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The chairman of judges for this year's £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson prize, the American political journalist Jacob Weisberg, predicted that Hoare's genre-defying book would become nothing less than "a classic". He added: "The quality of his writing was just so impressive, it is literary, just beautiful. It is a model of a certain kind of writing and I imagine it is a book that will be read for a long time to come."

*****

Hoare, who lives in Southampton, has previously written books on figures including Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and the brightest of the Bright Young Things, Stephen Tennant. He traces his love of whales to reading Moby-Dick and vividly recalls his first actual encounter with a killer whale at Windsor safari park. Hoare now frequently travels to Cape Cod as a volunteer on a humpback whale identification programme.

Hoare's book saw off competition from a shortlist that also included Ben Goldacre's book version of his Guardian column Bad Science, which Ladbroke's had installed as 2/1 favourite. The others were Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance, an examination of the Great Depression; David Grann's The Lost City of Z, about the British explorer Percy Fawcett who disappeared in the Amazon in 1925; Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder, in which he links a series of biographies on 18th century scientists; and a book praised for making quantum physics accessible and interesting - Manjit Kumar's Quantum.

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Author Alice Hoffman Criticizes Book Critic on Twitter

The L.A. Times Jacket Copy reports that author Alice Hoffman used her Twitter account to vent her frustrations about a review of her book, The Story Sisters, in the Boston Globe. Alice Hoffman felt the critic's review gave away too much of the plot from her novel.

But the vitriol Hoffman used to express her dissatisfaction was extreme. "Roberta Silman in the Boston Globe is a moron," one tweet began. "Now any idiot can be a critic," stated another.

At first, Hoffman defended her right to express herself any way she wanted. "Girls are taught to be gracious and keep their mouths shut. We don't have to," she wrote, and then continued a minute later: "And we writers don't have to say nothing when someone tries to destroy us."

That's not all: Hoffman tweeted Silman's phone number and e-mail address, encouraging readers to "Tell her what u think of snarky critics."

It's probably going too far to tweet the book critic's home phone number but the email is there in the review.

Jacket Copy says Alice Hoffman's Twitter account (which was @AliceHof) has been deleted. Alice Hoffman left the following formal statement through her publicist.

I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion. Of course I was dismayed by Roberta Silman's review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn't. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that's the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn't mean to hurt anyone and I'm truly sorry if I did.

Best,
Alice Hoffman

Posted on June 29, 2009
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Rhianna Pratchett Talks Writing For Video Games

Terry Pratchett's daughter Rhianna Pratchett has found success in the video game realm. She told That Video Game Blog that game publishers still don't know best how to use writers. She says they often contact writers at the end of a game's lifespan instead of at the beginning - but she says that's starting to change.

"Writers and narrative designers are still relatively new positions on development teams." she said. "This means there's still a level of uncertainty about how best to use and integrate them. I know from talking to lots of fine people in my field that the writing process can often be done too late, without proper access to the team and under extreme pressure. Thankfully, things are starting to get a little better and more writers are being contacted in the first few months of a project's lifespan, rather than the last few months. Personally, I consider I've been very lucky with some of my projects."

Rhianna Pratchett would also like to see more variation in video game content and less of the "Gruff guy with super powers/large weapon kicks assss!" plot lines.

"A little more variation in concept and content would be nice, as well, which is something writers and narrative designers can help with. Although they have their place and god knows I've enjoyed them on occasion, I could do with a little less 'Gruff guy with super powers/large weapon kicks assss!' tales. The medium has huge potential, so I'm not sure why there's this constant desire to keep rooting around in Hollywood’s action-movie scrapheap."

Rhianna Pratchett talked about humor in video games in another interview. Her writing in the Overlord and Overlord II video games helped make the games respected for their dark humor.

"What I think has really worked for the franchise is that the setup and gameplay is ripe with humour," says Pratchett. "You play an evil Overlord, rampaging through a twisted fantasy world, with an ever expanding army of sycophantic minions who loot and pillage for you. What's not to love about that?"

Rhianna Pratchett's website can be found here. She's has written scripts for several fantasy titles including Heavenly Sword, Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Mirror's Edge and Viking: Battle for Asgard. She has also written a Mirror's Edge comic book mini-series with DC Comics.

Posted on June 27, 2009
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