The things I do for this site. I let Candy read and review Cassie Edwards. I dodge her attempts to make me read it to share in the badness that is Desire’s Blossom.
I’m kidding – I love writing on this site like you have no idea. So I took one for the team and read this entire rant/entry from the LKH blog.
Oh my stars, that’s a lot of words. Blue on black, too. My eyes are crossing more than usual.
I do agree with her idea that, yes, if you’re going to be a douche and go to her site and bash her because you don’t like her books, you run the risk of looking like a douche. She gets it, she writes. You don’t like the series. Got it.
The point of most of the comments here at SBTB, where we are brilliant and fair and oh-so-erudite, was that we were collectively disappointed with the direction Anita took as a character, and thus we stopped buying. We are classy about the venue we chose to air our comments, but we still say, ‘OK, this series has descended into sucktown and we aren’t buying it, literally.’ Seems LKH is ok with that.
LKH is right that the concept of the “negative fan” who is obsessive about a book to the point where they’ll do anything to demonstrate how much they hate that book, hate it hate it OMG the rage the seething rage the insanely lucrative rage that causes them to buy the book they hate hate hate with the hate of a thousand suns and a credit card filled with hate, is weird.
I’m with you, ma’am; that is weird. Though, yes, fans are fans, positive or negative, and therefore any publicity is good publicity, yadda yadda. To elicit such a response from a person, preferably one with a wallet with cash in it, can be a good thing in a way.
Where I raised a brow was this part: “There are books that don’t make you think that hard. Books that don’t push you past that comfortable envelope of the mundane.”
Ma’am, I was with you right up to that point. The generosity in your response to others bashing your books leads right into a cotton-wrapped insult about my ability to think intelligently. Way to evaporate my empathy there. Pfft. There it went. Or maybe I’m really stoopid and missed the point of your post. Was there clue cake involved? I’m lost when it comes to the clue cake.
I’m also lost when it comes to the idea that the negatively-obsessed fan doesn’t appreciate the characters as much as she and the adoring ones do. Speaking solely for myself, I was disappointed and stopped reading the series because I liked Anita so much and didn’t feel that her character later in the series matched who she was in the beginning. Many other comments here were in accord regarding Anita’s change, particularly in terms of her feelings of self-conflict. In the beginning, she was wonderfully wrought and so realistic I’d get serious jibblies when I read the books. Two of them are on my keeper shelf because they scared the crap out of me. Now? Two words: glistening orifice (TM Kaite).
So it’s not a question of reality vs. not-as-real-to-me. Anita was real-enough to me that when she changed as a person I didn’t like her as much, and dropped her much as I would someone in my real and actual life who did more harm than good.
Getting smacked in the ass by a rabid fanbase is not fun, no matter if you’re the author with the meanie douche fans trolling your boards, or if you’re the lone voice saying, ‘Man, I read this, and I didn’t like it, and here’s why I’m bummed’ only to have the rabid adoration-bent fans tie you on a spit over a very large flame. I empathize and suspect that a great many writers don’t read too many reviews from sources they don’t trust, even if that distrustful source is their own reader-response area on their website.
But to imply that the reason I don’t like the Blake series is because I’m either (a) dumb or (b) unable or unwilling to accept that the characters should tell me what they want to do as much as they tell Ms. Hamilton, is at least insulting and at most completely and utterly daffy.
Brava! That was exactly my take on the unfortunate blog entry. It made sense right up until she said that those of us who didn’t like the direction of the series were basically boring prudes who couldn’t take a little menage a vingt in our books.
I think that it’s much easier to dismiss your negative commentators when you can lump them together as being pathetically conservative in their sexual tastes. So much easier that realizing that the complaints were about the total destruction of a once loved character, a contrived plot device, and poor writing.
*sigh*
I’m with you…I don’t buy them, I don’t read them. Her only entertainment value is really when she decides to post back to her fans in these little mini-rants.
I’m a part of LKHLashouts and it is just a good group for a laugh. There are some pretty funny people there who snark about the lastest books, discuss the characterizations of the previous books, and post blogflogs (basically mocking her blog posts). Its about her books, but its more about making everyone laugh.
If they’re real enough, they can shop for themselves.
This made me laugh hard enough to frighten the cat.
You know, my characters are very dear to me, and I do talk about them with writer friends—offer to send the studly ones over when a friend’s having a bad day, or send the mean badass over to punish the evil postman or whatever—but gifts? Sweet Christ in a tutu. That’s just scary. I can honestly say I’ve never given a single thought to what one of my characters would want for Christmas. (Well, except in that Christmas story, where they had to gift each other. But really, that’s it. I swear.)
The wackiness, it astounds, confounds, amazes, slices, dices, and easily cleans in the dishwasher. Wowza.
The cat’s hiding now. He really freaks when I cackle and shoot hard cider out my nose. Brilliant line from the comic book snarking:
This issue’s opening line, “My skin crawled with the memory of small furry bodies sliding over me,” in addition to being a handy reminder that Anita was in dire peril of being murdered by vermin in the last issue, is also highly reminiscent of erotic fan-fiction concerning Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers.
Oh God, it hurts to laugh this hard!
I got a little sidetracked at the “there are books that don’t make you think that hard” part. Whose books won’t be making me think? What authors is she insulting to make her point? All of my favorite authors have books I didn’t enjoy. Anne Rice ranted a year or so back along these lines. I think if I ever get the urge to rant about negative reader comments, I’m going to stop myself.
My issue with LKH is that she has ruined good characters. JC, Richard, all of them. I was never a big Anita fan, I was always more of a secondary character type of girl, and she has completely stripped them of anything beyond “Jean Claud is the vampire. He speaks French.” So, I figure, if you put that level of effort into writing the character, that’s the level of effort I’ll put into reading your book. We may all be okay with that, and life will go on for us…. separately. I think the saddest thing is I don’t even miss her books, or her characters. Kelley Armstrong is a more than adequate replacement for her.
robin
I know this is so late, but I’ve been spacing since I found out I was preggers and had some minor complications with said condition. I used to read her books and I was one of those who felt betrayed by the whole thing, but kept reading hoping it would get back on track. Then her rants started and I decided that she was just an a-hole and gave up on her. I occasionally pick up a copy at the library, to see if anything has changed, but I don’t get my hopes up. I might pick up the next one purely for Edward … or I’ll get it at the library and not bother wasting the money because she’s probably done something horrible to him. At this point, I’m just hoping Edward had decided she needs a bullet in the brain pan and this is LKH’s way of giving us all a surprise ending to the whole series. A girl can hope, can’t she?
I personally know someone who quit reading her altogether just because of her rants. And this wasn’t even one of her “negative” fans. She really liked LKH’s stuff, but she just didn’t like her attitude.