Comments on: A Month of Writers, Day Twenty Three: Justine Larbalestier

By: Justine Larbalestier

Justine Larbalestier — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:34:38 +0000

Corey J Feldman: You know, the whole thing was very tongue-in-cheek. There are actually lots of writers I’ve heard read less than brilliantly that I still love.

By: Corey J Feldman

Corey J Feldman — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:39:32 +0000

Nice choice. Justine Larbalestier’s magic series is a really fun read. Nice concept, well executed and likeable characters. I am sorry to hear about her bias against writers with poor reading skills. This is actually a huge fear of mine. Being dyslexic, vocalized reading is often a challenge. Should I ever manage to finish a novel I deem publish worthy, and you know some publisher actually agrees with me, I dread the expectation of a public reading.

By: Abe

Abe — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:50:35 +0000

I’ve heard(probably here) cover design is not very much an author’s-preference thing at all.

That said, I’d think I’d rather have a cover that limited the size of the title words. Makes the title harder to see but it makes it more distinguished-looking. Like, “gosh, the title isn’t so huge, that might be more intriguing than the rest of the tinder on this bookshelf.” I probably don’t know at all what I’m talking about.

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:13:56 +0000

I liked this essay and thought it was a very funny take on something that is true to human nature. My mother watches tennis (doesn’t play tennis, just watches it) and she has completely inexplicable likes and dislikes for certain players. What is even crazier is that I inherit this and I can’t explain why! Agassi good, Sampras bad. Why? Mom says so. We all have irrational tastes with some things to some extent.
Besides, there are so many books and authors in the world, we all have to find some way to discriminate. At least I would, or else I would have to quit my job to read full time. Hey, that’s not a bad idea. . .

By: B. Durbin

B. Durbin — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:04:59 +0000

Rubén: The reason for the horrible cover designs in the US is that more than half of books bought in the US are bought in supermarkets or their functional equivalents rather than bookstores or their functional equivalents. The cover designs are aimed toward the impulse shopper rather than the discriminating book-buyer.

In other words, the cover designs are supposed to look like a bag of chips. Interesting but annoying, that.

By: scott

scott — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:55:02 +0000

PS Irony alert: Justine’s blog entry above is about how people often reject books and authors for silly reasons. And here we have a case in point: the reader possesses a smidgen of expertise that a novel seems to contradict, and gives up on the series because of its “idiocy.”

We’ve all done this. I know I have.

By: scott

scott — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:38:05 +0000

Actually, the New Kinsey Report says seven hours is the minimum from intercourse to fertilization, that being the time it take the sperm to undergo capacitation. And in fact, the sperm can make its journey in as little as five minutes. (The egg’s travels are much longer, but they may have started before intercourse.)

In Magic Lessons the time delay between intercourse and detection is about 24 hours. (Don’t forget those time zones!)

This is a common problem for us novelists: everyone who’s done ten minutes of research is a frickin’ expert. Not that your wife is an idiot, Mike, it’s just that most people don’t realize how data of this sort are normalized for the general public—that is, publicly available data don’t take into account the vast variation of the real world as opposed to the textbook world. Yes, the stock answer is “2 to 5 days from intercourse to fertilization.” And, no, that’s not misinformation, it’s just information designed for non-experts, because it fits some 80%-of-the-time norm.

The real variation is between seven hours (time for the sperm to undergo capacitation) and eight and a half days (the current record-holding sperm life span).

And just to win all future arguments in advance, note that magic is used both in detecting the pregnancy and at conception, the latter being missed by some readers. (Old Man Cansino is pulling their strings.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=IVVSIcH-HzMC&pg=PA304&lpg=PA304&dq=how+long+fertilization+take+hours&source=web&ots=YYml4xNJxL&sig=VMqB5yuxKrVkIULJWmfQJwylfJM

By: Mike Timonin

Mike Timonin — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:18:14 +0000

My wife informs me that the pregnancy issue is from the second book…

By: Mike Timonin

Mike Timonin — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:24:55 +0000

Ack. We read her first book. Well written, yes, but we could not get past the idiocy at the end re: pregnancy. (Actually, I could, because I know nothing of these things, but my wife, who has the studies to back it up, had issues) – you cannot possibly know that you are pregnant that soon after intercourse – indeed, you cannot BE pregnant that soon after intercourse, regardless of how magic you may be. Sperm simply do not swim that fast.

By: ScottE

ScottE — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:09:09 +0000

So… if you ever meet her in person, and you’re a writer, offer her candy from the word go?

(Actually, maybe that’s not a bad plan, for every writer one meets, except to maybe writers of children’s books.)