Dark Recesses has come back. It’s a new dawn of horror.

Balticon 43 has come and gone. Like last year, I had a great time. It was held at the Marriott in Hunt Valley again, which is a nice spot; large enough to hold the event and cozy as well.

I was fortunate to be on two panels with some very knowledgeable and friendly people. I wasn’t familiar with them before we met, though I had heard of some of them in passing. Meeting other writers and getting a chance to learn about their books and stories, and possibly becoming a fan, is great fun.

The first panel, on Saturday, was “Developing One Liners for Pitching Your Book to the Media.” It was a subject that I know a little bit about, mostly what I learned on my own from marketing the writings of friends and colleagues, my book, and other works. I shared mistakes I made when I was writing screenplays and in marketing my book, as well as how I learned from them and picked up other things along the way.

I also learned a great deal from the more experienced panelists. Jonathan Maberry, a late addition to the panel, was a nice guy to talk to and was very open about his experiences in publishing, working with agents, and working in Hollywood. It was nice to hear from the other side of the industry too, and I believe Neal Levin gave those in attendance a lot to think about in how they approach small-press publishers. David J. Williams had a lot to contribute as well regarding his experiences in promoting his published works. Kelly Harmon kept the session moving as a great moderator with skillful questions.

The second panel, on Monday, was “Good and Evil in Genre Literature.” I felt I had more to contribute in that panel, and I still learned a lot. The other panelists were brilliant, as with the first. Laura Anne Gilman had some fascinating things to say on the nature of what is truly good and what is truly evil and how the concepts apply to choice or the lack thereof. John G. Hemry’s perspective on writing military science fiction was interesting as well, especially in terms of how writing good and/or evil characters applies in writing science fiction. Robert R. Chase moderated the panel well, giving all three of us a lot to think about as we answered the questions, talked back and forth and with the audience.

I also had a chance to stop by the Maryland Writers’ Association table, talked a bit with Paul Lagasse, the MWAB President; Gary Lester, the MWAB Vice-President (who has a book out by Greyrock Publishing, Ursula the Yellow); and Angela Render, a writer, MWA member, and marketing coach. The story board was up again this year, and I added a line. The board was almost full by the time I got there, showing it was a big hit both last year and this year.

There were other events and panels that I went to, and I had a chance to meet and briefly talk to some friends I met at other conferences. One of the other highlights of the weekend was when a friend of mine from high school stopped by on Monday with his kids. It was great to meet up again and catch up on what’s been happening since high school, and to see that a friend and his family are doing well.

Great conference. Great people. Great time.

Amazon seems to have jumped head first into the crapper again (remember this?).

I’m a bit wary to step into things like this myself, given the way common sense and empathy for one’s fellow man sometimes flies out of the window when anger, righteous or not, is involved. But when I found out about this yesterday afternoon, I spent some time searching out a number of blogs, tweets, articles, and whatever else I could find to try to figure out for myself what was really going on here (you can find a few of them at the bottom on this post, and they explain the situation in more detail, if you don’t already know).

It’s not unthinkable for this to have been something intentional on Amazon’s part—companies, governments, and even plain old individuals have done a lot worse in recent years—but I wanted to be sure as far as I could be with what’s available, and as far as I understand it right now. On one hand, it does seem odd that such a visible company would want to do something so asinine on purpose, and so swiftly, unless by some bizarre chance they were hoping that in these trying economic times the media exposure would boost their sales at some point. Even though it would be highly unlikely for them to do that, the exposure after they’ve had a few high- or low-ranking employees go through media channels to issue the standard and remixed apologies is certainly more likely to help their sales in the near future than it is to harm them, at least if they get this fixed soon.

If what they’ve said so far is true, it appears that Amazon really needs to understand how this tech thing works well enough to fix a systems glitch within a matter of hours, or within a day or two, of when it happens (if it is actually a glitch). A company like that shouldn’t come across as if they’re new to the big bad world of technology and are flying blind when it comes to security. With viruses like Conflciker (isn’t that thing still on the loose?) and whatever else persons more skilled in the tech-speak can come up with, you’d think a company with as much to lose, and with as deep pockets, as Amazon would protect their systems like most people would protect their kids.

Secondly, if this debacle is an internal glitch, shouldn’t it be easier to correct? And a glitch from what, exactly? Given the fact that at least one or two GLBT books have been getting de-ranked on Amazon since February, what kind of a glitch could it be? Maybe somebody testing the system in order to create just this kind of thing, just this kind of media circus? Or maybe a discriminatory policy Amazon put in place and tried to execute steadily and quietly, and it somehow backfired, maybe because an angry employee decided to expose what was going on in the underbelly? Or it could be that somebody got lazy, or forgot to do something important while waiting for the holiday weekend. So far, what Amazon is doing, and their explanations—as far as the public can see and what individuals have experienced—don’t lend them much credibility right now.

Whatever the case may be, they have no choice but to fix it as soon as they possibly can. Amazon’s no worse or better than any company that rolls in millions to billions of dollars of revenue a year. They do their part for the whole, just like any other organism. If they’re going to claim to be one of the world’s largest e-sellers, where you can find almost anything, why screw it up by excluding anyone? If those that operate a company are going to care more about their bottom line than the public either way (come on, how many outside of a hand full or two of the large corporations actually care?) then they might as well NOT discriminate based on the fact that money is money regardless. It’s not at all the best way to do things and such a policy has its own unique set of pitfalls, but–as far as helping to maintain a somewhat civilized society goes at this point in time–it works, and in the end almost everybody wins, almost everybody’s happy.

(Of course, it would be nice for some, too, if this, and the other recent events, spelled the beginning of the end for the online giant, and it paved the way for some of the smaller, versatile, people-friendly companies.)

More and more, people that actually do give a damn about the rights and privileges of others are using the same tactics that have been used in the past by less caring and more discriminatory groups to get what they want. And on one level, that can be a good thing. It forces those at the pinnacle of power to understand that just because people don’t have money or a lot of power, individually, doesn’t mean they can be discounted. It forces companies that become outdated in their methods to realize that they have to adapt to the changes in technology and to the expansion that’s happening in the way societies and individuals view each other and the world. People have the power to galvanize others, or to go forward alone, and to change the negative ways in which any given system works.

But on the other hand, power also doesn’t discriminate in how it corrupts. Just because someone, or a group, starts out with a noble cause doesn’t mean that they’re immune to the “knee-jerk” reactions inherent in our human nature, or to the charismatic power mongers that use that aspect of human nature for their own personal gain. It also doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for things to spiral out of control based on the actions and reactions of those that have good intentions.

At any rate, whatever the reason, Amazon needs to correct this problem that has disenfranchised an entire group of people for no particular good reason, and I, for one, hope they do it soon. The longer something like this goes on, the more damage is done overall.

Links to a couple of informative blog posts among the plethoric list of interesting blogs and posts, which also contain links to others and etcetera:

http://mikedaisey.com/

http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166329.asp

http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/176022.html

http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2009/04/some_thoughts_on_amazonfail.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/14/amazon-hacking-piracy