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

[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.)