Another Vampire Review

[ellen_kushner]

Another great review of forthcoming anthology  TEETH with another great mention of my story ("History, or, Another Irritating Vampire")  - and another tortured attempt by your obdt svt not to read the reviews of the other stories in the volume, as I like coming to stuff with a blank slate mind!  I won't even read book jacket blurbs any more, if I

Comments

[elswhere1]

Mazal tov!

And now I'm curious: if you try not to read reviews or jacket blurbs, how do you decide what to read next? I'm curious professionally as well as personally, though you're not exactly the average library patron (inasmuch as there is such a creature).

[ellen_kushner]

I guess I skim the jacket copy just to get a sense of where I am - but mostly I open the book to a random page or two and see whether it smells good. I can tell a lot from 3 lines of text.

[elswhere1]

Oh, that makes sense. I used to make kids read the first page or two of a book to see if they were interested (that puts a lot of burden on the first pages, but most kids' books are written to catch interest right away anyway). I spent a lot of time begging, "just give it five minutes of your life!" And I'm guessing there are recommendations, too-- for me, sometimes if the right person recommends something enthusiastically enough, and I know that they know what I like, they hardly have to say anything about it.

[ellen_kushner]

Words of wisdom.

It's not that I don't read book reviews, though; I do, because books are long & complicated & reviewers can still do their job & know enough not to spoil them (usually - I'm still kind of vexed at some of what some people thought it was pukka to reveal about TPOTS to a virgin mind! We work so hard on this thing called Pacing - or, as Katherine said, "First disguise . . . then revelation!") - but short stories are brief & delicate creatures, and to review one's contents is often to risk unpinning all its garments.