Two interesting details: some of the books on the Lethe site are displayed such that I cannot link to the cover art and as a consequence of that, I had to go booksellers selling the books. That made me notice a lack of consistency for which book sellers offer which Lethe books, at least as acknowledged by Lethe.
In case you missed it, he's been doing this for the last week or so. Clearly just trying to get google-juice. Or perhaps hoping people will follow back to his own LJ page.
Given that his own LJ page consists of bragging about how many hits he's got from how many countries, probably the latter. But whether it's for the bragging rights or to show potential advertisers how many eyeballs he can offer, I think James would be justified in reporting him as a spammer.
The product description for Japanese Dreasm, via Amazon:
Contributions by such well-known fantasy authors as Steve Berman, Eugie Foster, Jay Lake, Yoon Ha Lee, Robert Joseph Levy, Lisa Manchev, Ricgard Parks, Ekateria Sedia, Erzebet TeloowBoy and more, all offer us a glimpse of a silken sleeve or the red fur of the fox as she slips between the rushes, daring us to follow.
The complete lack of any actual Japanese authors is ... um ... yeah. Especially with the Orientalist language about silken sleeves and the red fox.
I couldn't find a full list of authors in the anthology. But even if they're ate Happiness writers, and if this is a publicist screw-up, it's a remarkably tone-deaf one.
Doubt it matters, but Catherynne Valente talks about this in her introduction--there are no Japanese authors; these are stories by non-Japanese authors dreaming of Japan (paraphrased).
Well, a friend of mine whose rather more of an expert in Japan then me, read the first story. Commented on basic research, lack thereof; lack of political/sociological context for the story from the Kojiki she's adapting; probable use of out-of-date Chamberlin translations; messy use of tenses. And so on.
At this point, I fully expect ninjas and geishas. And probably Wolverine, too.
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... smells pretty spammy to me :)
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The complete lack of any actual Japanese authors is ... um ... yeah. Especially with the Orientalist language about silken sleeves and the red fox.
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Read as: "But even if there are Japanese writers..."
(I swear, some days I miss Pine and Elm.)
But yeah, even if there were Japanese writers down the list in the anthology, not having any in the publicity blurb makes it look at best, tone deaf.
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At this point, I fully expect ninjas and geishas. And probably Wolverine, too.
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