HNT - Bound For Evil?

Yesterday, The Mark News published an article I wrote in which I attempted to sum up the whole Google Book Settlement thing.

Of course, the article ends up asking more questions than it answers.

The question I started with (at least in the back of my mind) was whether or not, as an author, I should opt OUT of the settlement or lay claim to any of my work that is out there and potentially involved.

The question I ended up with after doing a whack of reading various viewpoints is something I owe to Cory Doctorow's intriguing statements, which I quote in the article. And that is the concept of a single entity controlling all of literature.

Don't get me wrong. I love and admire Google. They have worked hard to build an incredible company and offer a vast array of products and services that are top notch. But the idea of a single company controlling the history of literature reminds me a bit of the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx from the Rush album 2112.

So I thought it'd be fitting for this week's HNT post to be a picture of me reading the wonderful BOUND FOR EVIL: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad anthology (Edited by Tom English - Dead Letter Press 2008), which includes my evil bookstore tale "Browsers" with the Google logo looking over my shoulder.


No, not as powerful as the naked starman standing in front of the giant red logo used on the back cover artwork of the 2112 album. But my own little modernized ode to Rush and designer Hugh Syme.

Check out the full article at The Mark News by clicking here.