The Hollywood Reporter: “Brandon Sanderson’s Literary Fantasy Universe ‘Cosmere’ picked up by Apple TV”

The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television.

The latter already has producers involved: Blue Marble, run by former WME agent Theresa Kang, is attached to executive produce The Stormlight Archive television adaptation.

The deal is rare one, coming after a competitive situation which saw Sanderson meet with most of the studio heads in town. It gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That’s a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys.

Borys Kit

This announcement was met with widespread enthusiasm online, both because of the popularity of the ‘Cosmere’ and the level of control Sanderson is supposed to have over the final adaptation, in theory ensuring a faithful result. Me, I was more skeptical when reading about this, though perhaps this has more to do with my apprehensions around Sanderson, and Apple TV to a lesser degree.

The Hollywood Reporter: “Heavy is the Crown: George R.R. Martin on His Triumphs and Torments”

Last year, Martin sat down with one of his idols, Robert Redford, who was a fellow executive producer on Dark Winds. Redford came out of acting retirement to film a brief cameo in the show with Martin. In the scene, the two are sitting at a chessboard, and Redford ad-libbed a line: George, the whole world is waiting, make a move. It was a meta joke about how long it’s taken Martin to finish Winter. Then Redford died, too. His chess scene with Martin — like something out of The Seventh Seal — was his final performance.

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Martin says he has around 1,100 manuscript pages finished. He’s also said the number for a while. He long has blamed the endless distractions that have come from shifting from a full-time author to a producer and celebrity. The success of Thrones was both the best thing that could have happened to Martin and the worst thing that could have happened to the greatest story he ever wrote.

James Hibberd

I have long surmised that Martin’s inability – or unwillingness – to finish his magnum opus was down to the fact that he was already making more than enough money off the various TV adaptations and side projects to ever bother completing a series that became overstuffed with characters and marred by the poor reception of its on-screen conclusion. But reading through this article makes me think that he doesn’t even acknowledge the issue to himself. He keeps talking about wanting to finalize it, but other projects constantly getting in the way.

Authentication issues in Adobe Digital Editions

Since the start of the pandemic back in 2020 and the sudden shift to working from home, I have found myself reading far less than before. On one hand I had lost my regular reading time slot, during my commute to and from work on my Kindle, on the other it felt that the real world delivered a whole lot more excitement than before, and fiction couldn’t quite keep up with that. And of course, there are so many more things competing for your time, from TV series to games.

But lately I have joined a new book club, an offshoot of my circle of photographers in Bucharest. Since our next book selection is a work I had already read years ago (and reviewed here), I wanted to read it again. I had it as an e-book, purchased in the Romanian edition from a local publisher. The ePub file, as with most e-books not published in the Kindle store, is DRM-protected, and to activate it and read the book you need Adobe Digital Editions installed. As I have switched laptops since the last time I’ve read ePub files, I hadn’t installed Digital Editions yet on the new laptop, so I downloaded and installed it to get things going.

Time: “Why Rewrites to Roald Dahl’s Books are Stirring Controversy”

A British publisher has come under fire for rewriting new editions of Roald Dahl’s children’s books to remove language that today’s readers deem offensive when it comes to race, gender, weight, and mental health.

Puffin Books, a children’s imprint of Penguin Books, worked with the Roald Dahl Story Company (RDSC), which is now exclusively owned by Netflix, to review the texts. RDSC hopes that rewriting books by one of the world’s most popular children’s authors, whose books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, would ensure that Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.

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Among the critics of the rewrites are Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a fatwa because of the alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. On Feb. 18, Rushie tweeted, Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.

Armani Syed

Rewriting an author’s work after his passing, with no input or approval on his part, is most certainly unacceptable for me – like covering up statues of Venus or Michelangelo’s David because their nudity offends some people’s modesty. From the news reports, the edits seem extensive and rather poorly done, in some cases changing the meaning of the original or erasing historical context. And who in their right mind would be offended by tractors being described as black!?

The Guardian: “Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks”

Apple has quietly launched a catalogue of books narrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators. The strategy marks an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook market – but it also promises to intensify scrutiny over allegations of Apple’s anti-competitive behaviour.

The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.

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Before the launch, one Canadian literary agent told the Guardian she did not see the value from both a literary or customer perspective.

Companies see the audiobooks market and that there’s money to be made. They want to make content. But that’s all it is. It’s not what customers want to listen to. There’s so much value in the narration and the storytelling, said Carly Watters.

Leyland Cecco

Interesting tactic by Apple to attack Amazon’s market dominance in audiobooks through Audible. There is growing discontent against Audible’s terms, so perhaps Apple can convince some authors to move their titles to Apple Books. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time Apple tried to shake Amazon’s stronghold on book distribution – and utterly failed because of their blatant collusion with book publishers. More recently, Spotify has also been investing in audiobooks as an additional pillar of its streaming service, and immediately clashed with Apple over its App Store commissions.

O’Reilly Media: “Frank Herbert: Chapter 5: Rogue Gods”

In Dune, Herbert used heroic myth elements from the Western tradition in an effort to awaken in his readers a sensitivity to the needs that prompt a messianic religion. But even so, it is too easy to see messianism as something that happens only to desert peoples like the Fremen. Less immediately apparent is the fact that to Herbert the neurotic use of science in modern Western civilization betrays the same pattern as messianic religion.

Herbert’s feelings about science are most clearly presented in Dune and in three short novels that followed its publication, The Green Brain, Destination: Void, and The Eyes of Heisenberg. Each of these works reveals the two faces of science: it may he used to help man come to terms with the unknown, or to help him hide from it. In the latter case, it is a kind of religion, whose false god inevitably turns on his worshippers.

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The irony is that Paul is not a freak but an inevitable product of the Bene Gesserit’s own schemes. Although he has come a generation early in the plan due to Jessica’s willfulness in bearing a son instead of a daughter, the real surprise is not his early birth but the paradox of the Sisterhood’s achievement: the planned instrument of perfect control, the Kwisatz Haderach, was designed to see further than his creators, He could not help but know the emptiness of their dreams. The universe cannot be managed; the vitality of the human race lies in its random generation of new possibilities. The only real surety is that surprises will occur. In contrast to the Foundation trilogy’s exaltation of rationality’s march to predicted victory, Dune proclaims the power and primacy of the unconscious and the unexpected in human affairs.

Tim O’Reilly

With the renewed interest in the Dune universe following the recent movie, I have discovered this book on its subreddit. While I have only read this chapter yet, the insights into Herbert’s thinking are fascinating. The parallels with Asimov’s Foundation were always apparent to me, but I considered its closest analog in Dune to be the Mentats’ abilities, Paul’s prescience, and later Leto’s Golden Path. Instead, the author reveals that the Bene Gesserit and their breeding program were intended as a commentary and reaction to Asimov’s psychohistorians – which does make a lot of sense in the context of Herbert’s themes for the series.

Marian Coman – Haiganu: Fluviul șoaptelor

Surghiunit dintre Cei Mari în lumea oamenilor în urmă cu nenumărate veacuri, zeul Haiganu rătăcește de atunci fără noimă printre aceste ființe inferioare lui, chinuit necontenit de vocile lor care‑i pătrund în minte, mereu, fără oprire, un fluviu de vaiere și durere pe care Haiganu trebuie să‑l asculte. Uneori, când gemetele lumii îl copleșesc, sau oameni nesăbuiți încearcă să‑l păcălească, puterea nimicitoare a lui Haiganu nu mai poate fi ținută în frâu, o lumină albă țâșnind din singurul lui ochi și arzând totul în cale‑i. Dar în ultima vreme din torentul năucitor s‑a desprins o voce, deosebită de restul, singura care îl alină pe Haiganu cu povești, ținând la depărtare corul chinuitor al celorlalți pentru prima oară de când pribegește printre oameni. Așa îl cunoaște Haiganu pe Zourazi, un fiu de mag prins de Dekibalos printr‑o vrajă a lui Moroianu, laolaltă cu mulți alții copii.

Romanul de față s‑a născut întâi sub forma unei benzi desenate, un proiect rar pe piața românească, care n‑a avut cine știe ce tradiție în acest sens din partea autorilor sau cerere din partea publicului. Inspirația a venit din folclorul românesc, în special din basmul lui Harap Alb și vechile zeități dacice, deși romanul se îndepărtează semnificativ de aceste surse. Cu singurul său ochi în frunte, Haiganu e modelat după Ochilă, dar, cel puțin deocamdată, nu îi întâlnim pe ceilalți însoțitori fantastici ai lui Harap Alb, și nici pe Harap Alb însuși. Împăratul Roșu în schimb este prezent la marginea povestirii, o amenințare care își țese pe ascuns planurile de a cotropi lumea. Dekibalos poartă numele celui mai faimos rege dac – ultimul de altfel, învins de împăratul Traian – dar setea lui de sadism și sânge are prea puține legături cu personajul istoric. Moroianu se leagă de folclorul mai recent, invocând moroiul, un soi de zombi autohton, atât cu numele, cât și prin comportament. Panteonul geto-dacic este prezent în numele Celor Mari: Gebeleizis, Derzelas, Pleistoros, Neris, Bendis; dar zeitățile în sine nu intervin în cursul acțiunii, ci sunt doar invocate în rugi și farmece.