Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.
Friday, September 05, 2014
Endgame: How to win £300,000 by reading a book by James Frey
John Walsh - The Independent - Wednesday 3 September 2014
What happened to books that offered the traditional pleasures of entertainment, wit and empathy?
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Author James Frey's forthcoming novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, will explore the Second Coming of Christ in graphic detail
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Stand by, everyone: it’s “a publishing venture for the multi-media age”. The American writer James Frey is about to launch a trilogy of adventure stories called Endgame, which may or may not be readable fictions but which will allow readers to compete for prizes totalling £300,000. They’ll have to follow clues, solve puzzles and work out riddles from “words, maths, images and connections” within the story, in order to win huge amounts in gold coins.
It’s obviously going to be a massive “New Thing” from the Rupert Murdoch stable: HarperCollins have sold the publishing rights in 27 countries and Fox studios are planning three movies, scripted by Frey and produced by the people behind the Twilight novels. But it’s hard to ignore the whiff of ordure about the whole enterprise, the feeling of déjà vu and copycatting, of second-hand ideas and “can-I-join-in” opportunism. Despite its spin-off ebook novellas and Google-generated “interactive mobile game” recreating “Endgame’s fictional universe,” this isn’t really a publishing venture for the multi-media age – it’s a publishing venture for the greedy, philistine, post-literate world. More
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