Dear Universal Home Entertainment:

You know, when your Blu-Ray discs take several minutes to load (because apparently you’re downloading trailers from the Internet, which I don’t want to watch) only to open up to a menu screen that doesn’t actually work, so that I have to start the disc halfway through the film and then track back to the opening using the “skip” button, you really aren’t making a compelling argument for me to buy a Blu-Ray disc from you ever again.

Beyond this, I’m generally not one for overbearing government regulation in entertainment, but if someone were to introduce legislation requiring home entertainment companies to have a “just play the damn movie” button at the start of every DVD, Blu-Ray or any other future movie-playing technology, I would call my Senators and representative every fifteen minutes until they voted “yes” on that bill.

That is all.

A quick FAQ about all the books I get:

How many books a week do you get sent?

Recently, between 10 and 25 a week.

Why do you get books at all?

Because of the Big Idea feature here, and also because of the “Just Arrived” entries, and also because the site has 40,000+ readers daily and most of them are interested in books, so publicists and publishers think it’s worth the time and effort and postage to send me their stuff. I don’t mind. I like books.

What kind of books do you get?

Mostly science fiction and fantasy (which is no surprise, really), but increasingly I’m also getting, other genres of fiction (YA, romance, lit fic) and some non-fiction as well. I’m happy to get a wide range because, you know. My reading habits are diverse.

Do you read everything you get?

No, and the reason why should be obvious by noting the volume of material I get sent. I don’t have time to read every single thing plus do my own writing. I would say I read one or two books a week fully and flip through a few more casually, usually the Big Idea-featured books that I haven’t already read. I wouldn’t mind being able to read more, but I think people would get annoyed at me, because then my own output would drop to zero.

What do you do with the books you get?

I keep some, and others I give away, either to friends or (after an appropriate amount of time, when it won’t have an impact on initial sales) to the local library, which often uses them for fundraising sales.

Do you sell books or ARCs on eBay or elsewhere?

No. I don’t need the money and I don’t think publishers really want me to sell them anyway.

Why don’t you give away the books you get to your loyal readers?

Because experience teaches me I am terrible at fulfillment on contests; nowadays I do giveaways here only if someone else is responsible for getting the book to a reader (I except the occasional charity auction I do from that, since I’m weirdly more motivated to mail things if money goes to a good cause).

If I come to your house, will you give me books?

No, I’ll set the dog on you and/or use you for archery practice.

Heh. You’re joking, right?

Yeah, not really. Random visits to the house = not cool.

I’m a publisher/publicist/editor/author. Can I send you a book too?

Sure. My publicity guidelines are here.

A couple of minor things before I run off and do real work:

* Went 5 for 6 on the Oscar major categories last night, missing only Best Picture, but since I thought The Hurt Locker should win that category anyway, I can’t complain overly about that (I suspected Avatar was off the winner screen when the editing prize went to Hurt Locker, actually). As my friend Anne was over, I actually watched the Oscar ceremony all the way through for the first time since I had to do it as part of a job (a state of affairs which takes the fun out of it), and I thought it moved along just fine, although as always it just went on too damn long. But then I feel that way about the Super Bowl, too. I may be fundamentally unAmerican.

* Thanks to everyone who took my little poll over the weekend; I’ve always had a suspicion that the people who read the blog had overlap but were different from the group of people who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, so it’s interesting to have some initial anecdotal evidence of that being that the case. If you haven’t participated in the poll but would like to do so, please feel free to.

* This will be my final reminder to all and sundry that if you’re going to nominate for the Hugos, you have until this Friday to do so. This is also my final reminder that if you’re a Hugo nominator and are interested in an electronic evaluation copy of The God Engines, here’s how to get that. But regardless of my work, if you can nominate, do so. 2009 was an excellent year for science fiction and fantasy and you have a lot of great novel, stories and other work to choose from.

Now I have to write a column, catch up on e-mail and, hey, who knows, maybe write some fiction. Catch you all a little later in the day.