INTERNET FLAME WAR!

I’m coming in late to this (work: KICKING MY ASS; the mess in my apartment: KICKING MY ASS; life in general: KICKING MY FUCKING ASS) and am jumping in the fray only because an alert reader very kindly *snort* provided us with linkage, but in case you’re a blind or somehow incapacitated and completely unable to do your blog rounds: Angie managed to blow things up quite nicely yesterday on RTB with her article about credible reviews, and Karen Scott picked up the torch, and MaryJanice Davidson provided some hilarious commentary, even if I said “bitch, please!” more than once while reading what she had to write. Which really isn’t too different from how I am when I’m reading her books, heh.

Y’all know how I feel about reviews, reviewing and authors who think readers aren’t qualified to review. If you feel any doubts, then check out this little bit of mouth-frothing from days of yore. (Tangent: Smart Bitches is almost a year old. What the fuck, y’all?)

I only have one more thing to throw into the discussion, and it’s probably nothing particularly new (I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t read all the comments in all the threads about this issue): Authors who snip and snipe about how readers just aren’t qualified to review a book because they don’t know what it’s like to

give birth to precious, precious babies all by their little selfses

survive the rigors of the publishing process love to draw similes to professions like medicine, law, engineering and the hard sciences. Look, no schlub off the street is qualified to critique, say, a research paper on quantum mechanics. And that’s a perfectly valid point. Y’all need to be certified to do that shit. The implication is: the average reader’s view is invalid, and only authors can know another author’s pain and be qualified to provide commentary on a published novel.

Oh, you know what I’m gonna say next: BITCH, PLEASE. What I want to know is: how many published authors—especially authors who write genre fiction—have advanced degrees in, say, English, Linguistics or Fine Arts? If these standards are to be accepted as logical, then off the top of my head, Sara Donati is allowed to review books and THE REST OF US (myself definitely included) need to sit down and shut the fuck up.

Here’s the terrifying part that authors hate, just hate to own up to: you really don’t need any special qualifications to get a novel published, much less write one. I’m not saying it’s easy—it’s patently not. But unlike a doctor, or an accountant, or an engineer, you don’t need any sort of professional certification to be recognized as an author. People who have successfully published books—massively bestselling books, even—have come from all over the economic, education and class spectrum: high-school drop-outs, college professors, single moms scribbling story ideas on the backs of napkins, teenagers, ex-cops, accountants, bored English majors. Shit, if books like The Lighthouse Keeper are any indication, you don’t even need to be particularly literate to write a novel that’s consquently slobbered over by readers like a 10-year-old boy at a NAMBLA meeting. And experiments like Naked Came the Stranger have proved that crap, well, sells.

So on one hand: Kudos for being published.

But on the other hand: Your masterpiece is sharing that honor with books like Desire’s Blossom and To Tame a Renegade.

And one last thing: I’m also amused by the people who are swearing off MaryJanice Davidson because of her views. My personal opinion is, yeah, she’s being an asshole, but she’s a funny asshole, and that’s some hard, hard shit to pull off. I can sympathize with the urge, but hell, if I swore off asshole authors entirely, my list of authors I could read would be very slim indeed, and frankly, I’m too selfish for that because I’m such a book whore—I like ‘em big, I like a LOT of them, and often several different ones at the same time. There’s only one reason I no longer bother to read anything MJD releases, and that’s because I’ve decided her recent books have sucked a lot of ass, even though I enjoy her distinctive, snarky voice.

Comments are Closed

  1. Dear Auntie Peril,

    I now officially have a hilarity hernia, you evil, evil woman. I suppose I might as well get my online U.T.E.R.U.S. degree and apply for my A.R.S.E. membership. In the two-year period, would prospective A.R.S.E. members be known as “Little A.R.S.E.s”?

  2. Candy says:

    I have a confession to make: I seek out one-star Amazon.com reviews, mostly because they’re hilarious—often unintentionally so. What is it about badly-written bad reviews that makes so much funnier than badly-writen gushy reviews? Part of it’s the sweet, sweet irony, I suppose. I’m with sherryfair: the especially bad Amazon.com reviews are an art form unto themselves, and I love ‘em.

    That said, the brouhaha surrounding Keishon’s negative review sucked ass, and the author crossed the line for me. If I felt inclined to read the book, her behavior has tainted it so much that I’m not sure I’d be able to give it a fair shot.

    On the other hand, I recently read Ender’s Game and enjoyed it, even though many of Orson Scott Card’s opinions and beliefs are completely repugnant, so who knows?

    I’ve finally worked through most of the comments on RTB, and I noticed that MJD noted we’d savaged her. Well, to be accurate, I’d savaged her. And I thought, awww, c’mon, I gave her a C-! That’s nothing! Lucy Monroe or Cassie Edwards coming after me with a steak knife, THAT I can understand, but MJD? Then I re-read my review and woo damn, I was a tad mean.

    And Shannon: I remember now. You didn’t cross us—I merely disagreed with some of your opinions. I was an ass about it, yeah, but I’m an ass in general, and own to that cheerfully, unless I’m in a bad mood, in which case I’ll whine and pout about how I’m being misunderstood, waaaahhhhhhhh.

  3. FerfeLaBat says:

    The hillarity continues …

    MJD bans a reader from buying her books … ever.

  4. Shannon says:

    I was an ass about it, yeah, but I’m an ass in general, and own to that cheerfully

    You do give delightful traffic, though.  I might scheme a way to really piss you off in April, when both of my books are scheduled to release in print. *g*

  5. Cyn says:

    During the 2 year trial period, candidates could be considered similar to doctors in training and therefore should be referred to as Resident A.R.S.E.s r-a.r.s.e.

  6. Or perhaps Faux A.R.S.E.?

  7. Candy says:

    “MJD bans a reader from buying her books … ever.”

    Yeah, I saw that last night and thought that was one of the funniest things I’d read recently. Bitchy as all hell, but very amusing.

  8. Cyn says:

    Faux A.R.S.E.!! Where’s my application?! I have loads of experience plus my online degree in T.W.A.T.S. should qualify me as able to “to evaluate the erotic content of romantica.”

  9. MaryJanice says:

    MJD the one note wonder here.  Someone on this string made a great point: how many blog pages and comments boxes have been used up by writers explaining they don’t pay attention to reviews? Gobs. Which in itself says something, whether we want it to or not. Assuming everyone reading the same posts can agree about what they’re saying, which is far from guaranteed.

    Heck, in various strings, people have read posts and decided: I’m hilarious.  No, I’m a rabid foaming bitch who should be gagged, sedated, then shot, probably without a silencer. No, it’s all tongue in cheek. No, it’s mean.

    Or: poor innocent Karen Scott, minding her own business when MJD went off like a mad dog (who should be gagged, sedated, then shot).  No, Karen was a jerk and MJD took her down a peg.  No, she didn’t.  Yes, she did.  Shut up.  YOU shut up.

    Or: MJD offended everyone in the world, forever. No, she explained herself. No, she didn’t explain; she’s spineless. No, we just didn’t get it. Yes, we did: she’s an arse.

    (Speaking of, my application to A.R.S.E. is now on file.)

    And: MJD is a jackbooted thug who thinks only PhD candidates should review her books. No, she doesn’t even have a college degree; proof she’s the last person who would think that. Well, maybe, but she’s still a spineless shifty-eyed loser dumbass whore. Well, okay, I’ll give you that one.

    My point, and I do have one (and let’s hope I make this one better than the first one, and whoops, there went my spine, I just slithered into a boneless pile right in front of my screen), is that it doesn’t matter how many posts there are on a topic, how many explanations, how much debate, how much name-calling…people are going to make up their own minds.  If they didn’t before they even waded in.  If you educate someone, awesome. If you change their mind, great. If you don’t, that’s okay too. Either way: I know a lot more about reviews, reviewers, and Amazon than I did on Monday.  And that’s for sure.

  10. FerfeLaBat says:

    :::Checking:::

    Yeah.  I still think this is hillarious.  I’m probably going straight to hell when I die.

  11. HelenKay says:

    So, now we know the two blog topics guaranteed to generate a robust discussion are reviews and MJD.  These two may be more popular than man titties.  Maybe not, but it sure looks like it.

    Seems to me there can be good reader reviewers and good author reviewers.  Being a writer or not shouldn’t preclude someone from reviewing.  Now, writing “the dialog sparkles” for every book and giving every freaking one 5 Gold Stars – yeah, that’s not a reviewer.  That’s a PR person.  But, the real issue here is the one raised by Beth.  No matter how this debate comes out we need to make an exception so that Beth can rip on Gabaldon’s books.

    And to the extent the former argument on this topic (I believe it came from a mess I started) resulted in Shannon being called a fucktard – I apologize to Shannon for my role in that.  Name calling isn’t good.  Neither were the nasty private emails I got (not from Shannon).  All bad.  Maybe we should stick to talking about MJD.  Less chance of PTSD.  I love her books…

  12. Candy says:

    MY PLOY TO GET MARYJANICE DAVIDSON TO CALL HERSELF A DUMBASS WHORE ON SMART BITCHES HAS WORKED, MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    And now, the Four Horsemen. *hoofbeats*

    Anyway, thank you, MaryJanice, for an excellent executive summary. It also illustrates the subjectivity of the reading experience. If these little bits of writing—with the authors on hand to provide clarification, mind you—can be interpreted in such a dizzying array of ways, then imagine the number of reactions and interpretations possible for a whole friggin’ BOOK.

    I can only dream of aspiring to A.R.S.E.; the sad fact is, I’m far too lazy to acquire even THAT particular bit of certification.

  13. AngieW says:

    Either way: I know a lot more about reviews, reviewers, and Amazon than I did on Monday.  And that’s for sure.

    Don’t we all?

    Hate mail to the wench who started this whole thing can be directed to:

    IMnARSE @ ARSE.ORG

  14. Kate R says:

    hey, didn’t you start it all, Angie? So you’re an ARSE too?

  15. MaryJanice says:

    I would never, ever presume to be a more popular topic than man titties.  That’s. So. Wrong. 🙂

  16. Shannon says:

    I’m crushed that MJD didn’t take me up on my offer to trade my husband for ARCs for life. He’s quite good.

    Save me a seat, Ferfe.

    And no apologies, HelenKay. That was definitely my shoeprint in the pile. It was a good discussion (you know, except for the fucktard part)and your comments did actually change my opinion of the whole matter. I’m not really traumatized. (And I’ll have to eat chocolate after this, but I miss Ms.Called Me A Fucktard’s blog every day when I bloghop. I enjoy her view on things)(Well, except her view on me *ggg*)

  17. Anders says:

    “Here’s the terrifying part that authors hate, just hate to own up to”

    Not true at all, at least in my case. It would be awful if writers needed some kind of degree.

  18. Candy says:

    Shit, if we’re trading husbands for ARCs, then I’d like to offer the Very Tall Husband to Laura Kinsale, Loretta Chase, Barbara Samuel, Jennifer Crusie or Lisa Kleypas. Yes, he eats a LOT, and he has a bad habit of forgetting stuff like birthdays, but:

    a) HOT. Seriously, he’s one of the hottest boys I’ve ever met.

    b) Is 6’8”, and thus is handy when you need something retrieved from great heights.

    c) Computer-savvy. He’s broken and ressurected more computers than Elizabeth Taylor has husbands.

    d) Enormously strong. When I got my elliptical machine last year, he single-handedly wrestled that beast into the living room, when two of the guys at work (burly ones, too) could barely lift it into the trunk of my car.

    e) Smells nice.

    f) Smart. He has a large vocabulary, and he ain’t afraid to use it, grrrrwoof!

    g) Loves animals, though he likes cats a lot more than dogs.

    h) Will introduce you to more weird new music than you can shake a stick at, from French electronica to Senor Coconut.

    First one to bid, wins. I have the tranq gun at the ready.

  19. Candy says:

    Anders: Good point. My statement was just a wee bit too sweeping.

  20. Beth says:

    Hey, I went out and got my hair cut and spent like 5 hours in traffic, only to come back and find that y’all are STILL talking about this.

    More than that, I must say I’m impressed. If you read this whole debate starting at RTB and then come on over and finish up here, you get this amazing and rarely-witnessed phenomenon: WOMEN in the ROMANCE community actually CRITICIZING each other and saying what they HONESTLY THINK about the other person, but not being Great Big Babies about it and taking their toys home after wailing “get out of my sandbox, you meanie!” Way to suck it up, buttercups!

    Incidentally, my opinion is that MJD’s original comment wasn’t at all that non-writers shouldn’t review. Just that semi-literate Amazon reviewers shouldn’t discourage a writer because what the hell do THEY know, anyway? Which I really have to agree with. But frankly, I’ll agree with anything that allows me to piss off the Ladies of Lallybroch. I mean, I do have my priorities. And I really enjoyed every moment of my vilification. If that’s a word.

    PS: Candy, you forgot that I’m even in even deeper moral doo-doo than that, because I am (gasp! shock! fetch me the hartshorn!) friends with actual authors.  Lawks a’mercy and quelle scandale.

  21. Stef says:

    I haven’t even made it far enough up the ladder to get Amazon reviews – shitty, or otherwise.  Well, okay, The Amazing, Reads a Thousand Books a Month and Thus Usually Gets Protagonists’ Names Wrong Harriet Klausner has reviewed my books, but I’m pretty sure she reviews pamphlets about Famous Jewish Sports Legends and Nora’s grocery list in her free time, so she doesn’t really count.

    I can’t wait until I’m all grown up and I can get some illiterate Amazon book bashing going on too.  Ah, the things we aspire to.  I’m also looking forward to my first hot flash.

  22. Candy says:

    “Incidentally, my opinion is that MJD’s original comment wasn’t at all that non-writers shouldn’t review. Just that semi-literate Amazon reviewers shouldn’t discourage a writer because what the hell do THEY know, anyway?”

    This is entirely too reasonable an interpretation; therefore, I refuse to accept it. Do you hear me, Beth? JE REFUSE.

    “Candy, you forgot that I’m even in even deeper moral doo-doo than that, because I am (gasp! shock! fetch me the hartshorn!) friends with actual authors.”

    Holy fuck! That’s right!

    Hey, put in a good word for the Very Tall Husband with Laura, will ya?

  23. Shaunee says:

    “Shit, if we’re trading husbands for ARCs, then I’d like to offer the Very Tall Husband”

    Candy, I have no ARCs, but am wondering if you’ll take a few bottles of wine and a gently used Fendi bag in exchange for the Very Tall Husband?  If he will regularly take out the trash and scrape the snow off my car, I’ll throw in 6 months worth of Jamaican Blue Mountain pure (a helluva deal at $35-$50/pound).

  24. ‘If these little bits of writing—with the authors on hand to provide clarification, mind you—can be interpreted in such a dizzying array of ways, then imagine the number of reactions and interpretations possible for a whole friggin’ BOOK.’

    EXACTLY. I got a review that totally trashed one of our books…Too much backstory, plot too complicated, worldbuilding terms not properly explained, too long. The reviewer ended with my favorite empty statement, “needed more editing’.

    Not a week later, I got a review from another site—the polar opposite. Reviewer raved about how great the backstory was, the plot was complicated but well thought out, loved the way the worldbuilding terms were explained without it being overdone, etc.

    Two reviewers, two totally different opinions. Who was right? Who the hell knows? Almost as much fun as the reader who yelled at me because one of our books made her ‘think too much’.

    Goes back to the old salt: Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one, and some are more offensive than others. Getting upset about them does no good—they’re not going to go away. Take what you can from them and move on.

    And MJD…the bit about the convo with your editor cracked me completely up. Self-deprecating humor has always been my favorite, and I’ve actually HAD conversations like that.

  25. Candy says:

    Sorry, Shaunee—I’m allergic to alcohol AND hypersensitive to caffeine. And I am fond of the big old lug, so if I whore him out, I gotta make sure it’s totally worth it—to me, anyway.

  26. Robin says:

    Heck, in various strings, people have read posts and decided: I’m hilarious.  No, I’m a rabid foaming bitch who should be gagged, sedated, then shot, probably without a silencer. No, it’s all tongue in cheek. No, it’s mean.

    See, I think you like having it both ways—or either way, or no way, or anyway in between.  There’s a little bit of that Mark Twain wisdom that the best practical joke is the one recently played on you, I guess.  And having spent an entire semester with a Con Law professor who had clerked for two Supreme Court justices telling us how unqualified he was for the task of teaching us has made me extra sensitive to disingenuous self-flagellation.  Not that I know what’s going on with you or not, but FWIW, I think there’s a sharp, sharp edge to your commentary that some of us have reacted to (and that at some point eclipses the humor).  It won’t stop me from buying your books (the hardcover prices have slowed me down there all by themselves), but it surprised me. 

    As for being a writer.  Good reviews, fan mail and everything else is a DRUG.  If you get three emails today that say they like your book, you need four tomorrow that say your book was the best they’d ever read and they sleep with it under their pillow.  You CAN’T depend on this drug.

    I don’t think this point can be understated, and I think it’s the single most powerful reason there is so much resistance to critique in Romance.  Authors write for fans, a word that implies both extremity and approbation, and as long as readers reside in the “fan” category, they are the target audience.  But have those same “fans” critique a book, and all of a sudden we’re not qualified to judge.  I don’t blame authors entirely for this conundrum, because I think it’s promoted by the industry as a whole, but it’s an attitude that goes as far as clinch covers and man titty IMO to de-legitimating Romance in the eyes of readers outside the genre.  And while it’s something that may have its roots in sexism, women are now policing it all by ourselves.

  27. Kate R says:

    yah about the MJD Voice (or any romance writer)—you can read it if you like it, and you can ignore it if you hate it.

    The beauty of this all is that we’re not actually talking about a judge or even just a law professor trying to impress you by being unimpressive. There will be no test at the end of this section and her declarations won’t go down in the law books.

    If I were picking someone who reminded me of MJD I’d say it’s more Ali . . dancing around like a butterfly occasionally stinging like a bee.

  28. Liz Burton says:

    I love reader reviews—readers are who I write for. But I do take exception to some things.

    1. Snarky reviews that consist of wording like one I got on Amazon: “This book was terrible, I never finished the first chapter.”

    If a book is badly written, that’s one thing. If it’s just not to your taste, that’s different. One of my biggest pet peeves is readers who trash a book NOT because it’s a bad book but because (a) they never read that kind of book but read this one anyway and HATED IT and/or (b) went into the book with a preconceived notion what it was about, was disappointed that’s not what it was and proceeded to trash it for not being what no one ever said it was.

    That said, I also object to review venues, be they online or off, that don’t provide professional quality reviews. If you’re going to have reader reviews, then at least have the honesty to say that’s what they are. There is a difference, and having been a reviewer before I was a published writer I think it’s unfair to readers not to make clear which is being offered.

  29. Delan says:

    When I read MJD’s comments in threads on other blogs, they sounded like a slightly wittier version of the reviewer hateration we’ve heard from the likes of PBW, but with a substantial amount of tooting her own horn thrown in. What finally tore it for me was the catty comment about Karen Scott misunderstanding MJD due to a language barrier. Huh?!

    A few people appear be giving MJD the benefit of the doubt and assuming it was all in fun. They’re entitled to their opinions, of course. Every follow-up comment from her has been, in my view, a desperate attempt to make herself look clever and still take swipes at her critics.

    From one way of looking at it, the Authors Behaving Badly phenomenon is a good thing. Instead of buying a book from an author who acts like — what was that word? ah, yes — an “asshat” on the Internet, I can spend that money elsewhere, preferably on an author who doesn’t constantly remind us of how many books she’s sold. PBW’s comments in this regard are particularly insufferable.

  30. Maili says:

    No matter how this debate comes out we need to make an exception so that Beth can rip on Gabaldon’s books.

    Beth has my full championship, blessing, permission, agreement, patronage, approval, and support to do so.

  31. Rosina says:

    I’m late to the party again, but lemme say this: I know some pretty dense PhDs. Persistence is more important than talent or brains when it comes to getting one.

    And: the internet would be a damn boring place if only PhDs got to voice an opinion.

    Finally: as an author, I hope for a fair-minded review. Negative reviews only upset me if they are factually incorrect or attack me personally. A review that says *didn’t work for me and here’s why…*—that’s actually a useful thing, if not a particularly painless one. 

    The only Amazon review I have ever complained about was one that gave away a major plot twist, and I only asked for it to be editing to fix that. And Amazon did do that much.

  32. Robin says:

    we’re not actually talking about a judge or even just a law professor trying to impress you by being unimpressive.

    No, because who really cares about that isolated of an audience?  The coverage here is so much bigger.  Stakes are much much lower, but the coverage is exponentially broader. 

    But even on that small clasroom scale, what I found interesting was that this law professor came across to many in the class as NEITHER impressive or modestly unimpressive.  Personally, I was grateful he prepared me so well for the coverage of the confirmation hearings, but if student evals are like Amazon reviews, I think the guy is in for a surprise.  Of course, neither those nor his comments over the course of the semester go public, either.

  33. Robin says:

    Persistence is more important than talent or brains when it comes to getting one.

    Oh, this is so TRUE!  I used to have a lot of disrespect for my own degree because of this, until I started law school.  Now, at least three times a week, I am profoundly grateful to that program for training me to be intellectually flexible and assimilate loads of disparate information more easily than I might otherwise.  Had I done it the other way around, I think law school would have ruined me for grad school, but the one invaluable thing grad school really taught me was that thinking and writing are essentially the same activity, and I labor every day to make them so in my own work.

  34. FerfeLaBat says:

    Ya’ll start using big words and my brain shuts down.  Just say’n. 😉

  35. Jenx10 says:

    I tend to think MJD doth protest too much.  For someone who claims to not care what others think, she sure is expending alot of energy jumping from blog to blog to defend her lack of care.

  36. Karen Scott says:

    “Something is very, very wrong with me.  I thought MJD was hilarious.  Was Karen Scott upset?”

    Clarification, Karen Scott never gets upset about debates on reviewers and reviewing. She gets upset over children dying at the hands of pedophiles.

    MJD in her off-the-cuff way was trying to explain what she meant and didn’t mean by her comments, unfortunately for her, her I-want-everyone-to-know-how-perky-and-funlovin-I-am doesn’t always translate well in the written form.  She has the kind of sense of humour that not everybody is going to get, especially if they haven’t read her books. Incidentally I got it.

    I didn’t think she was particularly hilarious, (but that’s just because she used too many caps in her posts) but I appreciated her forthrightness.

    So you see, she didn’t upset me at all, my calling her ‘nutty as a fruitcake’ was strictly a term of endearment. Seriously.

  37. sherryfair says:

    Somewhat on the subject (but a little off, I’ll admit)—here is a guy who’s collected “one star” reviews from anonymous Amazon reviews of classic books.

    Romance writers who are getting slammed can rest assured, they’re in very good company:

    http://tinyurl.com/7mjqn

  38. Stef says:

    Sherryfair, you made my whole weekend with that link.  I’m howling.

  39. Robin says:

    MJD in her off-the-cuff way was trying to explain what she meant and didn’t mean by her comments, unfortunately for her, her I-want-everyone-to-know-how-perky-and-funlovin-I-am doesn’t always translate well in the written form.  She has the kind of sense of humour that not everybody is going to get, especially if they haven’t read her books. Incidentally I got it.

    The fact that you didn’t get upset about it made a huge difference for me. 

    It’s interesting thinking about this and the thread on this site a while back about what is funny to some people and not to others.  Until the last few books of MJD’s I was a big fan, and even though snarky, the humor never has never seemed mean to me.  I think all of us probably draw the line between funny and mean at different points (and some people think mean IS funny).  Had I been on the receiving end of MJD’s comments, I would not have taken them as breezily.  Because I’m one of those people who doesn’t get what’s funny about a practical joke, either, even at the height of my college suite wars (we moved the guys’ furniture out into the quad; they filled our suite knee deep with dead leaves, inclusive of dead rodents).  I’ve always been intimidated by the aggression inherent in the practical joke, what I can’t help but see as a mean instinct somehow sublimated in humor.  I’m not saying that was I thought was going on, but the whole exchange was an interesting litmus test of where people fall on the mean/unfunn – benign/unfunny – mean/funny – benign/funny scale.

  40. Robin says:

    That Lonestar Review site reminds me of a review of the Time Traveler’s Wife I saw on the Quality Paperback Book site, in which the reviewer lambasted the book as “kiddie porn” and criticized its “fowl language.”  If only she had understood the brilliance of the pun, though.  Anyway, that review generated so many rebuttals, I’m guessing it sold more copies of the book than not.

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