Was that really one of Mieville's examples? It's odd to discuss this in terms of Halting State, which happens to narrate from multiple points of view already. But if it didn't, changing point of view in a scene is less an alternate edit than a pretty substantial rewrite of at least that scene. The two versions have plot and setting in common, and most of the dialog, but different elements will be in the foreground depending on what matters to the characters, and things absent from one account may be highly significant in another. And even the common elements will be described in a different way, reflecting the alternate perspective. (If not, what's the point?) So having written the scene once saves very little of the work of writing it again.
Extend that out to book length, and what you have isn't an alternate edit. It's a different book, which takes nearly as long to write as the first version. For example, "Zoe's Tale", by John Scalzi, is his "The Last Colony" rewritten from Zoe's point of view. (Or in mainstream fiction, "Mr. Bridge" and "Mrs. Bridge" by Evan Connell.)
]]>Which parts of "three very different viewpoints" and "overlapping storylines" did you find so hard to understand? Come to that, are you honestly so ignorant that you think the protagonist of a game is always a "guy with a gun"?
The three protagonists of Pathologic interact and communicate with each other, but are each investigating different facets of the same problem in their own very different ways (good three part article can be found here). (And while guns are available in the game, ammunition is very limited, and shooting people is almost never the best solution to a problem.)
While Half-life and the expansions do all star "guys with guns", they're all in different parts of the complex, witnessing different events - and occasionally each other taking part in things. They never interact directly, but each one sees (and does) things that the others can only infer have happened because they encounter the effects. The parallel with Scalzi's books "Last Colony" and "Zoe's Tale" is actually a very close one.
]]>I may be wrong here but AIUI Tom Clancy had turned into this. I understood he was directing a group of ghost writers for much of his later life.
]]>I wish I still had copies of some old SF. Like Farmer's "The Lovers". Or Simak's "They Walked Like Men".
I still have a copy of my college geometry text - Coxeter's "Geometry".
Back to the consumer. I find it "better" and cheaper to share a physical book. Like I prefer a card in the mail to an email. My niece sent me card with a duckling. I tacked near the door. I talk to it.
But there remain avenues today. I purchased the two volume collection "American Science Fiction, Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s". Try loa.org.
Some books are more than a thing. Think people will replace all their Bibles and Korans?
]]>It might be that there isn't an informed taste for that sort of sandbox narrative yet."
Arguably, the US superhero comics industry has been doing early versions of just that for the last few decades. And finding at least some audience for it.
Intriguingly, that audience appears to be growing with the advent of 21st century formats and business models. It's now much more practical, economically, to "buy everything" in a given line of comics.
]]>Paperbacks might survive for a while yet and E-Books will certainly grow more diverse, howevever the actual number of readers of anything we'd recognize as a book is liable to shrink.
I'll speak for the US only but our "reader" population is shrinking, many newer immigrants come from cultures where reading is rare (Mexico, see this article, Google The Country That Stopped Reading) or from cultures where recreational reading is rare and frowned on as wasteful (some Asians and Christians )
We don't seem to be making much headway there.
Also the US has staggering levels of illiteracy for a developed country, I'd guess and I don't have facts here that less than half (and that fast declining) of the population if that has rhe combination of sophisticated skills and any interest in reading.
This means that sucessful publishers with good ideas might need to look into alternate formats, comics, simpler writing styles, motion comics and the like. Audiobooks too may have some growth though vocabulary might be an issue. Yes US education can be that bad.
Last economics, I am not sure that in a couple of decades the US wont have broad levels of poverty more associated with the nicer parts of the 3rd in a majority of areas, This will impede "E-Book" readers and push media onto smaller screen, mostly smart phones
]]>The issue in play is a faliure of policy in the interaction of the society with cultures that make up parts of it. Its not a race issue or religious one as lack of interest in reading crosses lines of culture and ethnicity
Simply , the educational system and "public well being" systems are not that good at encouraging recreational reading in any group . That reading is the real cornerstone of publishing. We've had this issue since the 1980's or before and have limited success with changing it.
Also as videogames become better, they simply are more enjoyable. I used to read three books a week but my numbers have dropped not for convience or cost (I have boxes of paprbacks) but because the interaction and story telling well I play plenty of videogames.
To that last point, more books aimed at "manly men" might be a sound way to grow the reader market. Years ago there was a ton of books, cheap mass market paperbacks mostly invlving male protaganists doing male oriented things. Because of cultural shifts a lot of this is gone and you get fewer of those.I suspect the market is there and someone who was willing to engage with say (US here) the NASCAR/NRA market could open catagories up that arean'ttouched.
Urban Fantasy is one big area and there might bne
]]>That seems to be the current standard.
]]>But what I remember is the existence of long series of short novels, reminiscent of the pulps. And I can't say I see that. Maybe that is a market for ebooks put out by non-traditional publishers: not self-published, but some sort of branded product turned out by a group of authors?
]]>Before worrying about the future format of books, how about reconsidering the present format of your website? The entire content of your website displays in a thin vertical strip that takes up less than one-fourth of the horizontal space of my web browser (Chrome on Windows 7, 2560 pixels wide). Stop trying to force a specific size and format; let the words fit themselves to the browser.
]]>Au contraire; reading [fiction] is an intensely private activity. And corporate requirements are divorced from those of the readers: corporations want profit, readers want fulfillment.
(Finally: your advice wrt. web design is unwanted and will be ignored.)
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