Spielberg, Hemmingway, Einstein, any number of presidents not named Bush, that guy at the gas station, the gal at the drive-in, you and of course, me. We’re all connected in that great human struggle: Our inability to chose books for travels.
Or so I like to believe.
It’s one of those things I spend the most time on when going traveling, and I often find myself skimming through and reading passages of about 10 – 15 books, stacking them this way; that. Trying to insure myself against that harshest of human realizations; the 80-page-in realization of “shit dude, this book sucks”.
Currently I’m leaning towards bringing a single previously unread book, which is currently Alastair Reynolds Absolution Gap, though Cryptonomicon has been drawing me for some time, it having been 8 years or so since I last read it. Also, I’ve got World War Z just sitting there, staring at me, begging me to prepare for the coming Zombie apocalypse…
Now, had I owned a Kindle, this wouldn’t be a problem, but this is Denmark, a country so small and cozy that Amazon wouldn’t touch it with a stick tied to another stick.
Ugh.
I know, I know, it’s starting to look more and more as if Binary Bonsai was reborn as a Star Wars and Droidmaker-reblog site after its hiatus, but if I merely updated the older entries with this information, it wouldn’t propagate, and dammit, when I have something to take credit for I’ll damn well use every excuse in the book to take it!
Then there happened to be an unusual series of events at the end of June, 2009, when a couple interesting Lucas stories were emerging. An old home movie from ILM in 1977. An older interview with young George Lucas from the BBC in 1972. My book gives some context to these items.
On June 30 I got a wild hare and generated a PDF of the entire book. I posted it on my blog and I made two public-ish announcements: I posted it on my Facebook page, and I emailed a note about it to a blogger in Europe who had just written something nice about Droidmaker a few days earlier. So I emailed “Binary Bonsai” – he posted it. And that was it.
The word spread globally in a few moments, and in 24 hours there were around 2,000 downloads of the book. A few weeks later there was another spike of interst, bringing the total downloads to about 13,000. In 14 days, more people have read my book than in the prior 4 years. And I finally feel like my work with this is done. #
Exciting for me, as I’ve been a fan of Droidmaker since it came out. I plowed through it in a few days, which is honestly rather rare for me. I hope to have the chance to meet Michael when we’re in California; a fitting encounter on a trip which is already taking us to see Pixar, Skywalker Ranch and a John Williams concert.
I honestly don’t know how all of this could get much better…
Woke up to this scoop:
Hi Michael,
Thought you might want the first notice – because of your posting, i’ve received a fair amount of email, and i’ve decided to post my book for FREE on my blog…
Its more important to me that the story of Lucasfilm be shared and circulated than for me to profit directly. So if you wanted to add that to your blog – you’d be the first!
Thanks for your kind words and support.
Michael (Rubin)
I don’t know what you’re still doing here, when you should be over there, downloading the hell out of that thing! It’s gorgeous; the full 518-page book, complete with photos, index and whatever else you’ll find in the printed version, covering everything from Lucas’ earliest years up through the creation of ILM and its struggle to put Star Wars up on the silver screen, down through Coppola’s experiements with mobile film making, the creation of Pixar, non-linear editing, digital sound editing, the creation of the Games Group and much much more. It is in actual fact, a book about the creation of modern filmmaking (and to some extent games even) as we know it. Don’t let the technical foundation scare you off though; it’s not only accessible, but centered on the people, not the tech. It was easily one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in years.
As he does, I obviously suggest you just go ahead and buy the real thing, should you like what you see.
PS: In case you missed it yesterday, Michael Rubin appeared on Pirillo back when he was promoting the book. There’s also an interview up over at Unidentified Sound Object.
Update: Downloads have passed 10.000, and Michael has posted a breakdown of where the traffic has come from so far. There’s also “a FAQ”:http://droidmaker.blogspot.com/2009/07/droidmaker-faq.html.
Facing the worst nightmare for any man — a worm under the skin, according to H.R. Giger; figuring out what reading material to bring along for our trip home over Easter according to me — is all the more reason to creave a Kindle. It is of course still not available outside the US, and given the adoption rate of the non-rythmic parts of the iTunes Store in the EU, it’s unlikely to see the light of day until just before the Event Horizon eats us all up. And then what’s the point really? Well, I guess it’s better late than never.
Continue reading ‘Plz I Can Haz Kindle?’
I fell head over heels in love with Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon when I read the first chapter online. And I ordered it right then and there and tore through it when it finally arrived a few days after from Amazon. It remains one of my all-time favorite books to this day.
Continue reading ‘Anathem’
“I am fascinated,” I insisted, “That’s the problem. I am suffering from fascination burnout. Of all the things that are fascinating, I have to choose just one or two.”
- Neal Stephenson, Anathem, hardcover edn, Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 733.
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