Aristoi Remembered

The fine writer Jo Walton has written an equally fine analysis of Aristoi on the Tor.com blog.   It’s not a rave filled with nothing but praise, but that’s jake with me.  It’s a great analysis of what in the book works, and what doesn’t, for Jo Walton— and since she’s a very smart reader, that’s a worthwhile perspective.

Jo also falls into the “I really hate the protagonist” school, which a lot of people do.  Other readers just want to have sex with him.  Some hate him and want to have sex with him, which is a reaction Gabriel himself would surely enjoy.

(As for myself, I have neither a hate-on nor a lust-on for Gabriel.  I just think he’s kind of cool.)

I’ll be releasing Aristoi as an ebook some time this year, though this will raise technological issues that will be difficult to solve.   Alone of my books, Aristoi depends on a typographical trick, in which the narrative can split into two columns, one describing the protagonist’s actions, the other the inner workings of his complex multiplatform consciousness.

Splitting the page into two columns will make for difficult reading on most e-platform readers.   In fact it may not simply be difficult, it may be completely incoherent.

(Can I release two versions, I wonder?  A single-column version and a two-column version, and let the buyer decide which is more appropriate for his/her platform?  Or will that just hopelessly confuse everybody?)

I was discussing this issue the other night with Groot.

“Oh my God!” he said. “How can you possibly handle the two columns!”

“I could rewrite those scenes,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.  “I forget that you’re the author, and you can do that.”

Yeah.  I am the author, and that’s what I do.