Bad books and fan fiction

[rivkat]

Independent of one another, thankfully.

I signed up for kamikazeremix. This ought to be interesting.

Usage/typographic conventions question: Italics for non-personal name proper nouns like band names and restaurants in RPF--is this some convention borrowed from entertainment reporting? I’m seeing it in RPF a lot. Did it come from bandom maybe? I can’t lie, it freaks me out because it feels like one more trick trademark owners have pulled, convincing people that their words are super-special and must be treated differently, like they’re untranslated non-English words or something. And now it’s in my fiction.

Five Seasons of Angel, ed. Glenn Yeffeth: This collection is probably the worst one of these type of books that I’ve read. I’m pretty sure that almost all of the essays (save one humor piece and one piece on myths) focus on the author’s favorite character, and I didn’t get any insights, not even about Puppet Angel. Authors whose names I recognized include: Laura Resnick, Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, Steven Harper, Jean Lorrah, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Peter S. Beagle, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Nancy Holder, Josepha Sherman, Laura Anne Gilman, and Jennifer Crusie.

David Gerrold & Larry Niven, The Flying Sorcerers: This is the worst book I’ve read in a very long time (the memory of woman runneth not to the contrary), so bad I’m almost tempted to try to make rachelmanija review it because she could be funny. I thought initially the book might be a parody of the “white man space explorer comes to uplift savage natives” trope, especially when I got to the Wizard of Oz homage, but the book was really just trying to be funny while using the White Man’s Burden as the humorous vehicle. See, they really are savages! His condescension is fully justified! They don’t name their women, they just beat them, until the noble space explorer shows them that women can be allowed to work (and sit while they work) and have names! There’s a Wright Brothers thing with Wilville and Orbur (I’m not lying) building an airship, except not really because the noble space explorer has to teach them what to do, in the process introducing money, betting, and theft, among other innovations, to the savages. The worst part is: I just ordered another David Gerrold book, before I read this.

Comments

[owlectomy]

I have David Gerrold's book on writing science fiction, in which he commits two fatal errors.

Firstly, in quoting passages to illustrate How To Do It Right, the author he quotes is himself. Including the segment on how to write sex, which is just a long quotation of his own work.

Secondly, the passages he quotes to illustrate How To Do It Right are ... just really not that good.

Especially the segment on how to write sex.

I wouldn't trust the guy as far as I could throw him when it comes to writing women, and certainly not for much else either.

[rivkat]

I remember really liking A Matter for Men and its sequels when I was a wee fangirl. I am now terrified of revisiting them. Niven I knew was trouble, but ... blech. Right now, contemplating Gerrold's sex advice is nauseating--I left out the part about offering wives to visitors just to be good hosts. Actual line: "We went home and beat our wives." Hah, so funny.

[coffeeandink]

I was fascinated by the Chtorr books as a teenager, but I am afraid to go back to them, as what I mainly remember is cool terraforming/alienforming as invasion and deeply icky pedophilia as comfort.

I read The Flying Sorcerors around the same time and ... didn't laugh. Mostly it felt like it was riffing off in-jokes I didn't recognize.

[rivkat]

I remember the sex, not the pedophilia, and truly disturbing Chtorraforming. Did he ever finish the series? Thinking back on it, it reminds me of Octavia Butler with a real win-loss mentality and a greater confidence in humanity's ability to resist.

[sherrold]

I liked the Chtorr books, too -- while thinking of them as volume turned to 11. But in reading The Martian Child, Gerrold's novelette based off of his own experiences with an adopted child, the way he referred to the publishing and sf world's horror that he wasn't able to finish the series...seemed a little OTT. (I did like The Martian Child, though, fwiw.)

[giandujakiss]

I was wondering about that weirdness for names of places. Maybe it does come from some kind of entertainment reporting. And it's very weird, but you're right - it feels like marketing coopted the author's brain.

[rivkat]

I'm sure there's some community that was Ground Zero for the convention. It's just one that puts my back up, and I try not to be hugely prescriptivist, but the only reasons I can come up with for doing it seem like they're marketing-related.

[cofax7]

Despite the big names, I've generally been unimpressed with the Benbella collections: I can get better & meatier analysis on LJ/DW than is provided by most of those writers. I still haven't picked up the Farscape version, for fear of throwing it against the wall--nobody is going to compare with samdonne's analyses.

[gozer]

I tried reading the Angel book -- I found it in our comic book store, used, so I got to read it for free, thank goodness. I skipped from useless essay to useless essay, hoping to come across one that would spark my interest, but could not find anything worth the time. Is it just me, or did it seem to you that most of the essays were little more than recounting exactly what happened in a given episode or episode arc? I mean, I *saw* it, I don't need a blow-by-blow on what happened.

[rivkat]

There was a lot of that, which I thought was because everyone got to write about their favorite character, which meant recounting why X was awesome or emo or whatever. Jennifer Crusie has a great essay about Buffy/Spike and where the writing went wrong, which is up on her website, but even she disappointed here.

[the_shoshanna]

Did you catch that the protagonist of The Flying Sorcerers is Isaac Asimov? ("as a shade of purple-grey" == mauve.) The whole book is pretty much Gerrold & Niven drunkenly elbowing each other and laughing uproariously at how clever they are, as far as I can see.

[rivkat]

I thought about trying to figure the references out, but was too disgusted. Yeah, the whole thing had a kind of Harvard Lampoon of the 70s feel.

[rachelmanija]

Nooooooooooo!

[rivkat]

Like Dana Scully, I'm mean, but I'm not actually that mean.

[brownbetty]

Wow, I've just had my opinion of a dozen people lowered in one fell blow.

[keerawa]

kamikazeremix, YAY!!!!!!

I am simultaneously excited and terrified.

[locknkey]

kamikaze \o/

@Niven - I remember liking him, but it's been more than 15 years and I read with a much different lens now.