Abbey's Bookshop

Abbey's Bookshop is one of the largest indie bookstores in Sydney, located in the heart of the CBD.  They've been running since time immemorial, which is to say, 1968, and they're still going strong.

I was in there last week to sign copies of The Pericles Commission.  Which was a very weird feeling, because back when I was a university student I used to frequent Abbey's quite a lot.  I passed by the store every day and it was the easiest thing to just drop in.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd have my own book in there.

Abbey's very kindly interviewed me last week.  The questions and answers are in their April Crime Chronicle, and also up on their blog.



If you'd like a signed copy, this'd be a terrific time to call or email them.  In fact, if you do, please let me know and I'll go back to write you a personal message.

I'm never quite sure what to write when I don't know who's going to buy the book.  When I get to meet the buyer (which I much prefer!) I can ask their name and what message they'd like, if any.  But if I don't know who's going to read it, what should I write on the title page?

Apparently most authors simply sign their name, but personally I'd rather write a short message.  So what message should I write to a complete stranger?  Suggestions welcome!

Ruth Downie on resources for Roman Britain

If you're interested in Roman Britain, Ruth Downie has put on her blog an interesting list of sources for Roman Britain, to which she kindly added my own random comments about historical research.

Ruth seriously knows her stuff. She writes mysteries set in Roman Britain, starring the somewhat put-upon and incredibly funny Ruso. She's up to book 4. The first is called Medicus, from which we may deduce Ruso is a doctor. Some of his historically accurate prescriptions have to be read to be believed. It's a good thing Ruso and Nico will never work together, because it would be...utter...chaos.

Standardized language considered doubleplusungood

A few days ago I received a PDF of the first pass of The Ionia Sanction. The first pass is not actually the first pass; it's more like the last pass. When a book is ready for the printers, the operations people typeset the entire book precisely as it will appear on the printed page. They send me a PDF, and that "first pass" is the final check before I say it's okay and they press the button to print real copies.

As soon as I opened the PDF I went straight to page 274, where I read this sentence:

"So you dealt with the farmer."

And I breathed a prayer of thanks to Editor Kathleen, because there's an irregular verb in that sentence. Yay!

One of the biggest differences between North American English and everyone else's, although it's hardly the most obvious point, is the ruthless elimination of irregular verbs. I guess there are still a few lurking around, but they're probably running scared.

I wrote that sentence as you see it. Irregular verbs are very normal to me and, frankly, sound better. Also, if you're writing historicals, irregular forms sound older to give a patina of age. The copyeditor, quite correctly and in accordance with the deified Chicago Manual of Style, struck through my lovely -t, and replaced it with an ugly -ed.

"So you dealed with the farmer."

This to me means the farmer is a pack of cards.

When I saw that change in the copyedits, I wrote in the margin that if I couldn't have the irregular form, then let me know and I'd rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem. Because the regular form sounds totally wrong. Very luckily for me -- and I suspect few authors have this luck -- my editor actually listened to my concerns. Thanks Kathleen!

I'll be in therapy for years to get over it, but I totally accept standardization as a general rule. That's what most of my audience are used to. Why make life hard for readers? That would be a crazy thing to do.

But the fact is, standardizing English also has the effect of sterilizing it. There's a subtle rhythm to good English prose that everyone responds to, even if many people can't hear it. If every word follows the same pattern then it's like music with only one beat.

"So you dealt with the farmer."
"So you dealed with the farmer."

Say them both together and you'll hear the second is a beat longer. It lacks punch. The whole rhythm is changed when you standardize the language to a metronomic regularity. I'm sure most writers would agree that we hear the sound values before ever we write the words, and the rhythm matters a lot. Having the option to insert a punchy -t participle is an important part of the toolkit for controlling how the reader feels about what they're reading.

Does it really matter if we have two different past participles for the same word in a single book? The counter-argument goes that standardization makes text easier to read, but watch any teenager write a text message and you'll see that standardization is the last thing on their minds. Yet they understand each other just fine.

The greatest ever writer of the English language was a man who couldn't spell his own name the same way twice. Clearly standardization isn't necessary to quality!

Corn

I received a query from a reader the other day about the use of the word corn. It's apparently a common source of confusion, so I thought I'd post the answer for all to see.

In The Pericles Commission, Nico reports seeing corn sold in the agora. This might look wrong to North Americans, who strongly associate the word corn with the squishy, sweet, yellow stuff that originated in the Americas, and could not possibly be in the agora of ancient Athens.

Has Gary blundered with an anachronism? Actually, no.

The word corn comes from Old Norse, I believe, certainly long before the European discovery of America, and means any type of cereal grain. In North America, dictionaries uphold that meaning, but people usually only use the word to refer to the grain that is more precisely known as maize. There are of course grains other than maize, and they all fall under the general term of corn.

This is why, for example, Demeter is called the goddess of corn, but when you see images of her she is invariably holding sheafs of what you might call wheat. Likewise, it's always written that Vespasian in Roman times came to power by withholding the corn shipments from Egypt, even though the grain on board was definitely not yellow. The Golden Bough by James Frazier is probably the most important book ever written on ancient mythology, and he uses corn to refer to all cereal grains. These are all correct usage!

So when Nico sees corn in the agora, he does indeed. The specific type of corn is probably barley or wheat.