{"id":5716,"date":"2011-07-09T09:21:43","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T09:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2011\/07\/09\/daniel-abraham-and-bizarre-qui\/"},"modified":"2011-07-09T09:21:43","modified_gmt":"2011-07-09T09:21:43","slug":"daniel-abraham-and-bizarre-qui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2011\/07\/09\/daniel-abraham-and-bizarre-qui\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Abraham and Bizarre Quirks of Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little while back, I bought The Dragon’s Path<\/cite> by Daniel Abraham<\/a>. Abraham is the author of the highly-regarded but not all that highly sold Long Price Quartet. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this, but I couldn’t get through the first book, for reasons that are entirely personal and no reflection on the quality of the book(*). Since this is the start of a new and unrelated series, I figured it was a good way to give him a shot, so I picked up the ebook.<\/p>\n

A little more recently, I picked up Leviathan Wakes<\/cite> by James S. A. Corey<\/a>, a new space opera that’s gotten some good reviews. “James S. A. Corey” is, in fact, Daniel Abraham writing together with Ty Franck, who is George R. R. Tolkien<\/strike> Martin’s assistant. I’m really not spoiling anything here, because this information is from the about-the-author blurb on Amazon. I’m really not entirely sure what purpose this pen name serves– do multiple-author books not sell? Do publishers think that Abraham’s name is tarnished by low sales, but bookstore buyers are too stupid to read the about-the-author blurb? If that’s the case, though, why has The Dragon’s Path<\/cite> come out under Abraham’s own name? And if you’re just going to give the real author’s names in the about-the-author note, rather than making up a fake background for “Corey,” then why is the interview in the bonus material with the book written in the first-person singular? It’s all very puzzling.<\/p>\n

Anyway, a week or so ago, I opened up the Dragon’s Path<\/cite> on my e-reader, and was surprised to find that it was 900+ pages long. On closer inspection, this turned out to be because the entire text of Leviathan Wakes<\/cite> was included as a special bonus ebook promotion. Which made me feel like a bit of a dope for buying it, but whatever.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, just before heading to DC for the CIP meeting, I opened my electronic copy of Leviathan Wakes<\/cite> to find that it, too is 900+ pages in length. Because it includes the complete text of The Dragon’s Path<\/cite> as a special bonus ebook promotion.<\/p>\n

The publishing business is really very strange.<\/p>\n

Both books are very good, by the way, and I may say more about them later in separate posts. If you’ve been thinking about buying them but waiting for my recommendation, though, go ahead and get them both.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(*)– The reason I couldn’t get through the first book of the Long Price Quartet is that there’s a plot line early on where a magical entity plans to trick a human magician into killing the unborn child of a total innocent. Which is kind of creepy, but whatever. Except I started reading this either just before or just after SteelyKid was born, which meant I was very much not in an emotional place where I wanted to deal with that particular plot. And what with FutureSibling! being due in November, I’m not going to pick it back up now, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little while back, I bought The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham. Abraham is the author of the highly-regarded but not all that highly sold Long Price Quartet. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this, but I couldn’t get through the first book, for reasons that are entirely personal and no reflection on the… Continue reading Daniel Abraham and Bizarre Quirks of Publishing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,37,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-pop_culture","category-sf","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}