Writers generally are better served, in my opinion, if they pay no attention to book reviews, good or bad. Too late to do you any good anyhow, and you'll either get depressed or puffed up if you buy into whatever anybody offers in print.
That said, this one, I enjoyed. On a discussion board, somebody wrote in that he didn't like the Death Star book. Got this for his trouble:
"So you didn't like the book, waist (sic) of paper eh! You must read HARLEQUIN novels in a candle lit room while listening to LIonel Ritchie ballads. You must be one of those people that thinks THE CRYSTAL STAR was an amazing read (YUCK, HACK , PUKE). Get real man, DEATH STAR is the single most important book in the series since REVENGE OF THE SITH. Dude if you feel you can do any bettter than I implore you to rise to the challenge even if your vocabulary is limited to one sentence at a time(thats okay we can't all be literate like me), and write a short story about the Death Star worthy of praise and maybe I will admit you were right. Until then I don't think you read the book or maybe you would have given us an opinion instead of a shed tear. This is the gospel according to DARTH PIGLET, kneel and tremble before me HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! "
I mean, how can you argue with that ... ?
8 comments:
And on that note ... it turns out I have more of your books than I realized. We moved 6 weeks ago, and the new bookshelves came today -- so I started unpacking books that had been in boxes for a decade or so. I have Matadora, which I knew, and I don't have "The Man Who Never Missed," which I also knew ... but I do also have 9th Step, Albino Knife, Black Steel, and Brother Death -- I stopped reading SF about '95 or so, so I guess these were all published prior to that point. I don't remember buying them and am pretty sure I haven't read them -- I did read "Matadora" back then and remembered it fine -- but having read Man/Matadora/Machiavelli recently, I'm sure looking forward to them.
Thanks for saying you hadn't read them. It would have been great for my ego if you'd said you had, but couldn't remember them ...
Critics, save for Mark Twain, I seldom have any use for -- I don't find what they do impressive, and I like Fred Allen's line, "Where were you when the page was blank?"
Once, I got into a pissing match with a book critic. She gave one of my novels a terrible review, and the lambasting was full of factual errors.
I wrote and pointed the mistakes out. She allowed as how she should speak to this, and asked for more information, whereupon she re-attacked the book with renewed bile ...
I should have known better. I know better now ...
:-) Writing is a dangerous profession for the thin-skinned. That said, I really am pretty sure I haven't read those books -- there appear to be some dozens of books I haven't read in those boxes, maybe more than a hundred overall. We downsized from a four-bedroom house to a 3-bedroom apartment at one point about 9 years ago, and all the books got boxed and never taken out again until this weekend. It's weird seeing them again.
Like most writers and serious readers I know, I'd be awash in books if I didn't work at keeping it from happening.
For the longest time, we had at least a couple of book cases in every room of the house, save the bathrooms, and they were all filled to overflowing. Floor-to-ceiling, five feet wide, side by side ...
Not counting the boxes and boxes in the attic ...
I had visions of being found crushed by a bookslide, and of the fire emergency crews being unable to dig a path through the stacks, so we deliberately started to downsize.
Now, we look like a small lending library, instead of an overstuffed used bookstore. Bunch more in the attic, and a bunch traded in. A lot of stuff that used to get pack-ratted away doesn't any more.
We have a bookshelf in the bathroom.
Yeah, we had one in each bathroom. Still have space in the towel cabinet in the master bath, but got rid of the racks in our bathroom and the dog bathroom.
(This latter so named because the toilet there was dedicated for the Shepherds to drink out of, no humans allowed to use it ..)
2 book cases in the bedroom, one for me and one for my daughter. 1 in her play room for her. 4 years old and already has 2 book cases of her own, full of books. Got rid of her baby books and traded them in for more books.
3 bookcases in the office, the tall ones. All full, double spaced on one. And all your Matador books (including Omega Cage) and doubles at that. Tired of lending them out and losing a copy forever.
Still haven't read your Star Wars boks though and just started the 2 Conan ones.
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