Sunday Salon #13 - 15 June 2008

I've been fighting jet lag all week. At work we've been discussing which direction of travel is worst for jet lag - going west or going east.
Going west from Adelaide to Abu Dhabi you actually gain about 7 hours of actual time. I didn't notice a jet lag.
But coming back, travelling to the east, you are actually travelling with the earth's rotation and in reality you lose about 7 hours of actual body time. That's probably a very unscientific explanation.
We worked out that by the time we went to bed last Sunday night we'd actually been vertical for about 36 hours, so I guess that didn't help. So as a result, I've been a bit tired at odd times through the day, and then waking up at odd times in the night.

Posts this week (in reverse order):

• You Never Know Where You'll Appear
  Google Alerts help me discover a spot where my blog postings appear
• New Element on my blog
  Blogger has come up with a new blogroll element that lets visitors to your site to see (and visit) the latest posting on blogs that you watch.
  This was my 200th post on my blog!
  
• Locked-Off Murders
  Looks at locked-room style crime fiction set on islands, in snow, and on trains
• Elizabeth George novels
  Over the last 21 years there have been 13 Inspector Lynley novels. Elizabeth George won the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, and France's Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere for her first novel A GREAT DELIVERANCE, for which she was also nominated for the Edgar and the Macavity Awards.
• CARELESS IN RED, Progress Report
  I've been reading this all week, and Thomas Lynley has been playing a very low key role. I'm still waiting for Barbara Havers to make an appearance.
• Weekly Geeks 6 and 7- Reviews and Photos
  I caught up with some Weekly Geek challenges, but I am having troubling working out what the new challenge is each week.
• Dangers of being a genre novelist
  Reflections on the way we mentally categorise a novelist, how publishers and booksellers like to be able to market their books as a certain genre. Once writing in a particular genre, what chance does a novelist have of breaking into another genre? How many crime fiction authors do you know who have been ghost writers?

General

• Last week the beloved footy team again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. At home we watched with disbelief. Their chances of getting into finals are blown, even though the season is only half way through.
• On oz_mystery_readers we have begun discussing Reginald Hill's A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES. I'm the QM this time (Question Maker). I'll list some of the questions below.

1. Question #1 - the Dedication
   ** How did you interpret the dedication "To Janeites everywhere"?
   (here is the full dedication
   To Janeites everywhere and in particular to those who ten years ago in San Francisco made me so very welcome at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s GM, of which the theme was Sanditon – a new direction? And during which the seeds of this present novel were sown. I hope that my fellow Janeites will approve the direction in which I have moved her unfinished story;)
   If you haven't thought about that yet, you might like to look at these weblinks
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanditon
   http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janewrit.html
   http://tinyurl.com/4lenec
   ** So what has Reginald Hill done?
2. Question #2 - was this plagiarism?
   Wikipedia defines plagiarism
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
   Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. (there's more if you want to check it out)
   So is Reginald Hill guilty of plagiarism?
   How would you argue for or against it?
   Do you know of other authors who have done something similar?
   In 2007 R.N. Morris published A GENTLE AXE
   http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/r-n-morris/gentle-axe.htm tells you what he did. Is that plagiarism?
   What about people who include famous characters/authors like Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, or Eleanor Roosevelt
   http://www.amazon.com/First-Class-Murder-Eleanor-Roosevelt/dp/0312055277
   What other examples can you think of?
   
3. Question#3 - a long series
   Did you realise this is #23 in the Dalziel & Pascoe series?
   Have you read many of them?
   http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/reginald-hill/
   There are issues and questions that many authors grapple with as they write a series over an extended period.
   e.g.
   how do their characters age? in real time?
   I am thinking here of Ian Rankin who recently retired John Rebus, Ruth Rendell who is definitely now portraying Reg Wexford as a man close to retirement, Michael Robotham who has retired Vincent Ruiz, and Colin Dexter who killed Morse off. Perhaps you can think of other examples.
   Reginald Hill began with his first novel, A CLUBBABLE WOMAN, being published in 1970, that was 38 years ago!
   If you check the list above you will also find 2 chapbooks (Wikipedia says that's a booklet) and one novella
   How old do you think Dalziel & Pascoe are in A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES?
   Does anybody know how old they were in the first, A CLUBBABLE WOMAN?
   What issues do you think Hill is trying to test in this (and recent novels)?
   You might like to consider this: Dalziel: “twang” – the sound on an umbilical cord snapping p. 457
   What do you think he is referring to?

So that's what I've been up to.