Blogocentric Formulations

The British Fantasist & The Canadian Journalist

PROMPT: If you could be on one author's "beta reader" list and get advanced copies of all their works, which author would it be?


This is a tough question because I obviously want to be on the advanced reading list of an author I really like, but I also don't want it to be someone who I enjoy reading so much that an advance copy would ruin the experience of reading a fully-realized, complete work that I've been anticipating.

For fiction, I think I'd want to be a beta reader for Joe Abercrombie. His fantasy writing is filled with dynamic (often graphic) action and a very wry sense of humor; I can only imagine that he goes through lots of different iterations before reaching a final version. I bet there are some pretty entertaining action sequences and comedy in the earlier drafts that never make it into the final version, and I think it'd be cool to do a little compare-and-contrast between beta copies and published copies.

I wasn't as much a fan of The Heroes as his other work, but Best Served Cold was great and this trilogy ranks among one of my favorite fantasy series of all time for its multi-faceted characters and, of course, the aforementioned humor and violence:

ASIN: 0575092963	First Law Trilogy Boxed Set The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 58.33 Buy Now!

For nonfiction, I'd want to be a beta reader for Malcolm Gladwell. I always find the topics for his books fascinating, even if I think some of them are better than others. He presents a very compelling point of view and backs his assertions up with a wide variety of sources, and just from reading his archive of essays for The New Yorker, it's clear that he's interested in a great variety of subjects. I think it would be fascinating to read the drafts of his manuscripts that aren't so polished; when he's still trying to figure out which direction to take and which data to present.

I think his latest book, David and Goliath, wasn't as good as his others, and What The Dog Saw: And Other Adventures was a collection of his previously published pieces for The New Yorker, but The Tipping Point was fantastic, and this one remains one of the most compelling nonfiction reads I've completed:

ASIN: 0316017930	Outliers: The Story of Success Product Type: Book
	Amazon's Price: $ 10.71 Buy Now!

For both of these authors, I think I could eagerly anticipate getting my hands on an advanced copy without ruining the excitement of reading the finished work when it hits the bookshelves.