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Month: February 2015

Books as Furniture? Really?

This week, a major feature in our local newspaper, pulled from the Associated Press, addressed the use of books in interior decorating. The hitch was that the books were being used for just about everything except reading.

The argument was since no one “wants” to keep books in our digital age, we must find “better” uses for them, “repurpose” them in the current parlance. Designers are urged to fill bookcases with decorative spines chosen for their outer appearance not the inner beauty of their words. Buy books by the foot at estate sales, we are told, or buy them by color. If they are old, worn, they can add the feeling of culture to a home. Use books to build unique furniture. Perhaps to add a bit of sophistication to the bathroom instead of passé paper rolls—the latter, I admit, is my own extrapolation.

As an author and a lifelong devotee of words, I was not only appalled, but angered. When I look at my full bookcases, I cannot help but feel a kinship to those authors who came before me. The author and title on each spine sets in motion remembrances, often the desire to experience that story once again. I read because I love words and language, because I love ideas and stories, because I love being transported to new and different places on our own world or on worlds I have never seen. I write because I love bringing some of my own ideas to life.

Great books, both fiction and non-fiction, are worth rereading. Sometimes it is because of the subject matter and the worthwhile ideas, sometimes because of the beauty of the language. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse come to mind in non-fiction, invaluable references if one is trying to understand our society and how we got where we are today and where we may be going. I cannot tell you how many times I have reread old and modern fiction classics like Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Cooper’s Hawkeye saga, including The Last of the Mohicans, Verne’s Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea; Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Wright’s Islandia, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, Herbert’s Dune, Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. And I will read them again.

Most of the books above I own in printed versions. For my favorite authors I want hardback books for rereading. The feel of holding a book, the tactile sensation, adds to the experience for me. Like many people today, I use an e-book reader. This started largely because of the convenience for extended travel after my wife and I retired, but has become more important as my eyesight deteriorated. E-books are a boon in that sense, but they do not, cannot replace the printed book. I admit that the e-book of my novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, outsells the printed version by a goodly margin. This is no surprise in our digital age, but I get far more pleasure from signing a print copy and handing it to a new reader. There is a connection that can never be replaced.

There have been times when books have been banned or burned; that demonstrates the power of the written word such that some people who disagree with the ideas set forth were so afraid of them that they had to destroy them, at least in written form. Using books as interior decorating props or for building furniture may not be akin to banning or burning, but the relegation of the written word to a role that bears no resemblance to its value is a travesty.

Literature, the efforts of countless writers throughout history, is among the most enduring accomplishments of the human race. One of the most important and enduring institutions of mankind—libraries—were built to collect and preserve books. George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Books record that past—and predict our future. Books are for reading!

 

My Worst Writing Fear

(This post first appeared in Kay Theodoratus’ blog — http://kaytheod.blogspot.com/)

I am a veterinarian and a biomedical researcher. The goal of scientific research is to decipher the workings of the natural world. Accuracy in the collection and interpretation of experimental data is the fundamental basis for scientific discovery and advancement. So, what is my greatest fear as a writer of fiction, science fiction to be exact? The fear of getting something scientific wrong. How can I get something wrong if I am writing fiction? Good fiction is based on reality. Are the characters and their actions realistic; do they evoke emotion and caring in the reader? Are the settings well-drawn and believable? In any genre, if the reader cannot buy into the characters, the setting , or the action, they will suspend belief and, potentially, their reading.

But science fiction is fantastical adventure, whether set in the past, present, or future. It bears no relationship to “reality,” does it? Tell that to Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, nineteenth century writers who accurately predicted many of the scientific advances of the twentieth century. Did they get some of their predictions wrong? Of course they did. Verne, in Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea, amazingly envisioned and described the SCUBA apparatus in 1870, yet, in the same novel predicted that humans could never harm the vast diversity of creatures that lived on earth. Don’t we wish the latter prediction was true?

If greats like Verne and Wells could make errors, why is that a fear for me? Scientists can and do make mistakes in carrying out experiments and drawing conclusions. Mistakes, when recognized, can be important to teach us what is correct. Yet, I am still afraid to make scientific errors in my fiction. An example: In the beta version of my recently published novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, a friend and colleague, also a veterinarian, picked up two errors: one the misspelling of a horse’s bone, the other the wrong term for a dog’s anatomical structure. Well, shoot, who but a veterinarian would even know? Doesn’t matter. I would know. I learned such things in school and there is no excuse for getting them wrong. I was embarrassed even though those errors never saw the light of day.

I approach my writing as I approach a scientific research problem. I exhaustively investigate what is known, then use that to predict what might be. If I don’t get the current science right, what I propose for the future doesn’t work, for me at least. In Galactic Circle, a future plague has a basis in what we know now about microbiology and biochemistry. Even the alien life-forms affected must fit within a logical and consistent biological scheme of the universe, or the disease can’t work, and my story is less believable.

So I fear someone reading my work (especially other scientists) and finding the error that makes them say, “Boy, did he get that wrong.” The old saw says, “Write what you know.” I’m supposed to know science and medicine. If I make basic mistakes with current science, it tells the reader that I don’t know my subject. Might as well put the book down now! My science fiction is based on good science. I will continue to research my subjects ad nauseum before I prognosticate the future of that science. And I’ll continue to make sure that someone reads my books who can catch my inevitable errors before they go to print.