This may sound self-contradictory given what I do for a living

[james_davis_nicoll]

But I do not believe that good things result from authors replying to negative reviews.

Comments

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, LMK has become something very odd: an author writing Mary Sue fan-fiction in her own universe. Without benefit of copy editing.

Gor blimey, missus!

[t-guy.livejournal.com]

John Norman?

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Most Anita Blake fanficcers write her stuff better than she does. Seriously.

[duncatra.livejournal.com]

Aww, she Anne Riced herself in the foot. How adorable!

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*hahahahaha* Oh dear...

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Indeed. She and Howard-Anne and Orson Scott Card need to be locked in a room together for a week.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

1) Why do people keep buying her books? Do they really think there is actually any possible improvement for that series?

2) The characters aren't real to you. They are real to me, and to a lot of other people. ie, She's nuts.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

1: Many people like fiction with sex in.

2: This may be a figure of speech.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

1) nothing wrong with sex in books, but considering the quality of her writing these days, I'd just rather buy an erotica anthology instead if that was important to me.

2) To a point, sure, but I think it relates to possible mental illness. I won't deny that writers do attached to what fictional people they write about, but even some children's authors aren't afraid to kill of some important people, wether or not they are attatched to them. Basicly, I think it's a sign she needs therapy, or at the very least, a long break from writing.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Call me a wild-eyed optimist but I am going to hold off on the speculations that she's gone over the edge or even needs therapy until the invisible ninjas attack her at a con.

That was one long paragraph, though.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

My attitude toward mostly everything are pretty rigid and cynical, so it my affect my views on her. But sometimes nuttyness first appears subtly... Sorry. I always expect the worse, and sometimes it can work out in making what happens next perhas a bit less bleak. I'm a born fatalist.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

For God's sake, I'll be in the mall and see something, and go, "Oh, it's the perfect gift for (fill in the blank)." I've been in line with the present in my hand, before I go, "Wait, these are make believe people. I can't buy them a Christmas present." I guess I could, but there's no way to give it to them.

She's over the edge. Separation of reality and fantasy are tenuous at best. Her super-ego is catching her out just before it becomes incredibly awkward and obvious to everybody.

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

I'm skeptical about wether or not "super-egos" exist.

But yeah, I have a sense of where she is headed too. I'm almost sorry for her.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

She doesn't give off the KEE-RAZY vibe that so many SF writers do so effortlessly.

She does give off a strong, strong "justifying my lifestyle choice" vibe. "If you don't like my fetishes, why do you keep on sleeping with me?"

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

She's nuts

She says she knows she can't give them gifts; they're not Real real. But they matter to her, and it may well feel like they make their own story decisions, as Katherine Kurtz said of hers, and many other writers have said of their characters. We build models of other people in our minds; writers build models of fictional people in their minds, and the models may feel like they have their own life, their own integrity.

Though she's more explicitly saying that she doesn't want the emotional response she and readers would get from killing the characters; they're not casually disposable, to her. Like Sherlock Holmes wasn't to his fans, or many other popular characters to theirs.

As for "Anne Ricing herself in the foot"... I don't know, it seemed a pretty sensible rant to me. She's not calling them fools for hating or badmouthing her books, just wondering why they bother, and being a bit smug about sales.

So

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

Her problem mostly might have more to do with her own egotism and lack of respect for her fans? That also makes sense.

Re: So

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where egotism or lack of respect was demonstrated. Or where she has any problem. So the books she writes now don't appeal to a lot of the people who liked the first books -- she likes writing them, lots of people enjoy reading them, she's not calling people idiots for not liking the later books, what's the problem?

Re: So

[eukarya.livejournal.com]

The fact that she once admitted to adding more sex scenes for the sake of it because a lot of her long-time fans (who are not nessacarily prudes) who are/were complaining about how her series was going downhill says a lot, in my opinion.

[t-guy.livejournal.com]

...they're not casually disposable, to her. Like Sherlock Holmes wasn't to his fans, or many other popular characters to theirs.

The difference was that Holmes was disposable to his creator/writer, if not casually so (but then, Holmes wasn't Doyle's Mary Sue...).

Also, IIRR, Tarzan was supposed to be retired after the fourth or fifth book, but Burroughs brought him out of retirement (as seen in one of the B. Custer books) with ill grace. I suppose at least he didn't write himself into the books, Hitchcock-like, to moan about what a damn pain in the posterior they were, unlike Agatha Christie. And Burroughs, remember, had the sense to set up two series right at the start of his career, so the possibility of boredom was less to begin with.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I suppose at least he didn't write himself into the books, Hitchcock-like, to moan about what a damn pain in the posterior they were, unlike Agatha Christie.

Wasn't the Christie analogue basically comic relief, used to poke fun at herself? I mean, the complaint that comes to mind is Ariadne Oliver commenting that before one starts a long series about a Finnish detective, it is a good idea to actually research Finland.

[t-guy.livejournal.com]

Ariadne Oliver commenting that before one starts a long series about a Finnish detective, it is a good idea to actually research Finland.

Spot on. I remember Sven (was it? whatever his name was) as Swedish, but there you are. Her complaint was, as I recall, that she wishes she hadn't made him Swedish because she knows nothing about Sweden (or Finland...). So, yes, you're just Nicollising the way of expressing it.

More generally, 'comic relief' was part of it; I recall her leaving apple cores all over the place.

There's really no point in drawing the attention of writers of long fantasy series to this example and expecting them to follow it, is there? Any more than drawing, etc. to the fact that Christie's books all come in at under 200 pages.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

... or even to "negative readers."

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

"Make you think hard?" My problem with the books was that the characters were about as complex as characters in porn novels--going from sex scene to sex scene. No problem with that, if that's what readers want. Hey, I'm all for enjoyment. But I didn't detect any thinking involved, much less hard thinking.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm okay with her needing to answer people who have criticized her, (even though it is always a bad idea) but implying that if they don't like her writing, they don't like complexity or realistic characters? Errrm...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I think "you think" was supposed to be "your thing".

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh! Well, that makes better sense than the other way. Even if part of her readership doesn't have a 'thing' to get hard. Well, whatever works.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Well, as I see it, there are the following possibilities:

1) Readers who liked her early work will finally believe she won't write anything like that again, and stop bothering, thus she gets a drop in sales, and in check-outs, and the snowball effect takes over, and sometime about 2010 or so, drops into obscurity. Or On-demand, which is the same thing.

2) It really makes no significant difference, as the higher sales are indicative of a fan base that is really growing because they like her style and content.

3) It draws more readers, who like chutzpah and they stay with the series.

I suspect #2 the likely. Those literate readers who liked the mood and style of her early work will almost definately jump off the sex-crazed vampire series it has becmoe. But it doesn't matter, because sex sells, baby. America and Europe love sex-filled stories more than stories with no sex. Rational explanations not needed, put those characters in the sack! Insult the reader's intelligence, give no thought to plotting, open can of worms afrter can of worms, tie nothing off. No one cares, it won't hurt sales, and each new character adds more opportunities for a new person to relate. Like life, such stories never end.

Unfortunately, I don't like such stories that never end. I think a core group of characters can be used in sequential stories, but even in life, stories end.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

Readers who liked her early work will finally believe she won't write anything like that again,

some of us are already there.

the books where anita had some weird religious antisex thing going on were really quite adequate, and i liked whichever the edward book was a *lot*. enough to kick her into the set of authors i bought in hardcover. sadly, then anita got laid, and the series has gone down hill from there.

i actually think that the merry gentry books are an improvement; she right up front made the plot all about the sex lives of the characters, rather than trying to sneak it in.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

You don't think that snarky comment threads count as a good thing?

[cliff_s.livejournal.com]

Hasn't she essentially crossed genres from Fantasy (vampire hunter/detective) to Romance (kinky sex! s&m! pointy teeth! more kinky sex!)? Check me on this, but isn't Romance much, much bigger than both Fantasy & SF combined?

If so, it's not exactly surprising or brag-worthy that her sales have increased. She's just switched to the Wal-Mart of fiction genres.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but I like your Dore icon. I used to go look at the original of it (an original, anyway: I hear he painted it some four times) at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, and snapped at least one keepable pic of it before we moved. (Does this mean you're the neophyte who is probably going over the wall tonight?)

[pameladean]

The bit where she slipped into assuming that the only reason people don't like her stuff is that they just can't take its edginess was unfortunate, but you know, she really has a point about negative fans. I've talked to some myself. They won't let GO. Something other than mere dislike has to be going on in their heads or they would just walk away if they are so darned fed up. They act like a rejected lover. It's creepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously talking to them does no good, but marvelling at the phenomenon is something I can absolutely relate to.

Then again, I had a lot of sympathey for Anne Rice's remarks, too.

I am very lucky to be obscure, or Lord knows what I'd end up saying in public.

P.

I would like to say that the following is not in reference to anything you have said or might do

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

But it seemed apt for some reason:




[from http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229.htm ]

_This_ is why editors prefer Celtic authors to Saxons, by the way. Saxons are far more axey while your Celt can be distracted by an easily stolen cow.

[fearmeforiampink]

While it's not exactly the same thing, negative fans that won't let go reminds me of this: "Why Star Wars fans hate Star Wars" - when you get right down to it, people feel betrayed by the unrealised potential in things like this. I wouldn't be suprised if many of the fervent anti-fans of Anita are people who liked the idea and style of the first novels, wanted more of that, and feel betrayed by what it has instead become.

Probably has to do with kink divergence

[(Anonymous)]

First couple-six Anita Blake books were all about rejecting sex; there's a whole class of purity-and-virginity kinks that would have enjoyed the "yes, I'm smoking hot, and yes, you're unbelievably inhumanly hot, and you're fighting over me, but the answer is still no" subtext a whole lot. (They were all also very much about how Anita wasn't a monster.)

The more recent books aren't just not about rejecting sex, in a "twelve guys and a big jar of mayonnaise, for me?" sort of way, but are in that same subtextual way about how Anita was wrong to have rejected her sexuality -- sex is a good thing, a legitimate access to social bonding, comfort, feeling loved, and all sorts of new and interesting kinds of mystical power.

You could take the recent books as an argument that in a world of monsters, Anita is, inevitably, as a matter of birth, also a monster, and only likely to enjoy any sort of romantic success with other monsters. This is, however pornishly presented, an extremely transgressive take on the usual "misunderstood due to special powers" story. (Especially since one of the points is that Anita isn't a bad monster -- good/bad and human/monster don't connect, and what makes you a good person isn't what makes you a good monster.)

Given the kind of importance that class of being-misunderstood story can have for people, being transgressive of it -- changing where they thought the series was going -- is bound to get some folks a bit tangled up.

-- Graydon

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

She's got this whole whine-rant going about how she won't censor violence, so why censor sex? (Utterly ignoring, of course, the fact that most of her acts of violence are also key plot points. If she's going to delineate every single damned sex act -- and she is the world's most boring writer of sex acts -- then she should be describing every time Jason walks to the 7/11 to get Jean-Claude a Pearson's Nut Goodie and each time that Richard sits on the crapper.)

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

My eyes, they burn.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

I think she misspells ‘ordure’.

:)

[morchades.livejournal.com]

I'm not an LKH reader, but I find the whole idea though tat the negative reader just doesn't like being "pushed out of their comfort zone" -- the idea that they dislike the books because they are cowardly -- a horribly condescending thing to say.