Had a good week last week

can’t sleep. This means that when I’m ready to go into the job in another 4 hours I’ll be exhausted. And after that I want to run over to Audrey’s to pay for my 2 books. Then, I’ll be exhausted. I’ll crawl back into bed and pass out for a couple of hours.

I’m in a bit of a discussion over there at SF Signal about the 5 things that is killing speculative fiction. They don’t even say science fiction. Speculative fiction doesn’t mean science fiction. Any form of fiction is speculative. That’s why it’s called fiction. Actually it isn’t 5 things. It’s one thing, and that one thing killing print science fiction is the book series. We know this as the trilogy. Now I have nothing against trilogies. I’ve read and enjoyed more then a few in my day. So what’s my beef? So why is the series killing science fiction/fantasy? How many times have you gone into a bookstore to pick up a book because you were captivated (like me) by the cover, the book title and perhaps by the authors name? Show of hands please. All 2 of you reading this no doubt. So you go to the back cover and read to get a feel of the book. So far so good right? Maybe you read a bit inside to see what POV the book is in. That’s always a plus for me. Then you take it home only to find out on the inside cover that it’s book 2/3 of the Wadda, wadda wars by Tom P Whatshisname. The book has been on the shelf for 4 years old and most likely has been handled by a dozen people before settling into the palm of your hands. You look for the other book sin the series and guess what? They’re not there. But the clerk says they might be able to special order it for you. Do you put a deposit on the other two and pay for the book anyway or look for something else? All you want is a stand alone story but you know what? They’re not in your genre. Sure there’s lots of book sin the young adult category. Meh, not for me. I’m still looking for a stand alone. After an hour of browsing, your shit out of luck because there’s nothing on the shelves but broken series after broken series. Thank God for the anthologies at least there’s something to read but you’ve got all of them. So what do you do? You migrate over to another genre. A good mystery or a thriller might sound just as good. In this case everyone loses. The impulse buying days of SFF are gone and that’s the simple reality of what’s killing print SFF right now.

Anyway, that’s my rant for right now. Well I went into work this afternoon without incident. Surprise the escalator is working again. Work went as can be expected for a Friday night. I had $350 by break. I got my cheque even though they shorted me $5 and half an hour. I’m still going to call him on the bonus and the half hour though. This is the 2nd time he screwed up my hours ytd but I got a $5 bonus tonight and this week $35 worth of bonuses, If I get them. It was a bit hectic coming out because Anne was barking all these instructions for me to get my cheque after work. I met Rob the verifier and had a chat with him. Then out of the blue Anne showed up. She boarded the back of the train and we boarded the front of the train, He got off at Rexall. I called Audrey’s before the store closed and 2/4 books I ordered are in. The Catherine Asaro books are in. So, I’ll pick them up after work tomorrow afternoon. Anne’s giving me an extra $10 COH: $23.45. Plus the extra $10 will give me $33.43. Good to because on the train I called Audrey’s books to see if any of last week’s book order was in. Sure enough the two Catherine Asaro books from her Triad series are in. I don’t mind reading trilogies if I can special order them and get them all at once. That’s fine. It’s just all the broken trilogies in stores that ruffles my feathers. So tomorrow I’m going to head into work at my regular time and get myself a Tim’s breakfast sandwich and go through the 4 hour shift. After that head over to Audrey’s and get my book order head home. Then I’ll have a bit of a nap and get ready to watch the Oiler@Flames hockey game.

Also on my break I called “Island ink.” I asked about the Hp 5L laser jet and yes, they can replace the toner for me. It takes 2 business days and the cost to me is $50 plus tax. That’s pretty damn good. So far this has been a great week. Monday, I ended up with an outstanding total and $20 worth of credit card bonuses. I made over $800 Tuesday and Wednesday and even more bonuses for a total of $35 (if I get them.) I found the name of the old studio apartment in New Westminster BC. Bench & Gavel building built in 1939. There are only 2 references to it on the Internet other then my own. I had Thursday night off and the Oiler’s won their first game on the road. I come into work and the escalator is fixed. I got my pay cheque. Also Markus fixed up my website menus yesterday. The news about Island ink and my printer Toner recharged is excellent. I can get approximately 5 rough draft novels off of one refill. That’s pretty good. And to make things better I have 2 of my books ordered from last week in and there’s an Oiler/Flame game to wrap the weekend off. Beautiful. All in all it’s been a pretty good week.

Except for right now. I can’t sleep. I think the reasons for this are the amount of sleep I already had through out the rest of the week. So when I leave here this morning and come home from work. I even tried reading around 2 am for an hour but that didn’t seem to work for me.

Anyways, that’s all for now.

e. Jim