Stranger Than Fiction

Online books haven’t exactly proved to be a runaway success. But undeterred, authors are setting up home pages in every corner of the Web.

You do remember books, right? They’re the other sort of squarish things you spend a lot of time staring at, only they have fewer fonts. If a book’s static nature really bugs, try moving it close to your face and then far away, or tilting it slightly or even looking at it through 3-D glasses. Who says we don’t know HTML?

Science-fiction writers seem to have really flocked to the Net, but being a technophobe in that club probably doesn’t go over too well.

The SF Site has an extensive list of authors’ pages at https://www.sfsite.com/scribe/scribe01.htm. We didn’t recognize many names. We did used to read science fiction, but then ninth grade happened.

A name we did recognize was Harlan Ellison (https://harlanellison.com/home.htm). The site has all the usual stuff--upcoming appearances, books to buy--but we really liked “Stuff Harlan Needs,� including collector plates and a World Series mug. Old sci-fi writers never die; they go to EBay.

Two other genres that see a lot of Web action are horror and fantasy. Vampire queen Anne Rice has an extensive site at https://www.annerice.com. There’s a big gift shop where you can order anything from Lestat coffee mugs to whips (not kidding) signed by Anne.

Although it appears Rice is selling everything but her used tissues, we do have to admire her for answering fans’ questions because, well, most of these people appear to be nuts. For example: “Is there any way I could get into direct contact with Lestat?� Someone with less patience might point out that Lestat is a character in a novel and questions like that indicate a severe fracture in perceptions of reality. Anne is much nicer: “Let me assure you, you don’t want to be in direct contact with Lestat! If Lestat is out there, which I’m sure he is, Lestat is one of the most dangerous individuals prowling the Earth.�

Novelist Poppy Z. Brite, who in her early books created vampires that make Rice’s look like Pollyannas, has a Web site at https://www.poppyzbrite.com. Because of Brite’s dark and morbid writing, it was nice to see a picture of her cuddling with a sleeping cat. But then we thought, what if the cat isn’t asleep? Or maybe it doesn’t know what’s going to happen to it. OK, we’re creeped.

Recommended on Brite’s site are the diaries and dreams, which are weird and very funny.

A writer who’s sometimes a little fantasy, sometimes a little horror is Jonathan Carroll. He has a slick site at https://www.jonathancarroll.com. What it’s got going for it: more and better artwork than most, and the reader questions seem to come from people who know what novels are.

Diana Gabaldon’s novels are sometimes classified as historical fiction; but since time travel is involved, we’ll lump her under fantasy. Her Web site is at https://www.cco.caltech.edu/~gatti/gabaldon/gabaldon.html and looks very Anglo and Saxon. One thing she offers that others don’t is tips for writers. It features questions such as this: “I think my chapters are too short; should I use a bigger font size to get the right number of pages?� Oh, please do.

Moving on to mystery, there’s Rita Mae Brown at https://www.ritamaebrown.com, who co-authors books with the cat Sneaky Pie Brown that feature a crime-solving cat named Mrs. Murphy. Both Brown and Sneaky offer open letters to readers. We’ll stop there.

Robert Burns is an assistant Business editor at The Times.