some Chinese fans have said they want to band together to vote on the World Science Fiction website next year. What’s your opinion on this? Liu: That’s the best way to destroy The Three-Body Trilogy. And not just this sci-fi work, but also the reputation of Chinese sci-fi fans. The entire number of voters for the Hugo Awards is only around 5,000. That means it is easily influenced by malicious voting. Organizing 2,000 people to each spend $14 is not hard, but I am strongly against such misbehavior. If that really does happen, I will follow the example of Marko Kloos, who withdrew from the shortlist after discovering the “Rabid Puppies” had asked voters to support him.
GT: Many fans believe that even if The Three-Body Problem had benefited from the “puppies,” it still was deserving of a Hugo Award. Do you agree? Liu: Deserving is one thing, getting the award is another thing. Many votes went to The Three-Body Problem after Marko Kloos withdrew. That’s something I didn’t want to see. But The Three-Body Problem still would have had a chance to win by a slim margin of a few votes [without the “puppies”]. After the awards, some critics used this – the support right-wing organizations like the “puppies” gave The Three-Body Problem – as an excuse to criticize the win. That frustrated me. The “puppies” severely harmed the credibility of the Hugo Awards. I feel both happy and “unfortunate” to have won this year. The second volume was translated by an American translator, while the first and third were translated by Liu Yukun (Ken Liu). Most Chinese readers think the second and the third books are better than the first, but American readers won’t necessarily feel the same way. So I’m not sure about the Hugo Awards next year. I’m just going to take things in stride.
GT: It’s not easy for foreign literature to break into the English language market. What do you think of Liu Yukun’s translation? Liu: Although only my name is on the trophy, it actually belongs to both myself and Liu Yukun. He gets half the credit. He has a profound mastery of both Oriental and Western literature. He is important to me and Chinese sci-fi. He has also introduced books from other countries to the West. A Japanese author once told me that the quality of Japanese sci-fi is much better than China’s, but its influence in the US is much weaker. That’s because they lack a bridge like Liu Yukun.
(8) RETRO COLLECTION. Bradley W. Schenck is pleased with the latest use of his Pulp-O-Mizer.
I ran across a post at File770.com featuring the third volume of a collection of stories eligible for the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards at next year’s Worldcon. The collection is an ongoing project by File770 user von Dimpleheimer.
Since the third volume is a big batch of stories by Henry Kuttner and Ray Cummings I followed the link and grabbed a copy, only to discover that von Dimpleheimer had made the eBook cover with my very own Pulp-O-Mizer. This put a smile all over my face. Like, actually, all over my face.
So I went back and downloaded the first two volumes and, sure enough, they had also been Pulp-O-Mized. This may be my very favorite use of the Pulp-O-Mizer to date.
(9) TEASER. A new Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser was posted on Thanksgiving. I’m leery of viewing these TV spots because I’m already sold on the movie and don’t want to dilute the experience of watching it. YMMV.
The minute-long teaser, dubbed “All The Way,” debuted on Facebook, but will also appear as a TV spot. IT finds Andy Serkis’ Supreme Leader Snoke character telling Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, “Even you have never faced such a test.”
[Thanks to Francis Hamit, Will R., and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jonathan Edelstein.]
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I try to take a chance on self-pubbed work every so often, at least. I must admit to quailing at the sight of a long list of titles on the Kindle, each one featuring a big blocky font and a unlikely-looking spaceship on the cover… but I’ve found some decent enough stuff.
Of course, I’ve found a lot of less than decent stuff, too, ranging from the merely flat and drab down to “my retinas are now suing me for reckless endangerment for exposing them to this stuff”. But you pays your money and you takes your choice.
As for cover art… well, I’ve seen plenty that the self-pubbed authors, apparently, didn’t regret. But they should have. Oh, yes, indeed, they should.
(Of course, this is coming from someone who is looking at his current NaNo – 82546 words and counting – and thinking “hmm, it’s shaping up, it’s weird enough that no trad publisher would touch it with a ten-foot pole, so how hard would it be to format it properly, give it a decent line-edit once it’s finished, slap a cover image on it and put it out in the marketplace?” Please don’t answer that question if the answer is remotely likely to encourage me.)
James Davis Nicoll — Probably a confusion between J. R. (Jennifer) Pournelle and her father, J. E. (Jerry) Pournelle.
At least the Resnick clan has distinctive first initials.
Add a certain T. Kingfisher’s work to the list of good self-pubbed. And a number of otherwise pro-published authors release out-of-print backlist works (often re-edited), short fiction, and quirky not-sure-where-this-fits books that way.
Even artists may not in fact know what to do to produce a good book cover – esp. as what works in a physical copy may not work on an ebook. I think I have enough artistic chops to produce an image that would work on a cover, but if I ever got crazy enough* to self-pub and do my own cover art, I would hand the picture to my husband, who has done graphic design work, to turn into a cover.
My go-to example for good design saving a cover whose painting could have turned it into a muddy mess is Brust and Bull’s Freedom and Necessity (the original hardcover in particular, but all 3 — hardcover, paperbeck and TPB re-release — kind of fit.)
* Which I might in fact do for releasing a couple of previously published novellas back into the wild. But I am NOT ready to use self-pub as my chief avenue of publication. I do not impugn self publishing as a whole.
The dirty secret of a lot of publishers these days is that they hardly do any marketing at all, at least for midlist writers. Sometimes the strategy seems to be to throw books off a pier and see which ones float. I’ve actually had editors say to me, “I just don’t know how to market your book.” (Really? Isn’t that, well, your job?)
Of course marketing a self-pubbed book can’t be any easier. But if you’re good at marketing, at least you know you can take control of that part.
Lois McMaster Bujold has blogged recently about some of the challenges involved with ebook cover design.
On a side note, the tradition of a birthday gift of art from her Russian fans is very sweet.
rcade: Particularly in comments here, discussion is influenced by fan conventions where nobody gets paid, and Worldcons that publish their financial reports therefore are somewhat transparent. However, nonprofit corporations, generally, are just as likely to have paid personnel as the business corporations. San Diego Comic Con is a nonprofit with some paid people. (And Dragon Con is run as a for-profit entity.) WFC has never been transparent about its top level versus the individual groups who bid for and run their con. It was only last week here in comments some experienced WFC runners said the top group has no assets. So I wasn’t surprised that Picacio started with a public answer to a public announcement — the WFC doesn’t share these financial facts. It also engendered bad will by its lack of engagement about its harassment policy — I don’t know if that influenced Picacio, but it makes me more accepting of his choice to opt for public pressure.
@Lexica:
Oh, that is sweet!
ETA: And what a lovely graphic approch to ebook covers!
I see that SyFy has put the full length first episode of The Expanse in lots of places.
Sadly a click of play gives “The uploader has not made this video available in your country.” 🙁
Now seriously, is that what Jim Holden would do if he had a video file that needed watching? 🙂
I liked that cover example. Simple but with enough hints of something to make you intrigued.
On covers this year, I thought the book The Vorrh was a bit hit and miss but I really liked the cover design.
@Camestros. Well, there are ways 🙂
Anyone interested in recommending examples of great cover art and / or design?
Of course – I’m just waiting for a plucky but foolhardy space captain to beam it to everybody in the solar system no matter what the governments of Earth or Mars say.
@Kendall: “Viggle sounds, uh, well, I’d hate it (ads while reading books?!).”
Different devices. I can have my Kobo reader up and be reading on there, and every page or two I just glance down at the iPad, see that the ad’s done, and tap the square again for another 20 points. Likewise, I can pop a movie in my Blu-ray player and watch it while doing the same “bash the ad button again” check on the iPad. I’d be put off by in-book ads, too!
This reminds me of the old paperbacks that have a color cigarette ad in the middle. The first time I ran into one of those I couldn’t believe it. I was so freaked out that I didn’t calm down until I took a refreshing drag from a Lucky Strike (it’s toasted!).
rcade: Oh, it can be much worse than just a pull-out add stuck in the middle. Heyne, a German publisher, used to insert soup ads into the actual text of SF novels, re-writing the text in the process:
http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/110980012311/whats-the-rihannsu-for-soup
I started writing a comment on how they made the Wheel of Time covers much better. but I put it on my blog instead because it needed pictures.
I hope they published an edition of Ubik in that format.
Camestros: My mind, it is blown.
I really liked the cover of “Penric’s Demon,” by Lois McMaster Bujold so I was very surprised to discover that it was taken from a public-domain painting. I guess she found a nice pic and then adjusted the story around it.
@emgrasso — do keep in mind that what happens to the covers is totally unpredictable.
For example, scribd used to render a large image of a book in perspective view, using the ebook cover[1]; thumbnail views vary from “postage stamp” to “pretty big” and the thumbnail generation algorithms vary more; and most electronic bookstores have very specific and peculiar notions about cover aspect ratio which they will sometimes crudely enforce. So I think the goal with book covers for ebooks is to have the title readable for as long as possible in the crunching-of-the-thumbnails stage and to look nice at 1920×1080 or larger display resolutions. (“nice phone” sorts of sizes.)
I get the covers professionally designed; it’s not a set of skills I’ve got. I like them both at 1920×1080, and consider that having lots of info in the thumbnails is close to impossible; I’ll be happy enough if people can read the book title and my name. (I think it’s pretty uncivil to neglect a series indicator and the volume number in the case of series books. That’s perhaps a little less critical but it should still be there.) Otherwise, I can’t expect the cover to be anything much other than muddy at thumbnail sizes if I put an image on it. Fantasy covers traditionally have an image of some kind, so that seems apropos; if someone wants image detail they can always view the cover full size.
[1] I thought Scribd’s rendering of the cover for A Succession of Bad Days came out well; you could see the anti-panda. But they stopped doing that for whatever reason that seemed good to them. It’s not something one can hope to predict, and optimization to someone else’s variable process is a bad plan.
Well, the soup thing isn’t quite as bad as Cally’s description: They didn’t rewrite the text of the actual book, they just inserted a page (easily recognized by black bars, as seen in the linked images) and wrote some soup ad text that took off from what’s going on in the book at that point. It could be considered either clever or crass, or in most cases really dumb, but it’s easy enough to separate the ad from the book. In the case of My Enemy, My Ally, they chose a passage about the Rihannsu Praetorate’s strict laws against environmental pollution, under which factories weren’t allowed to discharge even steam or hot water. Heyne added the following page: “Would we come in conflict with these laws, if we made ourselves a little something between meals? Even as strict as they are, probably not. After all we use the hot water for our cooking, and keep the steam in with a lid. So there’s nothing keeping us from a snack.” In The Romulan Way, they inserted a page in the middle of a space battle, in which an uncontrolled matter/antimatter reaction destroyed an enemy ship, and wrote on it: “Surely quite fatiguing, a battle with an enemy spaceship like that! And when matter and antimatter undergo uncontrolled reaction, rather dangerous too! Probably the crew members would enjoy taking a little break and strengthening themselves for the coming dangers with a snack — but Sulu is already changing course and steering through the zone of destruction. The reader is better off: he does not need to worry overmuch about the zone of destruction and can afford to pause for a moment; all he needs to strengthen himself is hot water, a spoon, and Maggi.”
Oh, and I’ve liked Harry Connolly’s self-pubbed A Key, an Egg, An Unfortunate Remark and his Great Way books.
ewww – sorry, but I don’t like that at all. Presented on a cover in that way, the castle just looks like it has been drawn wrong to me. My head keeps wanting to fix the angles 🙂 . Now in the context of the original picture it makes more sense in terms of a period style and the artist not being too concerned about perspective.
I think the cover would have been better served if the picture was smaller and framed – so it was suggestive of a picture from the world of the book rather than a picture of the world from the book.
[Your first link isn’t working.]
That Harry Connolly cover on your blog (The Way Into Magic) is quite attractive. I was just moaning about covers with too much associated text on them but that cover has balanced it quite nicely. I suppose because it lets the central figure stand out. I like the way her hat breaks out of one zone and into another.
The Connolly cover is art by Chris McGrath, so no wonder it’s good; design by one Brandon Foltz.
Excuse me, Bradford Foltz.
I can’t tell what James originally linked to, but I am going to assume it’s his review of the titled book, and fixed things so the link goes there.
Now I’m having an urge to assemble a fake cigarette ad in Paint and insert it halfway into the middle of my selfpub novel as an illustration.
The bad cover art panel at Sasquan scarred me for life. I’m good at looking at pictures but terrible at deciding which ones are worthy, or appropriate. So I hired a Professional Art Guy and am eagerly awaiting the roughs so I can see what my characters look like for the first time (at least the photogenic ones who would look decorative on a cover).
What you’re missing, though, is that it didn’t cost her a dime. It shows that it’s possible to make a very serviceable cover for free from public domain sources. Sure, you could do better if you engaged a professional, but it’s a good question how many people would actually notice the difference.
Besides, isn’t it against the law to judge a book by its cover? 🙂
Yes, but I reserve the right to judge a cover by its cover.
How much English language SF gets translated to Chinese? Does anyone know? Anyone know if the Chinese government restricts this?
@James Davis Nicoll: Whoops, David Shallcross is right. I thought “J.R. Pournelle” was Jerry, co-author of the original book. I’ve never heard of J.R. Pournelle, but if I’d read the original, I’d probably be inclined to try her authorized sequel. That’s a type of exception I hadn’t thought about before; there aren’t a lot of authorized-self-published-by-someone-else sequels to well-known, traditionally-published novels.
@Lexica: I don’t care for the Falling Free cover. ;-(
@Rev. Bob: Thanks for elaborating. That’s weirder than I thought, but a lot less annoying than what I’d imagined! It sounds easy to game (so to speak). It reminds me of ads that occasionally my spouse “watches” while playing Plants Versus Zombies 2 to get bonus coins; I put “watches” in quotes since the sound’s usually off and the ad ignored. 😉
@Cally: Hahaha, I’ve heard of those soup ads. Eek.
@Camestros: I like all three of the “Wheel of Time” covers shown on your blog. I’m old school – I like full artwork on fantasy novels! – but the second one’s very cool as well, in a different way. The third one is okay, but a bit boring IMHO. Anyway, interesting to see the variations. I love seeing authors’ foreign editions, too (not just the tedious U.S. versus U.K. debates that crop up occasionally), to see what different designers & artists come up with for the same book.
Good point – and you do see some effective covers that just use a historical portrait with text on top. OK – it can be a bit of cliche but assuming the portrait is appropriate to the book, it is better than actively bad cover.
Even so with the Bujold cover it still upsets my 3d orientation. I’d have made it look like a painting hanging on a wall to create more of a sense of it being an artefact from the book. This is the best I could mock-up quickly.
I did pick on what I thought was a big contrast. I really hate the first one but I see what people get out of that style – a sort of snapshot into the novel. It isn’t that the painting is badly done but it just doesn’t work for me as a cover. Whereas the second one gets at both character and atmosphere IMHO.
Yeah I agree that I find a “busy” cover appealing, though that one looks more than a bit problematic as pointed out. Out of those three I like the second one the most, and the third with the minimalist design just does nothing for me personally.
I’ve noticed covers self-published authors used showing up on covers by the big 5 lately. I’ve started buying books with a cover I really like for kicks – it’s an interesting way to find new authors. I was shocked when Blooded by Amanda Carlson (Orbit) showed up with the same cover a good year after I’d first seen it. It’s modified a bit but I’ve got 5 books 98% that cover. Orbit crops it down to mostly just the model & gun & removes the rest. Obviously some covers used by self-published authors are good enough SFF imprints of the big 5 don’t mind using the exact same image.
I read a number of self-published authors. I’m going to list some of the ones I read/have many of their books. I think most of their covers are quite professional looking.
More than a few are hybrid like Laura Resnick, T. Kingfisher, Kristine Kathryn Rush, and Ilona Andrews among others. A few started as self-published like Michael J. Sullivan and Bella Andre (haven’t read in ages) and are now hybrid. Others are self-published only* Stephanie Bond (chick-lit), Elizabeth Hunter (UF), Annie Bellet (UF), Scott Nicholson (horror/psychological thriller), Anthea Sharp (YA gaming fantasy), Lindsay Buroker (steampunk & UF), David Estes (YA SF), Roy Huff (YA), Barbra Annino (cross-genre chick-lit UF), Dale Mayer (PNR/UF), J. C. Daniels (UF content note: rape, abuse)**, Shannon Mayer (UF).
*I’m going by memory. At least one owns a publishing business (Scott Nicholson) for publishing his work so it can be hard to know if someone is self-published unless you follow them and/or are friends. I’m also not sure if any of the above have been picked up by any of the Amazon imprints recently. I’m not sure whether people consider someone published by Amazon to be hybrid or not (I do).
**I love this author. In general I feel her use of rape & abuse are not just to make the villian(s) evil. But it is a trope which shows up in a number of her books. The fact that they are tropes I hate yet I reread, auto-buy, and recommend these books says for some reason the way the rape/abuse is written (usually from the victim) makes these books not-triggering.
Note: The other authors don’t have content notes as I’ve not read them as recently or reread as frequently and I can’t speak to content note issues from memory.
Looking forward to the Bad Cover Art brackets. So much to choose from that it might be difficult to narrow it down.
Since we’re almost in December, one of my least favorite was the red and white hypno wheel they put on the American version of Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather when it was first published in the US.
rcade –
I just had that happen with a copy of Damnation Alley. It was an add explaining how their cigarettes were the only healthy kind 🙂
I’m not too crazy about the covers on the Ancillary books (softcover editions, but I think the hardcovers were the same). Sort of generic spaceships— at least painted in a different style than other generic spaceship covers I’ve seen, but still. These are the kind of book where I think a slightly wilder, busier, more symbolic graphic design representation of story elements could’ve been great.
One thing I kinda like about the Ancillary covers is they’re all from the same painting (or pastels?). Ends up looking very cohesive.
I liked that a lot, too.
Made me think of the bookcovers for an edition of the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien where the spines collectively formed a picture.
I like the covers and I like the artwork but I agree that they don’t quite match the books. The space-fighter like small ships flying over a bigger spaceship suggest a more space-battles like story. What space battles the books have are more Star-Treky space battles than Star-Warsy space battles. A nice tavern, covered in snow, might have been better… 🙂
That is cool 🙂
Rev. Bob re: Viggle – I’ve been using it via Android emulators like Bluestacks and Windroye (I don’t have an app-capable device) and found that, while it doesn’t function for points-per-song, the bonus ads work fine most of the time (sound off and underneath whatever else I’m doing on the computer) and I make a ton of points via the football predictor game on the weekends.
I used Viggle points to buy a copy of Dreams of Shreds and Tatters, which was reviewed here a couple threads ago (I haven’t finished yet, but I concur so far with the review), and am currently saving up for the audiobook of Uprooted. Very excited that some Macmillan offerings will be available that way.
Yep; scouring Amazon for bargain e-books offended artistic sensitivities I didn’t know I possessed. I find myself glaring at the screen and muttering that even I could do better, which is a really dreadful standard to set…
@Nicole:
I actually discovered the Macmillan distribution by accident. I was searching by author name, and one of the Some of the Best of Tor.com volumes popped up as a match. Ka-ching! 🙂
One of my favorite tricks, if I’m watching a Disney movie, is to listen for the musical cues (as well as the songs) and check into those. They’re usually recognized as part of the movie soundtrack, and if I’m on my toes, I can often get my 20 daily songs that way. Not that this helps you, as your setup doesn’t work for music, but other Filers might find it useful. (Honestly, the music tile is my regular hangout; lately, it’s been popping ads pretty constantly. Assuming a conservative two ads per minute, that’s 2,400 points per hour – plus whatever shows I check into.)
The weekend football games are very helpful, even though the app was down for a while this afternoon. I know nothing about the teams and little about the sport, but I know a couple of score prediction sites and can guess reasonably well at the generic quarterly questions. I maxed out for the day about 90 minutes ago, less than an hour into one of two movie trivia games I had lined up for the evening. (Trivia game tip: If you’re only playing one game, enter it through the show’s tile on the Bonus Shows page, to avoid the ad that plays when entering a game through the Games page. Then, in between questions, you can back out of the game and re-enter it to generate another ad. When everything’s clicking right, I can snag three or four 20-point ads between 50-point questions.)
Finally, the prime-time HGTV shows are uniquely useful. If you record about the first minute of audio from one of those, the app will let you check into it for bonus points well beyond the usual 8am cutoff. In fact, it works for about five days. Grab a couple of hour-long show samples on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and you’ll always have something you can check into for 4x points.
I’ve been at this for a while… 😀
Ahh, late eighteenth century Swiss romanticism, one of the earlier manifestations of the Gothic sensibility, roughly 1790 if I’m any judge.
Very pretty, for a print, but possibly a deliberately archaic approach to perspective.
@Meredith: It’s a painting. And although I like that kind of triptych design in theory, I think it’s thematically kind of inappropriate for this series, where there isn’t a single big ship that’s the focus of the whole story— and the protagonist goes through lots of dramatic changes of environment, not to mention a change of embodiment. It shouldn’t be visually “cohesive”, at least not in such a literal way.
That was a horrible cover! Most of the US edition Discworld covers were atrocious (until they finally started using Paul Kidby’s art), but that one was exceptionally awful.
… Good lord, a bad cover bracket?
I agree that the Orbit Ancillary covers aren’t quite right, that painting that’s all hardware, seen from a distance, for a series that has little description of weapons, engines, or physics, but instead is all about the crews of the spaceships. But look up the covers of the limited-edition hardcovers, entirely different.