(no subject)

[mrissa]

Alpha readers rock. At least mine do. And with 50% of the precincts readers reporting, I think I don't have to throw myself or the book out the window. Or run off and become an anchoress. Or whatever. I'm still not working on revisions to it (The Grey Road revisions are coming along, though) -- I'm going to wait until I hear from the other two or else until the spirit moves me -- but I have stuff to chew over, and that's good.

There's something that's going to get more background exposition in the next draft of TN no matter what you all say, but now I'm curious, and I like polls:

[Poll #487229]

Also, a non-poll question for those of you who have read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books and also seen the movie "Master and Commander": should I see it? Is it worth my time? And if so, should I wait until after a certain point in the series or just see it at my convenience?

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I liked the movie, though I can see why some purists disliked it. I would wait until you've read book 10, The Far Side of the World, before trying the movie, since its plot is cobbled together mostly from 1 & 10.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I liked the movie. It's based on several books in the series, but I don't think it has spoilers per se beyond revealing events that happen in books you haven't read yet-- I should say, I don't think it has overall arc spoilers.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Hm. I've only read Master and Commander the book--and I lurved the movie. The movie sort of takes two plots--one from the first book and one from a much later book--and smooshes them together and then throws out large chunks altogether, but if you're not looking for plot to be consistent, I thought it was dandy. Also, I'm not sure what hardcore fans thought of the dynamic between Aubrey and Maturin in the movie, but I thought it was a little off in the movie. Not... I dunno. Testy enough. I mean, they *were* testy. I'm just not sure it was enough. But maybe things are different in later books.

The sailoring stuff seemed cool to my unpracticed eye; the battles were exciting and bloody; the surgeries were gruesome and spectacular; and boy, do you really get a sense of how crazy the British navy was in those days, with 10-year-olds going to battle and all.

I liked it enough to buy it. And I don't buy terribly many movies.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I haven't read those books, but I think Master and Commander was a fun enough show.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Oh, great, now I know there are books. Yet more stuff to read.

Thanks a lot.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not just books, but twenty books.

Hee. Oh, I am mean. I delight in my meanness. Etc.

[ellarien]

I enjoyed the movie a lot -- enough to buy both the soundtrack and the DVD. It really isn't an exact adaptation of any of the books, but does have plot elements, as others have said, mostly from 1 and 10. I second the suggestion to wait until you've read as far as 10; I think it's more fun to spot the references to the books while watching the movie, rather than vice versa.

(Hmm. Now I want a nautical icon.)

Go ahead, watch it

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I'd go ahead and watch it, but then I wouldn't want to wait ten books to see the movie. I saw it in theaters and loved it, and I would not have thought I'd like movies involving ships. But great characters, adventure, and historical details.

On the other hand, I haven't read the books yet!

Mack

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie twice and really enjoyed it. I haven't read any of the books and didn't feel that I'd lost much.

[ckd]

Have not read any O'Brian nor seen the movie. However, I really want to visit Bletchley Park next time I'm in England.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

An anchoress? I think that job generally requires an actual employer.

B

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I've read at least half of the books (not in order) and enjoyed the movie. I think I'm a rare bird because I like but don't love them; most people seem to either love them or not care at all about them. While the plot wasn't faithful to any one book, I thought they really did an excellent job delivering the feel of the series.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Or at least a populace willing to support that flavor of religious conviction, and when the conviction in question is, "I really, really don't want to deal with people right now," I doubt that many people are going to contribute to the cause. So it's probably just as well that my book isn't totally irredeemable.

[carbonel]

How much does the phrase "Bletchley Park" mean to you?

I answered the first one, but I'm hardly a total stranger from out of the crowd, working as I do for a cryptographer. Just in case you were trying to normalize your results or something.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to normalize my results, really. While I don't think working for a cryptographer is representative of fantasy readers as a whole, it's also not a shocking job for a fan to have. Computer history hobbyists aren't normal to the general population, either, but the general population is not my audience here.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of a female news anchor on television. I forgot about the hermit definition.

B

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The movie is visually quite excellent. It has good scenes of sailing in weather, and good scenes of combat, including firing the big guns, and also boarding actions.

It doesn't understand the character relationships at all, and it does combine elements from quite a few of the books.

I'd wait and see it later, if you want to enjoy the visuals they got right. If you didn't see it, you wouldn't be missing anything important from your life.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

News anchors are required to have hairstyles instead of merely having hair. This alone would disqualify me.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Clint's a big fan of both the books and the movie, so he says yes, see it. I enjoyed the movie and keep meaning to finish the first book, but haven't gotten around to it.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I filled out the second option, as my reading on that topic's a bit rusty, and I don't really recall the specifics.

I think that well-read SF readers will probably have a pretty clear idea of what you're talking about, while an audience that reads fantasy exclusively might not. That's just a general impression, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Several of the people who have answered "monkeybars" or the equivalent are people I consider well-read in SF. So I don't know. Anyway, dd_b pointed out that if I do it right, the people who already know will feel smart, and the people who don't will have the background information they need to get on with the character in question. And if I do it wrong, there are still beta readers to tell me so, right?

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming an anchoress is an anchorite, and not a female anchorperson. Which is too bad, because that really made a good mental image. "That's it! I'm running off and becoming mainstream, and then you'll all be sorry!"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When someone was being really bitchy to me once in high school, I did a note-perfect imitation of her voice, speech style, and facial expressions. While she was still goggling at me, I said, "See? I could be like you if I wanted, but you could never be like me." And walked off.

I was lying. I couldn't have been like her even if I'd wanted. But sometimes truth is subordinate to high school awfulness.

(Wouldn't you all be sorry, though?)

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

For those of us who think Bletchley Park should have monkey bars: OK; just what is it we're clueless of in this regard?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Bletchley Park was the center of British code-breaking operations in WWII. Alan Turing was there, and the others who worked on the Enigma project. Major advances in computing.

If you want the ultra-low-stress intro to Bletchley Park, rent "Enigma." It's a really lovely movie. (Fiction, not documentary.) Tom Stoppard did the script.

Anyone who is reading this before answering should now answer with how much you would have known about BP.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

That's it! I'm running off and becoming mainstream, and then you'll all be sorry!

While I recognize that it's a hollow threat, it's still a little disconcerting.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I indicated vague knowledge of Bletchley Park. But the entirety of my Bletchley Park knowledge came from you, so. Perhaps that ought to be scored as "monkeybars".

[columbina.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say I checked the Jabba answer. There are about a billion books on Enigma, the WWII Allied codebreaking operations in general, and Bletchley Park, and I seem to have read an alarmingly high number of them. Anyone wanting to look into titles is advised to first look up The Ultra Secret by F. W. Winterbotham - which I don't recommend; it has the virtue of being a first-person account but it is dry and very stiff-British-military in style, and more than a touch self-aggrandizing. But finding that book inevitably links you to lists of better ones.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm on my second pass through the books, and saw the movie six times in the cinema, though I suspect some of the sheer glorious exuberance of it would be lost on a smaller screen. It is, IMNSHO, perfect, not only in staying through to the spirit of the thing, but in approaching having so much source material and such a relatively short time to present it in by filling every little detail and corner with something you will recognise, I think there are recognisable snippets in it from all twenty volumes.

I was totally blown away by both Russell Crowe and Paul Bethany. Stephen Maturin's accent is right - and I speak as a Trinity College Dublin science graduate, he's supposedly a Trinity College Dublin medical graduate, and while nobody else I've met can hear the difference between his accent and mine, they got that fifty-yard difference in.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't there also be a two-hundred-year difference, to be totally accurate? I can't imagine even Trinity College is that unchanged. (My experience with the place consists of walking through campus once, but the people on the field were playing rugby, which if it existed at all in 1805 was rudimentary, and wearing shorts, a sartorial difference *only* Maturin wouldn't notice.)

[lthomas987.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie before reading the books. It's got parts of Post Capitan (#1) and Master and Commander (which I think is #10). I don't think knowing elements of the plots out of the books hurt the books for me at all. Mind you I listened to most of them as books on tape while commuting too.

[pentacon.livejournal.com]

I have only read the first 2 books, but have seen the movie more that once in the theater and pre ordered the DVD. The story is very good, the acting amazing and the cinematography stunning. I recommend the movie very much and you should see it as soon as you can. I would even loan you my DVD.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks! I think Blockbuster has approximately 3.2 million of them, though, and since I can't predict when I'll try it, I'll just give them my $5 rather than potentially holding up your DVD for months.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had heard of the operation, but not caught the name of it. I still think that monkey bars could only enhance the productivity of the project; a little exercise gets more oxygen to the brain.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

An excellent film. The books are a little dry, due to character taking second place to plot and not translating all that well from 200 years ago to now (they're very believeable as people from back then...just not written as characters are nowadays). But it's worth reading a few, anyway.

What exactly are alpha readers?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you on the characterization in that series so far, and since the earlier ones were written in the 1970s and the later ones later than that, I'm not sure why they wouldn't partake of modern characterization. Compared to something like Hornblower they look very much like modern historical novels to me, rather than historical contemporary novels.

Alpha readers are the first people I have reading my manuscripts. (In this case, markgritter, timprov, ksumnersmith, and porphyrin.) They get the roughest copy I'm willing to show to anyone, and they presumably can bring up the most major problems with a book. ("Um...dude. I don't like anybody in this book, and also it makes no sense. Like, anywhere. Well, there was this bit in Chapter 5, but other than that. The sense. Not so much.")

Beta readers get the manuscripts after I've heard the alpha readers' critiques and decided what parts of them to incorporate into the manuscript. A sharp beta reader may indeed have large problems, especially if he/she has a different focus than any of my alpha readers.

I don't agree to do anything in particular because an alpha reader or beta reader says I should, but I value their opinions and input, and I wouldn't consider submitting a book to an editor without them at this stage in my career.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any in a while, actually, and don't recall which I did read, so I can't be specific about whether they were early or late, I'm sorry to say.

I don't mean that they're not modern in structure. Structurally they differ greatly from, for example, Gulliver's Travels or Gil Blas (which are somewhat scattershot), to name a couple of 18th century adventure novels, in that, for example, everything comes together at a satisfying conclusion at the end. I mean we don't get as deeply into the characters' thoughts and motivations as many of today's writers take us. Jack O'Brien's work is more like Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island than it is like H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines; more like Tom Clancy than Clive Cussler.

(Caveat: No value judgments about any of these writers or books should be inferred from my using them as examples.)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks for telling me what an alpha reader is.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know the work of Jack O'Brien, but Patrick O'Brian's characterization seems to me to build from book to book, so if you don't know whether you're dealing with early or late volumes, that might signify.

I think Gulliver's Travels and the Aubrey/Maturin books are trying to do such extremely different things that the time frame in which each was written was the least of it. And I certainly find the diaries of Dr. Maturin to lay out his thoughts and motivations and analyses of other charcters' thoughts and motivations to a pretty high degree, at least in the first two books. I think characterization is handled fairly well implicitly in other spots, but with those explicit parts, I can't really even see what you mean here.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Characterization isn't very quantifiable, of course, but I'm not certain how characterization spread over the course of a twenty-book series answers against a charge against any individual book of being somewhat dry on that score. I'm not saying they're terrible books, since they have a lot of good action, plot and setting, which don't exactly lend themselves to evoking character. They're a lot like Tom Clancy's books, that way.

Gulliver's Travels has a strong element of contemporary political and social satire, to be sure, which Patrick O'Brien's works don't (except to the extent that foreign military adventures in general are comparable) but it's like Gil Blas in jumping around and not reaching a resolution at the end, which no modern novelist would be able to do and be published. Structure was very much a part of the peculiar character of the era. The diaries of Maturin are a good way to explore his character (one reason why many books actually from the era were epistolary in form), but then again, he's the most developed character anyway, in the books I read or the movie. His diaries don't work nearly as well for showing other people's characters, since the diaries reflect his opinions of them, which may reflect more on Mathurin than on the people themselves.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between spreading characterization out and building on characterization. Also, it sounds like you believe that O'Brian's setting and plot can be separated from his characterization, and I don't believe that's the case.