I haven’t been to a bookstore in years. (Bookstores are one of those places with physical books lining the walls. No, not the library, the other one. You know, like video stores, but for books. Video stores? They’re like Netflix, but they don’t have what you want and they’re too expensive.)

I used to love bookstores. When I first moved to London I worked a little way up the road from a bunch of them, and as I started work quite late in the morning I had time to go browsing. I didn’t have any money to actually buy anything, but somehow I still ended up with a wall covered in books.

Travelling for a few months, I had to buy a second suitcase to cart my books around. There were always bookstores wherever I went, and I discovered some great authors by stopping for a coffee and a browse.

The last time I went into a bookstore to browse, let alone buy something, was years ago. I was an early adopter of ebooks and had a Compaq iPAQ filled with everything I could find. Back then you still had to buy physical books if you wanted to keep reading your favourite authors, but for that I had Amazon. Actually going into a bookstore was a hassle when everything I could ever want was a few clicks away, and cheaper too.

My bookshelf kept growing for a few years, if a little slower. I found a science fiction author I enjoyed and bought his entire backlist, or tracked down a copy of a book I read when I was a kid. I bought physical copies for books I already had an electronic version of, just to have them on my shelf.

At some point I stopped buying physical books. My wife still did, following her favourites and avoiding ereaders, and so my bookshelf kept growing. It just did so even more slowly.

I saw a bookstore yesterday and tried to remember the last time I went into one. My wife now has an ereader, and though she’s still getting used to it she’s actually pretty happy. Our bookshelf hasn’t grown in a year. I read on my phone mostly, but I use a Kindle if I’m at the beach. I haven’t read a physical book in a long time. Not even my own.

At some point, while I was ignoring them and revelling in the huge selection and options of Amazon, the bookstores I loved went away. There are still a few dotted around, but they aren’t actually bookstores anymore, not the way they used to be. The staff have no idea what they’re talking about and the selection sucks. The atmosphere just isn’t the same.

This is my fault. I get that.

There are people who kept going, who kept browsing and buying from actual stores. There are bookstores that are as cool as they ever were, just none near me.

Here’s the thing: I’m not going to change. I’m not going to start buying books from my local bookstore because I’m not suddenly going to start reading physical books again. For those special books, the ones I need to have on my shelf, I’ll try. I’ll go to the store and I’ll get them to order a copy for me (because they won’t have it on the shelf), but this is too little, too late.

Bookstores will never be more than a niche in my life, and as more people shift to using Amazon (or some other online store) for their book needs things are only going to get worse. I say worse only because of nostalgia, of course. The new world is fantastic, or I wouldn’t be using it.

But I will miss the shelves crammed with potential. I will miss the hunt. No matter how good, no matter how much more efficient it is, a recommendation algorithm just isn’t the same.

OK, I’m done being an old man for today.

Go read a book.

Here's another opening. This time it's The Bridge

Click Read More to...read more.

Here's the opening to my new novel, The Algorithm.

Click Read More to...read more.

I think I was worried about who to pick for the hero of The Algorithm. If I was reading a series and I was invested in the characters and the world, would I be alright with my heroes from the first book not being in the second book? Even if there are other characters that carry over, will the lack of a familiar headspace be a problem?

For Isaac’s Story: London I decided to have different protagonists in every book. They exist in the same world and they run across some of the same larger-than-life people populated it, but every book will have a different lead character or two. With the series I want to show the evolution of the city and of the world, leading to the big climax in book 5.

I don’t have a problem with a hero sticking around for sequels. Die Hard requires John McClane and wouldn’t make sense without him. Jaws, on the other hand, doesn’t. The hoops they had to jump through to keep a narrative going between those sequels were ridiculous. Why not just have a world where there are large sharks and sometimes they enjoy munching on a bit of human? Because reasons.

I’ve got this other series, Dead Men, which has the same hero in every entry. It’s a serial with a different plot arch in every episode, but every episode is shorter than a book. This might seem like cheating on the premise of this post (as I could just move to a different character for the next season), but I’m going to keep using West as the hero once I’ve finished this season. There will be continuity for her character.

So what’s the difference?

Dead Men stars “Captain” West, a soldier, and a group of other people who are also soldiers. Getting into adventures is what they do, and carrying the same people from book to book makes sense. It isn’t weird when they step from one group of people shooting at them to another, because they get paid to do exactly that.

Isaac’s Story: London is about more normal people, and how they deal with the weirdness and danger of their city. Howard (from The Bridge) is an accountant and Jon (from The Algorithm) is a digital security guy. I can come up with ways Jon could get into another adventure, but beyond that it would be a stretch. Howard getting caught up in something else would be ridiculous.

As the series moves along there will be more action oriented characters with a more appropriate skill set, but even then I don’t see why they would necessarily get into other adventures, and certainly not the larger adventures that are the focus of the novels. They then become secondary characters, dropping in and out as their own lives dictate.

Also, have you seen the latest Die Hard movies? John McClane isn’t relatable anymore. He’s a superhero, shrugging off bullets and dancing on the wing of a fighter jet. What (arguably) made this character so great (the everyman) is gone, replaced by an action hero. And everybody knows it, but we go watch the films anyway because we love what the character used to be.

I could have done that with my series, and there are many better writers who have, but it wouldn’t have made sense to me. These characters don’t want to dodge bullets for a living and as soon as they can they will run the other way. Those that don’t (Kazumi Amaya, Salmon, Angel, Devil) don’t get to be the focus of every big thing that happens in the city, because that wouldn’t make sense. To me, at least.

Isaac’s Story: Hong Kong, coming early next year, will have characters that we stick with between books, because they are the major reason the world is changing. Just like West in Dead Men, they instigate the adventure, bending the world around them. Though that series follows directly from this one it will have a different feel, and carrying the characters from book to book makes sense there.

I’m done babbling; I have stuff to write. West is about to ******* *** a ******* if he doesn’t stop ********* her ***, and I need to get back to it to see what she does next.

Go read a book.