Old, but…
For those familiar with my Facebook author’s page, on Thursdays I usually choose to feature a book from the list you’ll find on the “Steve’s Bookshelf” page of this website. I read many books, of course, but this list includes those that struck me as special for one reason or another. To make this brief, a while ago I chose Ken Follett’s novel Eye of the Needle. While he has a new book out—James Bond in a very old historical sitting—Eye of the Needle is his best by far and the one I remember the most. It’s a wee bit historical too—World War Two setting—but it has a John Le Carré flavor and is a great read and excellent example of minimalist writing.
This book is also a perfect example of what I mean by the title. I read an ebook reprint; the original has a 1978 copyright. But this book will never grow old unless some future world dictator bans all books a la Fahrenheit 451. You can read it today and enjoy it as much as anyone could in 1978. Readers shouldn’t overlook “old books” because they can still be current, interesting, and entertaining.
Another example is even older: Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Most of his novels are droll period pieces that have seen better days as movies or Broadway shows where all the extra verbiage can be minimized. But A Tale of Two Cities is a timeless portrayal of a revolution run amok and how friends react to it. And it’s really old!
Reading Paula Margulies’s new Tao of Book Publicity about book PR and marketing (definitely a good summary for new writers) motivated an email exchange with her in which I offered my main criticism against all book publicists and marketers: there’s an over-emphasis on “the new” and a neglect of “the old”—older books, series of books, and authors’ entire oeuvre are neglected and the author relegated to some bookish trash bin if s/he hasn’t written a recent book. I want to preserve the privacy of our email exchange, so I’ll only indicate that she confirmed my position and added that marketing gurus don’t like to promote books that have been on the market for a year or more. In her book, she actually implies it’s more like the first six to eight weeks after publication.
Unfortunately retailers follow this practice too, from mom & pop bookstores to online giants like Amazon and Smashwords. The dedicated reader can find “the old books,” but s/he has to work to do it. S/he might have better luck in used bookstores, but it’s still more effort s/he’ll spend than on those “what everyone is reading now” books. The NY Times pretends to be the medium for determining “what everyone is reading now,” but their obscure bestseller lists are only guides for me to determine what NOT to read.
I’m really irked by this emphasis on “the new.” I can add my own examples to those already mentioned (not that I put them in the same category). My first novel Full Medical (2006) is every bit as current today as when it was first published, if not more so. It’s a sci-fi thriller, but one of its themes is the health care crisis, a problem that seems unsolvable at the time of the book, barely thirty years from now. It’s part of the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” (all three books are on sale now at Smashwords—Full Medical is an ebook second edition). My extrapolation might be a bit off too because health care is already in crisis!
Soldiers of God, my second book, is a bridge between the trilogy above and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (see below). It’s about religious fanaticism being manipulated by a greedy businessperson. I also resurrected this with an ebook second edition; the first edition (2008) was an overpriced POD from Infinity (maybe part of the reason it never took off), but even the second edition is taken to be “old,” I suppose.
My third book, The Midas Bomb (2009), has also been resurrected with a second edition. It’s the first book in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” now seven books long. It was inspired by events leading up to the financial implosion of 2008-2009. That theme’s also still current considering we’re now rolling back all the controls and regulations as if we want this to happen again. The book just received another nice review on Amazon, but it’s also considered to be “old.”
My fourth book, Survivors of the Chaos (2011), is also part of a trilogy. It and the second book in the trilogy were originally part of a much longer work that I expanded even more into three novels. To resurrect it, I will bundle the whole trilogy and offer all three books for a low price. Again, this book is current, because it extrapolates the ubiquitous model of Chinese capitalistic fascism all the way through a social singularity where multinationals rule the world with their mercenaries controlling unrest.
I’ve emphasized the themes in my first four books because they’re what makes them current. They’ll never be out of date, and I object that the reading public, book marketing people, and retailers treat them as “old.” As a reader, I read plenty of “old books” (I can only afford Big Five books when they’re “old” enough to go on sale, like Follett’s). Generally speaking, those “old books” are better written than all the “Girl…” and “X is for…” copycats spawned by bestsellers (OK, I read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I avoid Grafton like the plague).
Let me end by saying that readers who only read what’s “new” and what “everyone is reading” are probably missing a lot of good fiction. Keep that in mind when you choose books to read.
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Rembrandt’s Angel (a mystery/thriller from Penmore Press). To what lengths would you go to recover a stolen masterpiece? Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Inspector Esther Brookstone goes the extra mile. She and paramour/sidekick Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent, set out to outwit the dealers of stolen art and recover “An Angel with Titus’ Features,” a Rembrandt painting stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. Their efforts lead to much more, as they uncover an international conspiracy that threatens Europe. During their dangerous adventures, their relationship solidifies and becomes a full-blown romance. This book is available in ebook format at Amazon and at Smashwords and its affiliate retailers. It’s also available as a print version at Amazon, B&N, or your favorite bookstore (if not there, ask for it). See the Feathered Quill review and interview.
In libris libertas!
