Mysterious things publishers do...

Working at a major bookstore, I get to see the new releases come out every week, so I see publishing trends quite frequently. In March, however, I noticed an interesting peculiarity in the publishing field. Two pair of books came out, each pair within two weeks of each other, on very similar subjects. And I'm not talking about mundane subjects, like a couple new books on low carb dieting or on WWII. I'm talking about very unique specific subjects, ones that when a book is published on it, you'd say, " Wow, that's neat they wrote a book on this."

Of the first wave, one of the books is titled Robbing the Bee: A Biography of Honey. Written by Holley Bishop, who, according the jacket blurb just has a journalism degree and has written for a few magazines. Free press (an imprint of Simon and Schuster) published the book. The second book is Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee, by Hattie Ellis, a British food writer. This one is published by Harmony books, an imprint of Random House.




A few weeks later another intriguing pair of very similar titles came out. Birdsong: A Natural History by Don Stap, a professor of English at the University of Central Florida was one. This was published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. The other one is Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song. This one was written by David Rothenberg, a professor of philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and published by Basic books



Now the question that begs to asked is, "What caused these people to publish similar books at the same time?" I'm sure somewhere along the way it falls back to the publishers. They can have a manuscript for years before publishing it. Competition works in all areas of commerce and having Simon and Schuster imprints publish one from each subject makes one wonder who had the idea first.

Book of the Week

The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual by Scott Beatty



Loosely based on Joshua Piven's bestselling Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks, this book maybe a comic geek's wet dream. Can't find Batman to teach you the ropes and military training is not enough? Then this handy little guide is for you. Sections include such eye-opening entries as "How to Take a Fall out a Tall Building", "How to Make a Batsuit", and "How to Bulletproof Your Batmobile." But why keep all this to yourself? After all, there's a section on "Training a Sidekick." Of course, finding a Robin to your Batman may not be as easy as you think...

Will someone teach critics to be critics properly?

In the 3/30/05 newspaper, one of Denver’s columnists was reciting a national magazine’s TV critic’s pick for the top 6 best dramas on TV. The columnist then went on to elaborate his opinion on each. Two of them are shows I watch and enjoy, which says a lot since I’m usually not TV oriented. The two shows are Lost and Sci Fi channel’s Battlestar Galactica. Lost is one of the more intelligently scripted TV shows currently showing. It keeps you guessing and it does have a darker tone than most shows, somewhat akin to the X-files.

When the columnist stated discussing the presence of Battlestar Galactica on the critic’s list one could tell he just dismissed it. “My disagreement about Battlestar Galactica probably is based on taste rather than quality. Never a Trekkie, I don’t find spaceships and robots as intriguing as police cars, lawyers, politicians and espionage agents.” At least he states why he doesn’t like it. It reminds me when The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings first hit the theaters and a reviewer in one of the Denver papers prefaced his movie review with “I never was a fan of Tolkien’s works...” and thus preceded to dismiss the movie. (By the third movie, however, he jumped on board the bandwagon, most likely prompted by his being one of the relatively few negative reviewers for these movies.)

It just goes to show that even if you do not like a show, especially as a columnist or reviewer, do not just dismiss it. In the former case he did not like it because of taste. That is all fine and good, some things are just not everyone’s cup of tea. But one should take a look at the acting, production values, the script. Forget the setting. Look at what counts. If , for instance, Battlestar Galactica wasn’t set in future space but was a show based on an Allied tank battalion in the North African campaign during WWII beset by the opposing forces disrupting supply lines, leveling surprise attacks all the while the Allied forces grieve over their losses, struggle to keep the tanks functional and contend with the suspicions of enemy infiltration, I do not think the columnist would have any issues with it. The same could be said of the LotR movies.

I find that Battlestar Galactica is much better than I ever anticipated. Of course it is so much superior to the original campy show; how could it not be? Ok, I’m not a fan of the original show, although I did not think it was as bad as Space 1999. It was right up there with Buck Rogers. Everyone on Battlestar Galactica is human and acts it. Well, the humans anyway. Although some the Cylons have been upgraded to look and act human. I do not have a problem (like some fans of the original show) with the gender switch (Boomer and Starbuck) and think it was a smart move - it works well with the cast interplay. Taking their cue from the spacecraft maneuvers from Babylon 5 they take it a step further with the rail gun launchers and more impressive maneuverability. Unlike Babylon 5, however, ships make sound in space. Ah, well, minor detail.