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Kathryn Hinds "Kathryn"'s latest blog posts
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9:05 AM PST, March 6, 2008
Some neat things happened last week. First, I signed the contracts for a new six-book series, Fantastic Creatures. The individual titles are Dragons, Mermaids, Sea Serpents and Lake Monsters, Sphinxes and Centaurs, Unicorns, and Things with Wings
(the phoenix, the roc, griffins and hippogriffs, etc.). These are going
to be somewhat shorter, simpler, and lighter than the books I've been
writing lately, and I'm looking forward to the change of pace. I'll be
writing them next year, for publication in 2010. (This year I'm writing
Barbarians!--also six books, which you'll be hearing more about in the coming months.)
A month or two ago my
editor called to tell me that my publisher is putting out a one-volume
version (to be released early next year) of my Life in the Middle Ages
series. So another good thing about last week was that I received the
first-pass proofs and got to revisit that material. I made a few small
substantive corrections to the text, gave it a thorough proofreading,
and prepared new front and back matter. I find I'm still very pleased
with this work and am really excited about it becoming available in a
new format.
One of the best things to happen last week was that both my expert reader and my editor really loved Faith, the final manuscript in Life in the Medieval Muslim World.
This was a huge relief to me, as I was somewhat anxious about my
ability to do the subject full justice. But my expert reader said the
MS was "fabulous" and "inspiring," and my editor said, "Faith is
uplifting, extraordinary—it will be a major contribution for
youngsters and any who read it. Thank you so much for the
knowledge—and spirit—you have put into it." Yay, me!
I also
received an e-mail from one of the production editors I work for,
telling me that the author of the Thurgood Marshall biography I
copyedited was so pleased with my work that he's thanking me in the
acknowledgments. Another yay for me!
8:32 AM PDT, October 18, 2007
 Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
I've been meaning to post my favorite quotes from Jasper Fforde's most recent Thursday Next book for about a month, so here at last is Thursday addressing the Council
of Genres after a new form of interactive book (i.e., novel meets
reality TV) is proposed in an attempt to remedy falling readership
figures (p. 204):
"Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work.
Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in
all its forms--of life, of love, of knowledge--has traced the upward
surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last
human to draw breath, and we should be there, too, supporting that one
last person. I say we place our faith in good stories well told and
leave the interactivity as the transient Outlander fad that it is."
Here is a discussion between Thursday's husband and son about the erosion of the Now (p. 265):
"You mean TV could get worse?" asked Landen.
"Much worse," replied Friday grimly. "At the rate the Now is being eroded, by this time next year Samaritan Kidney Swap
will be considered the height of scholarly erudition. But easily
digestible TV is not the cause--it's the effect. A Short Now will also
spell the gradual collapse of forward planning, and mankind will slowly
strangulate itself in a downward spiral of uncaring self-interest and
short-term instant gratification."
There was a bleak silence as we
took this on board. We could see it all now. Short attention spans, a
general malaise, no tolerance, no respect, no rules. Short-termism. No
wonder we were seeing Outlander ReadRates go into free fall. The Short
Now would hate books; too much thought required for not enough
gratification. It brought home the urgency to find the recipe, wherever
it was: Without unscrambled eggs, there was no time travel, no more
depredation of the Now, and we could look to a brighter future of
long-term thought--and more reading. Simple.
And here's Thursday on the power of poetry (p. 313):
Poetry
was an emotional roller coaster of a form that could heighten the
senses almost beyond straining. The sun was always brighter, the skies
bluer, and forests steamed six times as much after a summer shower and
felt twelve times earthier. Love was ten times stronger, and happiness,
hope and charity rose to a level that made your head spin with giddy
well-being. On the other side of the coin, it also made the darker side
of existence twenty times worse--tragedy and despair were bleaker, more
malevolent. As the saying goes, "They don't do nuffing by half measures
down at Poetry."
I so heart Jasper Fforde.
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Kathryn Hinds "Kathryn" sent the following posts to customers who purchased The Castle (Life in the Middle Ages)