I’m not usually one for memes, but I’ll make an exception for this one. I saw it on Jo Walton’s Live Journal.
Tell me about a story I haven’t written, and I’ll give you one sentence from that story.
ETA: The meme is any kind of crazy idea, not a specific story (this is meant as for fun). Although a few people know some history of things that actually have not yet been written. 🙂
A quick additional post today to ask you all a question. Two questions, actually.
1. I’m finishing up my read-through of the copy-edited manuscript (the copy editor did a very good job overall). I’ll be sending it back to Orbit in a week and therefore will be making any final changes to the manuscript in the new few days.
In COLD FIRE I included an Author’s Note in the front matter of the book that briefly touches on the basic world-setting of the Spiritwalker Trilogy, lists the days of the week and the cross-quarter days used by Cat in order to clear up any calendrical confusion, and talks a little bit about the creole used in Expedition.
For COLD STEEL I’m cutting the discussion of the creole (although I will be writing a post about it that I will also post in the Extras portion of this site discussing the Antilles creole of my alternate Earth).
Technically, because of the way the layout works, I have a little bit of space remaining in the Author’s Note (because of what I have cut). I don’t have to add anything, but I can add another paragraph or two if need be.
So I wanted to know if you had any specific (world-setting and thus non-spoiler type) question you wish was answered in the Author’s Note that will be found at the front of the book, a short paragraph or two that can be read before starting the novel.
Anyone?
2. I have a number of weeks to fill in for the forthcoming Spiritwalker Mondays. A few posts are complete or almost complete and I have as well a list of posts/excerpts I would like to write. Plus a short story or two.
But let me ask you: Is there a particular question about the Spiritwalker trilogy you would like to ask me? If so, do so here, and I will answer it as one of the Monday posts.
On that same vein, as a reader of these Monday posts, are you most interested in posts that directly relate to the Spiritwalker books or are you also interested in more general posts about writing and worldbuilding that may only tangentially reference the Spiritwalker books, such as the one I posted today?
I appreciate your input.
I started this line of thought yesterday on Twitter while walking the dog in the park.
We are constantly making decisions about what is important. Decisions about what is important are also being made on a subconscious level simply about perception & what we intake from the environment around us, which we are perceiving and absorbing and filtering every moment of our lives on some level. In a similar way our unexamined cultural assumptions can cause us to do a lot of filtering we aren’t necessarily aware of.
We can’t absorb everything in our environment, so we block. But as writers and readers if we aren’t alert, we do the same without knowing it.
I think this question of perception and filtering is tricky. Maybe we walk a tight rope between being overwhelmed and being blinkered.
When my spouse and I got back to the parking lot with the dog, I headed for the side of the lot where we have parked the last few times we’ve been there. This time we had parked on the other side of the lot, and my spouse had to remind me that we were parked in a different place than usual.
I reflected how, in writing and even in reading, I tend to head for the familiar side of the story. Often if I don’t stop to think about it I just replicate patterns that are the most common in our culture and media, the things that I am told over and over again are the most real and authentic as currently defined and delineated by the society in which I live or, more properly, by the constant deluge of messages cascading down upon me through media, art, received knowledge, local patterns of human interaction, environment, and the very items easily available to me.
There are some aspects of me reverting to defaults that I think are okay and even in some ways potentially necessary to mental health. Everything can’t be brand-new. Everything can’t be a climb uphill in a blizzard of new information and re-situating myself in my environment.
If we aren’t grounded in some familiar aspects, then we’re just lost.
I remember reading many years ago a science fiction novel by Cecilia Holland which I really didn’t understand at all because the author had done such a good job of making the aliens truly alien to my then-reading brain. I simply could not connect with the story. (I have no idea how I would react to the story now.)
But at the same time, I have to be careful. I have myself responded to stories or novels in which I find a character or culture to “feel” unbelievable only because it doesn’t match the stereotype that I may have based on my own narrow cultural assumptions about things as various as gender, history, language, identity, and money (and so on).
As a writer I must push back against and remain alert to places where I slide into the unexamined default. Last week’s post on Andevai’s character development is an example of how I started writing a book with the idea in my mind of a fairly stereotypical alpha male character who I later rethought and revised to turn into someone who I hope is more complex and not quite as stereotypical. (although readers’ mileage may vary)
What are your thoughts on this?
Can you think of an example in your own writing where you started with one idea and then realized that you were your own self maybe perpetuating an assumption or stereotype that you didn’t actually want to perpetuate?
Can you think of an example in something you’ve read where your expectations weren’t met, or where what would have been a standard solution was undermined or overturned in a pleasing or unexpected way?
This is a post about the writing process. It contains spoilers for Cold Magic and Cold Fire. In it, I discuss choices I made and ways in which I changed my mind throughout the drafting process. If you don’t want spoilers (and you’ve not read the books) or if you prefer to interact with only the final product and not see into a writer’s head as she discusses the process or if you’re not interested in reading about the writing process, READ NO FARTHER.
If you’ve read the books (or don’t care about spoilers), and if you find process interesting, read on. iow, this is a post for those who like the commentary on DVDs. Me, I never listen to that commentary. I like to see the final product in its pristine state. However, I’m happy to offer the commentary for those who are interested.
In the original conception of Cold Magic, a mage comes to the house with a legal claim to marry the girl. This story has always had the “forced marriage” trope as part of the plot. A “forced marriage” is any story in which two people have to get married because of outside forces. One might have to marry to secure an inheritance while the partner needs to marry because because she or he is destitute. An accidental encounter might impel them to marry because of societal strictures or for convenience’s sake. A fraud marriage might turn into a real marriage. Or they might both be required to accept a marriage arranged by others for reasons of political or economic or family alliance. And so on.
Cat was always going to have to marry a strange man who walked into her house with an unshakeable claim to her.
And the man was always of higher social status than Cat and her household.
Continue reading
In honor of USA’s election day, a vote.
I am in the process of going through the copy edited manuscript for COLD STEEL. This is part of the production process that takes a book from manuscript to printed (or formatted e-book) finished copy.
After I write and revise a novel, I send the revised manuscript to my editor. She (or he) reads through it and requests editorial changes. We discuss any questions I have, and based on his/her comments and our discussion, I revise again. Typically, s/he will read it through one more time, and I’ll make a second round of changes, although usually this round deals less with major revision and more with details and those last bits of scenes that need burnishing.
This finished, final version enters production. One of the first things that happens is that the manuscript is sent to a copy editor. The copy editor’s job is to read carefully for grammatical and punctuation errors, for typos, for consistency in naming and details (does the character have brown eyes on page 34 and hazel eyes on page 213?), and for adherence to house style (Oxford comma, yes or no?). As well, a good copy editor will catch more subtle inconsistencies as well as confusing or illogical passages and may ask for clarification of descriptions or scenes that don’t quite make sense or aren’t communicated clearly.
The copy edit is also the last place the writer can, if necessary, made changes straight into the manuscript without having to worry about changing the line or page length. Once the typesetting and layout of a printed book is complete, it is expensive to change the layout if there are significant changes. Changes made at the proofreading stage are, therefore, frowned upon. That is why it is so important to make use of the copy editing stage to do any final cleaning up and polishing.
I have just completed my first pass through the copy edited manuscript.
Some writers have horror stories about egregiously bad copy editors who did such a bad job on the manuscript that the poor writer had to spend days “stetting” (stet==to let stand [the original]), and that certainly does happen. In my case, I have a very good copy editor, and the book you read will be better for her/his work.
But that’s not my question. My question is for you, the readers.
A brief aside: What follows may constitute an extremely mild spoiler, so if you hate and loathe all spoilerish things, don’t read on. However, if you don’t mind, no worries.
I once flippantly said that I would never ever write a novel in first person.
As a narrative style, first person is heavily and primarily dependent on voice. The narrator is right there, talking to the reader directly, and it has always seemed to me that there must be something distinctive in the voice which necessitates it being told in first person rather than third. That distinctiveness is there in addition to whatever unique circumstances within the narrative make it a story best told in first person.
â—Š
I interrupt this discussion to give a quick and simplistic definition of different types of point of view:
In first person, the “I” is the narrator. In second, the narrator is speaking to the “you.” In third person limited there is a (usually hidden) narrator but the story is being told solely through the eyes of the point of view character, who can only see and observe what she would naturally see and observe. In third omniscient, the narrator can see all.
â—Š
When I wrote the very first pieces of narrative that would eventually become the Spiritwalker Trilogy, I had trouble finding a voice that worked. My first attempts, all in third person, didn’t catch; they did not feel right.
I finally tried first person. The voice flowed far more smoothly in first than it had in third.
Here is the original first page of the novel. This is from the earliest draft, unrevised and (you’ll note) a different opening point than the novel has now. Also, notably, I changed Bee’s name from Bianca to Beatrice.
Bee and I sat in the window-seat with a blanket tucked over us to keep off the chill and the heavy curtains closed over our backs to hide us from anyone who might wander into the sitting room. Our breath made steam flowers on the windowpanes. Winter’s cold had come early; it was still a week away from year’s end. Outside, snow glittered in the square and on the crowns of trees, although the streets had been swept clean.
“What did he say?” Bee whispered. By the light of the street lamps lining the square outside, I could see her bat her eyelashes in that truly obnoxious way she had, the one that never failed to demolish the objections and reproaches of any adult caught in the beat of those dark wings. “Cat,” she added breathlessly, “you have to tell me.”
“I swore I wouldn’t tell.”
She punched me on the shoulder. Though she might look like a dainty little thing, Bee was a bruiser, really mean when she got roused.
“Ouch!”
“You earned it! I’ve been in love with him forever – ”
“Two weeks!”
“Two months!” She pressed a hand to her ample bosom, which was heaving under her tightly-laced, high-collared dress. “I kept the truth of my desperate feelings to myself for fear – ”
“For fear we’d wonder why you’d so suddenly left off being in love with and destined to wed Maester Lukas of the lovely dark curly hair and turned your stalwart heart to the beauty of Maester David of the handsome black eyes.”
“Which you yourself admit are handsome.”
“Yes, he’s almost as pretty as you are, and well aware of it. He’s the vainest boy I’ve ever met.”
“How can you say so? The story of how his family escaped from the assault on Sawili by murderous ghouls is heart-breaking.”
“If it’s true. Anyone can say what they like when there are no witnesses.“
“You just have no heart, Cat. You’re heartless.”
“Thank the Lady! The family is well-to-do, that’s certain. A point in his favor.”
“You’re going to tell me what he said because otherwise I will pour a handful of salt into your breakfast porridge for the next month – ”
“Hush.”
I have good hearing. I could hear footsteps coming from a mile away, or at least from the landing. Bee froze with the hand to her chest and face raised – she was still glowering at me – posed unmoving like one of the living re-creations of the honored ancestors in a tableaux at the New Year’s Festival.
“Bianca? Catherine?” The voice of Servestra Artistina rose in volume as she entered the room behind us. We had carefully turned down all the lamps to make it gloomy. “Darlings? It’s time to leave for the lecture.”
Although first person felt like a better fit for the story, I nevertheless I worried that first person wouldn’t be effective, that I couldn’t keep it up for an entire novel much less a trilogy, that the “voice” would become tired. I hadn’t yet learned that Cat, in fact, never gets tired of talking.
So I rewrote the scene in third person limited past tense because all my novels until then had been in third person limited past and thus it is the point of view I’m most comfortable with.
Cat and Bee sat in the window-seat with a blanket tucked over their skirts to keep off the chill and the heavy curtains closed over their backs to hide them from anyone who might wander into the sitting room. Cat’s breath made steam flowers on the windowpanes. Winter’s cold had come early; it was still a week away from year’s end. Outside, snow glittered in the square and on the crowns of trees, although the streets had been swept clean.
“What did he say?” Bee whispered.
By the light of the street lamps lining the square outside, Cat could see her cousin flutter her eyelashes in that truly obnoxious way she had, the one that never failed to demolish the objections and reproaches of any adult caught in the beat of those dark wings. “Cat,” she added breathlessly, “you have to tell me.”
“I swore I wouldn’t tell.”
Bee punched Cat on the shoulder.
“Ouch!”
Though she might look like a dainty little thing, Bee was a bruiser, really mean when she got roused. “You earned it! I’ve been in love with him forever – ”
“Two weeks!”
“Two months! Ever since I had that dream of walking with him through the golden palace undersea – ” She pressed a hand to her ample bosom, which was heaving under her tightly-laced, high-collared dress. “ – I have kept the truth of my desperate feelings to myself for fear – ”
“For fear we’d wonder why you’d so suddenly left off being in love with and destined to wed Maester Lukas of the lovely dark hair and turned your stalwart heart to the beauty of Maester David of the handsome black eyes.”
“Which you yourself admit are handsome.”
“Yes, he’s prettier than you are, and well aware of it. He’s the vainest boy I ever met.”
“How can you say so? The story of how his family escaped from the assault on Sawili by murderous ghouls is heart-breaking.”
“If it’s true. Anyone can say what they like when there are no witnesses.“
“You just have no heart, Cat. You’re heartless.”
“Thank the Lady! The family is well-to-do, that’s certain. And his sisters are known to be very clever and maybe touched with a breath of magery . All points in his favor.”
“You’re going to tell me what he said because otherwise I will pour a handful of salt into your breakfast porridge every morning for the next month – ”
“Hush.”
Cat had good hearing. She could hear footsteps coming from a mile away, or at least from the landing. Bee froze with the hand to her chest and face raised – still glowering at Cat – posed unmoving like one of the living re-creations of the honored ancestors in a tableaux at the New Year’s Festival.
“Bianca? Catherine?” The voice of Servestra Artistina rose in volume as she entered the dark room. “Darlings? It’s time to leave for the lecture.”
Two things jumped out at me when I switched point of view.
First, third person had no “pop.” For me, it read flat.
Second, and more importantly, my attempt to write in third person limited felt and read (to me) as if I was instead writing in third person omniscient. I couldn’t get the voice into third person limited because, as I realized, the story had a narrator who was speaking, and that narrator is Cat. So I had to switch back to first person and trust that I would be able to fully “get” her voice right and hold on to it for three volumes.
In the end, writing a trilogy in Cat’s voice proved easy, especially as I discovered the “sound” of her voice. The rhythm of her speech is distinctive, she observes and speaks with a flavor all her own, and she is funny, often on purpose and sometimes inadvertently. That she loves to talk matters to the plot. Better yet, I enjoyed the challenge of filtering the story through her eyes and her words while leaving a little space for the reader to maybe see some things and some characters a little differently than Cat does.
The other thing I learned? Never say never.
The good news: Cold Steel is finished, revised, and in production at my publisher, Orbit Books.
The reality: Production is a process that takes many months.
The book gets copy edited for grammatical, punctuation, and consistency errors, and then I have to go over the copy edits as well, at which time I can make any last line editing changes. For instance, I think I am going to have to cut the word “cocky” from one sentence. [Copy editing is good news, though, since a good copy-editing job makes the book better.]
More good news: After copy editing, the book gets “typeset”–that is, converted from double spaced manuscript format into the format seen in books. The interior of a book is designed, just as the exterior cover design is. Font, kerning, spacing and other graphic design elements are just as important for ease of reading and a positive aesthetic look even when it is just text. A beautifully designed text is a pleasure to read.
Several proofeading passes are made through the typeset pages to eradicate as many typos and errors as possible (although some will always slip through). The text must be converted into various ebook formats. A cover is designed, tweaked, printed. Marketing, orders, and distribution also have to be dealt with in the lead up to printing and the actual arrival on the shelves. And this accounting is just the quick, simplistic version of all the things the publisher does. (I haven’t even touched on how my editor helps me make this the best book possible, because that part of the process has already happened.)
The other thing the publisher does is schedule books a year or even farther in advance. While there are exceptions of faster turn around times, a novel that is part of an ongoing series is often published (on the shelves) about a year after the manuscript is turned in (sometimes a year after it is turned in with all final revisions). Even if a publisher is trying to hold open a slot, if the book comes in too late, they will then have to move the book to a later open slot because they need the time for production, and sometimes an even later slot because they have already scheduled books that have been turned in.
That’s what happened with Cold Steel.
Let me explain: I started writing Cold Steel in late February or early March 2011. My wonderful brother in law (my sister’s husband) was at this time dying of brain cancer (he died in June 2011). His death hit hard, and combined with some other life stressors (nothing life threatening) to make writing the book slow going. Meanwhile writing the last volume in a trilogy is always challenging because it is important to tie everything together in a way that fits with what came before as well as fulfilling–as far as humanly possible–the promise of the opening. For instance, at one point I wrote 150 pages of material I ended up cutting (for branching down the wrong story tributary) as I tried to figure out what approach to take to the story.
Note: Cold Steel is 227,000 words in final draft. The first draft was more like 270,000 words, but I cut about 50,000 words before I even turned it in to my editor. That doesn’t take into account the aforementioned 150 pages I had cut while in the process of writing the first draft. Naturally, my editor wanted more cuts, and she wanted revisions as well. So, all in all, I expect I wrote about 325,000 total words (give or take ten thousand or more) for a final revised draft of 227K.
Meanwhile Orbit was holding open a January 2013 slot, but when I could not make the March 1, 2012, turn-in date they had to move the book. The next available slot — and remember that meanwhile they have other books by other authors being turned in and scheduled — was June 2013.
So that’s the bad news: Cold Steel will be published on June 25, 2013.
As it happened, I finished a draft in mid April, revised it and turned in a preliminary draft to my editor in May, got revision requests in June, and turned in a final draft in late August.
However, the EXCELLENT news remains that the novel is complete, is proceeding through production, and is (I can safely say) the very best book I could write (with the aid of the always crucial comments from my various beta readers and the firm hand of my evil dedicated and mild-mannered editor Devi Pillai).
Cold Steel completes the Spiritwalker trilogy.
The other excellent news is that I have the best, most perspicacious, and remarkably patient readers, and I appreciate each and every one of you.
Therefore, from now until publication, I hereby commit to making a post a week (in countdown format) specifically about the Spiritwalker books and/or the Spiritwalker universe that may include answers to your questions, my comments about the writing process or the characters or the world, biographical vignettes, and (I hope) a few short stories. It will be tagged “Spiritwalker Monday” and will, I hope, mostly appear on Mondays. I’m also going to try to continue with more regularity my long-promised semi-regular world building posts, but I’m trying to not be too ambitious here.
That makes this post Spiritwalker Monday 35 (next week will be 34, etc).
Again, my thanks for your patience.
If you have any questions or a subject you would like to see addressed over the next 7 months, please let me know here or via email or on Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook.
I will post the final cover as soon as I have it. Now I have to get back to work on my next project.
Three really interesting links today;
Mysterious seasonal black flecks on Mars. If you haven’t read this, do. It’s fascinating, and the photos are stunning.
Sex work in pre colonial Nigeria (Igboland):
Sex work as we know it today, in modern Africa, is a vestige of colonialism. As Luise White, who wrote about sex work in colonial Nairobi put it “sex work as a full-time form of labour was invented during the colonial period”. This is not to say that there was no sex work in the pre-colonial period, only that it was entirely different from how we know it today.
Sex work existed in Africa in the pre-colonial era. Back in the day, the female sex worker worked out of the house she was born in. She was a single woman, a woman who was never going to marry, and her clients were usually men who wanted to have affairs (as in most communities, and all but a few situations, it was taboo for a man to have sex with a married woman).
Finally, this illustrated time line of Vietnamese Clothing (women’s).
She’s also done Hats and Hair Fashion History of Vietnam.
Which reminds me I need to collate my photo-essay Hairstyles of Angkor Wat from my trip of oh so long ago.
If anyone has links/references to historical clothing timelines and/or just good links for historical clothing, please feel free to share. I can really never get enough illustrations of clothing in an historical perspective and just in a general sense.
This week is A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour, which I’m not actually formally participating in (as in, by signing up to their list) but which I want to honor by recommending some books.
I start today with Middle Grade novel WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON, by Grace Lin.
I picked this novel up because it is on the reading list for the Sirens Conference (a conference on women in fantasy literature) which I am attending in October. I don’t read a lot of Middle Grade as it doesn’t usually hit my sweet spot. The MG novels I enjoy most tend to rely heavily on an interesting world (e.g. Stephanie Burgis’s A TANGLE OF MAGICKS). Lin’s novel meets the challenge easily. It’s a marvelous story.
Minli lives in poverty with her parents, and goes on a quest to find the Old Man on the Moon to try and solve her family’s problems. The setting is based on Chinese folklore without the setting ever being identified as a “fantasy China.” It doesn’t need to be because it is the place Minli lives.
First of all, WTMMTM has spare, effective, and lovely writing. It is written in the manner of a folk tale expanded with more tales being told inside it by other people and creatures. All the tales eventually curl around to become part of the main tale and the solution, and from a deceptively simple start Lin uses the tales to build and enhance the whole. It is a pleasure to read, and it has that folkloric thing where there is a moral or lesson and yet without it being at all heavy-handed or stilted; what Minli (and we) learn flows naturally from the course of the tale, and it speaks to all hearts.
A conversation on Twitter a few weeks ago about the challenges of reviewing books in the new social media got me to thinking about what it must be like to be a book-blogger and/or online reviewer who ends up interacting not just with other readers but with writers and other people in the publishing industry in a way that could not really have happened quite so extensively before.
So I asked reviewer Paul Weimer to write a guest post about his experiences and thoughts. Here it is! (KE)
+++
by Paul Weimer
Like Thomas Jefferson, I cannot live without books. Reading books, be it fiction or nonfiction, an epic fantasy or the life of Cicero, makes up a substantial amount of my recreational time. And like anyone, I form opinions about the book, as I am reading (electronic books are wonderful for this), and after I have read the book.
I am a writer, and so my opinions, observations and perspectives about a book inevitably find themselves committed to words. As an active member of the genre community, these thoughts on books and authors inevitably find publication in a number of online venues.
However, publishing book reviews, especially in a hothouse environment that the world of genre fiction can be, comes with a set of challenges and stresses that threaten to corrode my will and desire to share my opinions. It is those challenges and stresses that I would like to elucidate for you.
It is a tightrope act, for me as a reviewer, to write a book review, whether a book exceeded my expectations, or fell vastly short of them. On the one hand, my personal ethics as a reviewer, and the role I play, mandate honesty in my reviews for books. The currency of respect I earn is only valid if my reviews are an honest assessment of the book I have read, presented in a clear and concise manner. If I am dishonest in my reviews, it will quickly come across the page, and my reviews will be at best unread, and worst, denigrated and shunned.
On the other hand, my place in the genre community means that I am often extremely chatty, virtually and otherwise, with the writers I am reading. Some of them I consider friends. When a book of theirs doesn’t meet all of my expectations, or even worse, falls flat for me, there is a real problem for me as a reviewer and as a person. I don’t have illusions that I move the meter on sales for a writer, much. However, slagging their novel baby or being perceived as having done so, makes me a bad social actor, and a bad friend.
I recently quailed over writing a review of a book that simply fell far short of expectations for me. I like the author. The author likes me. With reservations, I liked the author’s debut effort, but this second effort did not meet my expectations and hopes. Writing a review that is honest and fair, and yet does not cause unintended mental anguish in the friend has been extremely difficult.
On the other hand, when I am confronted with a book I absolutely adore and want to tell the world about, the reverse problem applies. Did I really like the book that much, or am I being too much of a promoter for the author and her work? Am I allowing the friendship and respect I have for the writer and her work to cloud my judgement of flaws and problems with a book? How much of a glowing review is me wishing the author well? How do I convey to the reader genuine enthusiasm and elucidate the real quality of the author’s work? How do I avoid looking like I am fawning over a writer’s work? How do I avoid unknowingly fawning over a book?
These tensions form a conundrum that I continually am confronted with. Keep reviews fair and honest, and remain a responsible social actor with the friends and acquaintances I have made, in readers, fellow reviewers, and authors. Every book I read, every review I write is a re-assessment of this fundamental problem. Every review is a new change to grapple with these issues. It causes me stress every time I start on a review. It even starts as I am reading a book, wondering what I am going to write about it, how I am going to handle these issues this time out.
So why do I persist? Why do I put myself through this wringer? Why don’t I simply trunk my reviews? There are two main reasons.
First, any writer, and I am no exception, wants their work to be seen by others. A trunked review is little better than just composing it in my own mind, save for the chance to work on my craft. A writer wants their work to be seen, to be read, to have life beyond their computer screen. I am no exception to this rule. Until my reviews started being published in higher visibility online locales, they languished for lack of attention and feedback. Now, I have people who look forward to my next review, and the reviews have given me offers and opportunities to write other things, in a variety of venues.
Second, I feel like I am providing a useful service. If I can walk that tightrope, and provide fair, balanced, ethical and honest reviews of books, I am providing useful information and feedback out there about books, for readers and authors alike. There are a swath of book review sites which are nothing but glowing reviews of the books they receive, read and review. the reviews at aggregate sites like Amazon are often worse than useless in trying to determine if a book is worth reading, given the propensity for people to use reviews as a way to grind their ax, be it complaints about the cost, jihads against an author, or even stranger obsessions. I like to think my review is far more valuable than that white noise.
So what have I learned? I’ve been reviewing for years, but only in the last year and a half have my reviews had any large amount of visibility due to the venues they have been published in. I have noticed an evolution in my style, improvement in my writing, and an increased readership. I firmly believe that readers and writers reading my work, commenting and talking about my reviews, and in general the greater visibility of my work makes me a better reviewer. I’ve learned from reading my fellow reviewers, as well, studying what they do, what they eschew, and how people react to their work. I have flourished under the pressure.
And so I persist in staying in the stress of their regard as I read and review books.
Not really a Prince of Amber, but rather an ex-pat New Yorker that has found himself living in Minnesota for the last 10 years, Paul “PrinceJvstin” Weimer has been reading SF and Fantasy long before there was a World Wide Web. He and his book reviews, columns and other contributions to genre can be found at his own blog, Blog Jvstin Style,[http://www.skyseastone.net/jvstin ] SF Signal[http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/author/paulweimer/ ] the Functional Nerds[ http://functionalnerds.com/category/book-review/paul-weimer/] , Twitter[http://twitter.com/#!/PrinceJvstin ] , Livejournal[ http://princejvstin.livejournal.com/] and many other places on the Internet.