Chatterbox: Literature Edition

Well, for example, many of the older books in the Shannara series (at least the early pressings) have epic fantasy artwork which would instantly hook someone looking for a fantasy novel. On the opposite end though, you have modern stuff like the Red Queen series (yeah, different tone but stay with me) where the covers are just pictures of bloody crowns, which doesnt really say much about the book and in fact, may cause casual browsers to think it's a Song of Ice and Fire knockoff (which it definitely isnt). Just to be fair, this isnt true of all modern sci-fi, the covers of the Renegades trilogy, despite being somewhat minimalistic, are well designed and look like superhero fiction.

That's probably just a trend taking over: Minimalist covers that are more about evoking a mood or theme than about explicitly telling you what's in the book. A bloody crown tells you a lot, actually. One, that there will be political shenanigans going on, two, that they will probably be violent, and three, the main character is probably the one that's going to suffer for it. That's not really "generic" in any sense.

In ten years, if those books get reprinted, I'm sure that the covers will be very different. I have to say it's much less obnoxious than the Covers Always Lie trope, wherein the cover can give you an impression of a very different work than what you actually end up getting.

Not long ago I bought (online) a book from a local retailer, and rather enjoyed it. That book is the first in a series, so I just recently went back to get the second in the series.

Which was when I discovered something odd: the retailer in question has the first book, and the third, fourth, and fifth books—but not the second! For some reason the second is entirely unavailable!

I contacted the retailer, and they affirmed that it wasn't available, neither from them nor from the suppliers that they use.

The book does seem to be available from some overseas retailers, including Amazon US and UK.

Now, this wouldn't be a major problem if I had any idea of why the book wasn't available, or whether they'd have it again. Was there a problem with the printing? Was there some scandal related to its content? Something else?

For example, if I knew that there was a major misprint and a new version was upcoming, I might prefer to wait for that than to get it from another retailer. Or if there was a problem with the content, perhaps I might want to drop the series entirely. Or if the retailer had an issue with the supplier, perhaps I would just get the book from another retailer.

But they weren't able to tell me the reason, or whether it would be likely to become available again. :/

Which brings me to my question here: How might I find out what happened? (Is there a site that I might check, perhaps?)

A simple Google search didn't turn up anything obvious—but then my Google skills have never been the best, I fear. ^^;

Would you like to tell us the title of the book?

Is it a continuous series, or are the entries standalone?

Edited by Redmess on Jan 8th 2021 at 5:14:14 PM

It's a continuous series.

I suppose that I was trying to be circumspect—but I also suppose that there's little reason for that.

So: The book in question is Blood Upon the Sand (a.k.a With Blood Upon the Sand; the title varies by market, it seems). The author is Bradley P. Beaulieu.

We have a page for the series: The Song of the Shattered Sands.

As I noted, I bought and read the first book (Twelve Kings), and the third, fourth, and fifth books (i.e. from A Veil of Spears onward) seem to be available—but the second, Blood Upon the Sand doesn't seem to be.

Is the second volume particularly unpopular or controversial? That could explain why it is out of print.

It's not unheard of for older series or less mainstream ones to have volumes run out of print.

Well, that's the thing: I don't know. That's part of what I'm asking: where might I find out such things?

And it's not exactly an old series: the first book came out in 2015, and the second in 2017, according to Wikipedia.

The situation seems very weird to me. o_0

It might just be that the series did not sell very well after its initial release, and it is going out of print.

I suggest reading the first book quickly to see if you like the series, read a few reviews, and then decide if you want to buy the latter volumes before hey get sold out as well, and look for second hand copies of the second volume.

It would seem odd then that the second book is first to so disappear—if not impossible.

As I said above, I did read the first book, and enjoyed it very much. I even got it from the same retailer from whom I was hoping to get the second book!

As to buying all of the later copies right now, that would be a bit too much money spent all at once for me at the moment, I fear. :/

(Not to mention that at least one book in the series has yet to be released, I believe—Wikipedia indicates as much, and gives an expected release sometime this year (2021). For reference, the most-recently-released book in the series was released only last year (2020).)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jan 8th 2021 at 10:04:46 PM

Well, like I said, only if you fall in love with the series and already feel you want to read it all.

And I don't know, you're probably better off asking in the book store, I think.

I did indeed ask the store (via email; I was using them online). They didn't have any information aside from the book being unavailable from both them and their suppliers.

I definitely feel that I want to read it all—but it's most feasible for me to do that one book at a time, I think.

Conversely, if there was some issue with the second book that might affect that decision—if, say, there's some element that brings significant Unfortunate Implications—then I might not want to read the remaining books.

(And for that matter, if the reason for the second book being unavailable is an issue with the printing—pages missing, for argument's sake—then I might want to wait for a subsequent printing.)

So I would like to know what happened, somehow. :/

You'll have to read some reviews on book two, then. You'll notice a trend soon enough.

Fair enough, I suppose. Thank you for your input.

And if anyone else knows of any other resources—places were issues may have been reported, for example—please do mention them!

Honestly, this thread seems pretty dead at the moment.

It is that, true.

In business news, NewsCorp's HarperCollins is buying Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's consumer publishing business.

That's right. Rupert Murdoch will collect royalties for Lord of the Rings and Nineteen Eighty-Four novel sales. I hope the Tolkien and Orwell estates push back or find someone else.

Well, I can't say that doesn't seem thematically appropriate for that last novel.

It's not just Tolkien and Orwell:

"HMH Books & Media has a thriving Productions business which repurposes its popular brands across media platforms. HMH Productions is involved in the animated series Carmen Sandiego on Netflix, which will also be a live-action feature film, and has other television projects currently in development.

The acquisition will include the business’s extensive children’s and young adult divisions, which publish such classics as: Curious George; Martha Speaks; Five Little Monkeys; The Polar Express; the Little Blue Truck series; Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel; The Little Prince; and Stellaluna. Works by young adult authors, including Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, are also a strong part of the HMH Books & Media catalogue."

Christ alive. All those people's childhoods now in the hands of a monster.

That's a shame, but I'm not going to let that stop me from enjoying those books, you know.

Since his retirement from the comic book landscape two years ago, Alan Moore lands himself "a six-figure deal for a 'groundbreaking' five-volume fantasy series as well as a “momentous” collection of short stories."

Oh God, it's going to be so skeevy.

Every outer space science fiction series I've seen takes place on the outer edges/border worlds, I wonder if there any stories that take place deep in the empire.

There's A Memory called Empire, which is basically about going to the heart of it and figuring out a murder mystery. The sequel takes place on the borderlands, though that's set up in the first one.

Also, why do you say it's going to be skeevy?

Edited by AceofSpades on May 12th 2021 at 8:17:32 AM

This may be a long shot, but if anyone is familiar with Ethan Frome, there's a commented-out ZCE on Ailment-Induced Cruelty for its example, and I haven't read it so I have no idea what to add for context.

I recently read the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" for the first time. Now, I've seen adaptations of this story, and I know the reputation of Irene Adler, the "woman who outsmarted Sherlock Holmes," and I have to say that, from the story itself, I'm not really all that impressed with her. I double-checked to make sure she didn't appear in any of the other Conan-Doyle Holmes stories, and she doesn't; this story is her only appearance. Her big achievement is taking advantage of several hours-worth of lead to get herself out of England. Holmes himself doesn't exactly cover himself with glory in this story either (I suppose it was early days for him, as this is only the third Holmes story). Holmes comes across as particularly reckless and mercurial here, and I get the impression in places that he's giving her an opening to get away, which while conceivable, doesn't really make her look all that impressive.

The only way I can see Adler as especially impressive, from this story alone, is by looking at it from a sexist 19th century perspective, where it might be considered impressive that she didn't just collapse under duress.

Yes, she does disguise herself as a boy, essentially so she can throw a taunt at Holmes, and Holmes doesn't catch it.

Edited by Robbery on Aug 19th 2022 at 9:12:08 AM

Well, this is probably because of Early Instalment Weirdness in which Holmes was less super-competent, but IIRC, doesn't she successfully escape Holmes by disguising herself as a man?

Being a better Master of Disguise than Holmes / bypassing his Sherlock Scan abilities is pretty impressive.

But yeah, I think the use of Irene Adler in adaptations doesn't really get the character. Like the point is really that she's this decent, normal person and the real impediment to Holmes is because his asshole client lied about her and painted her as The Vamp.

It's actually a bit of a "thing" in Holmes stories that suspects/criminals turn out to have a sympathetic motive (which sometimes means they are outright innocent), which is not something he's able to predict. Two other examples being "The Adventure of the Yellow Face" and "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", which similarly involve a twist that the female suspect is actually a good person.

While I think there's a good dose of contemporary sexism in the character, I do find her story interesting and wonder about any historical inspirations. Because she's a "kept woman" (mistress of a German prince no less) and ends up marrying a respectable American guy.