Monday, February 08, 2010
Giant Robot Magazine
Ain't It Cool News. Sometimes it ain't.
Labels: Art, For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite, media, readin' an' writin', youtube and other video
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Louis Cha For A Thousand Bucks!
You gots to be fucking kidding me. As of this writing the second volume is $150. The first is more reasonable at twenty four and change to thirty six bucks.
These three volumes (about 1500 pages, total) translates Louis Cha's (AKA Jin Yong) final novel (completed in the very early 1970's into English. There are a number of TV productions (often titled Duke Of Mount Deer) as well as Stephen Chow's 2 Royal Tramp movies.
Too bad they're not available as eBooks. If sales are the main issue keeping them out of print, eBooks could rectify that while keeping the few of us into this sort of thing satisfied.
Labels: kung fu, online retailers, readin' an' writin', ripoffs, wu-xia
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Old News: Kaiju Shakedown Gone Again
Somehow missed this when it was new news. I'd noticed that my live bookmark for Kaiju Shakedown hadn't updated for a while and assumed Grady Hendrix had gone on vacation or something. Turns out he and some others at Variety Asia had been laid off.
Well.
That kinda sucks.
Well.
That kinda sucks.
Labels: bullshit, movies, readin' an' writin'
Monday, February 09, 2009
The dying art of reading books and onslaught of online fiction
By Yao Minji at Shanghai Daily
SO what else is new? Young people don't read books, certainly not the classics, not even classic martial arts. It's gotta be real simple, weird and online, writes Yao Minji.
Roger Zhou was shocked to find only two classic martial arts novels in Shanghai Book City on Fuzhou Road, the biggest bookstore in Shanghai. In the martial arts section, however, Zhou did see a large number of fantasy martial arts novels with video game-type jackets, and pen names like "Eagle in the Dust" and "Addicted to Your Pale Cheek."
Still, the section attracted many readers, mostly in their teens. Sci-fi fantasy martial arts are an emerging genre.
A shop assistant confirms that Zhou didn't miss any classics - there were only two new martial arts novels by Malaysian-born writer Wen Rui'an - and nothing by legendary Jin Yong (Louis Cha) or Gu Long (Hsuing Yao-hua), traditionally the best-known and best-selling writers.
Zhou's frustrating search for classic martial arts in print - and the emergence of online sci-fi fantasy martial arts - is a story in itself about the dying love of reading good books for pleasure. It's also about the onslaught of online novel publishing as millions of young people grind out primitive pulp fiction in hopes of making it big.
It's not true that young people don't read printed books - but they have to be utilitarian, improve their complexion or help them pass exams. Who wants to read old Lao She anyway? All you need to know for the exam is that he wrote "Rickshaw Boy" and "Teahouse." As for the classics, just watch the movie or buy a cheat sheet.
Now, on with Zhou's search for martial arts that he loved in high school.
Zhou, a 30-year-old student, is studying in a US graduate school and returned to Shanghai for winter break. As he browsed through his high school pictures, he suddenly wanted to read martial arts again. After all, China is the land of classics.
"When I was in high school and college, martial arts novels were so popular that many students hid books so they could read them in class," Zhou recalls.
"Back then, every bookstore had shelves of martial arts novels. Jin Yong and Gu Long would each take a shelf and people were crowded about and reading in the store," he says.
Although mostly written in the 1960s-70s, those martial arts novels remained popular and contained fascinating details about history, custom and manners. At the time parents and teachers considered them pulp fiction and a bad influence because of they contained violence and because they were so addictive.
Each of Cha's novels has been adapted into movies and TV dramas. The dramas still come out, faced-paced and action-packed, but the books and words are missing.
Astonished and dissatisfied, Zhou visited three more large bookstores. The bookstore on Nanjing Road E. (now branch of Shanghai Book City) used to be the biggest in the city before the book city was built, and it occupied four floors of a building. Now, the building has been turned into a shopping mall and the bookstore has been relegated to only one outlet on the corner of the third floor.
Although it's a Chinese bookstore, the entrance is filled with popular English novels like "Harry Potter" or English-language books about Chinese culture and tradition. A shop assistant who declines to be identified says the books are displayed this way to attract passing expats because "it's more likely that foreigners will buy books."
Popular nonfiction
As in most other bookstores, popular nonfiction about health and skin care, exam and finance books are most prominently displayed.
The shelves labeled "Youth/Campus Novels" and "Fantasy/Martial Arts" - many with lurid, tantalizing covers - represent the two biggest sections.
Continues here...
SO what else is new? Young people don't read books, certainly not the classics, not even classic martial arts. It's gotta be real simple, weird and online, writes Yao Minji.
Roger Zhou was shocked to find only two classic martial arts novels in Shanghai Book City on Fuzhou Road, the biggest bookstore in Shanghai. In the martial arts section, however, Zhou did see a large number of fantasy martial arts novels with video game-type jackets, and pen names like "Eagle in the Dust" and "Addicted to Your Pale Cheek."
Still, the section attracted many readers, mostly in their teens. Sci-fi fantasy martial arts are an emerging genre.
A shop assistant confirms that Zhou didn't miss any classics - there were only two new martial arts novels by Malaysian-born writer Wen Rui'an - and nothing by legendary Jin Yong (Louis Cha) or Gu Long (Hsuing Yao-hua), traditionally the best-known and best-selling writers.
Zhou's frustrating search for classic martial arts in print - and the emergence of online sci-fi fantasy martial arts - is a story in itself about the dying love of reading good books for pleasure. It's also about the onslaught of online novel publishing as millions of young people grind out primitive pulp fiction in hopes of making it big.
It's not true that young people don't read printed books - but they have to be utilitarian, improve their complexion or help them pass exams. Who wants to read old Lao She anyway? All you need to know for the exam is that he wrote "Rickshaw Boy" and "Teahouse." As for the classics, just watch the movie or buy a cheat sheet.
Now, on with Zhou's search for martial arts that he loved in high school.
Zhou, a 30-year-old student, is studying in a US graduate school and returned to Shanghai for winter break. As he browsed through his high school pictures, he suddenly wanted to read martial arts again. After all, China is the land of classics.
"When I was in high school and college, martial arts novels were so popular that many students hid books so they could read them in class," Zhou recalls.
"Back then, every bookstore had shelves of martial arts novels. Jin Yong and Gu Long would each take a shelf and people were crowded about and reading in the store," he says.
Although mostly written in the 1960s-70s, those martial arts novels remained popular and contained fascinating details about history, custom and manners. At the time parents and teachers considered them pulp fiction and a bad influence because of they contained violence and because they were so addictive.
Each of Cha's novels has been adapted into movies and TV dramas. The dramas still come out, faced-paced and action-packed, but the books and words are missing.
Astonished and dissatisfied, Zhou visited three more large bookstores. The bookstore on Nanjing Road E. (now branch of Shanghai Book City) used to be the biggest in the city before the book city was built, and it occupied four floors of a building. Now, the building has been turned into a shopping mall and the bookstore has been relegated to only one outlet on the corner of the third floor.
Although it's a Chinese bookstore, the entrance is filled with popular English novels like "Harry Potter" or English-language books about Chinese culture and tradition. A shop assistant who declines to be identified says the books are displayed this way to attract passing expats because "it's more likely that foreigners will buy books."
Popular nonfiction
As in most other bookstores, popular nonfiction about health and skin care, exam and finance books are most prominently displayed.
The shelves labeled "Youth/Campus Novels" and "Fantasy/Martial Arts" - many with lurid, tantalizing covers - represent the two biggest sections.
Continues here...
Labels: China, possibilities for creative expression, readin' an' writin', society, wu-xia
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