Dear Authors

[ifreet]

... don't be stupid in public. It's harder now, with blogs and journals and all blurring the line between thought and publication, but still.

Or at least, be stupid about something relatively low in importance. Like, say, fanfic. I mean, if you lose it over fanfic, I probably won't read your work... but I won't actually discourage others from

Comments

[primroseburrows]

Wait, she actually said, "many Muslims have all the virtues of civilized persons?" Wow. That's implying that Muslims are not civilised persons. She's quite the racist, isn't she?

[ifreet]

Yeah, and it's clear from her reactions to the vanished comments that she is completely deaf either to the implication in her phrasing or to the problem with that implication. The post is just... boggling.

[primroseburrows]

Seriously. The comment sounds like something slave owners in the south would say, like "I'm sure there are some intelligent darkies".

[_unhurt_]

i would say it's also pretty much suggesting that they may not, on the whole, really be persons. to which: wtf?

[thursdaynext_27]

What impressed me were the number of eloquent responses that called her out for the Islamophobia and racism of the post. That she deleted the comments certainly isn't surprising, but it's rather cowardly. I wonder if someone screencapped the comments.

Authors want to connect with readers to boost sales, but we've seen some spectacular backfires this year. Diana Gabaldon, Katherine Kerr, etc. GRRM blogs about the minutae of his life and some people wonder why it's taking so long for the next book in his series to come out.

io9.com had a post earlier this week on military SF. I like David Weber's Honor Harrington series. The writing's weaker when it comes to the relationship and non-military parts, but Honor kicks all sorts of ass and when he focuses on the naval/military SF aspects it shines.

John Scalzi's Old Man's War series is excellent.

[ifreet]

The deletion of those responses just killed me. The majority of people calling her out were doing so very gently, considering what they were responding to... and if she'd just frozen comments but left them up, even if she didn't learn from them maybe someone else would have. You're right: it is cowardly.

Author blogs are potentially excellent marketing tools, and I have certainly been influenced to try books based on liking someone's online personality, but if one's using a blog to market anything, it's important for them to realize that it's not the same as a personal blog and to remember their audience before posting.

Weber! Ok, yes, this is the reminder I needed to sit down and read his sci fi -- I've read and enjoyed his fantasy series, but for some reason I've never picked up any of the Honor Harrington series, despite having heard great things. Thank you for the recs! I will get reading!

[meresy]

Ooooh, I read through some of that while the comments were still up. Sad that the comments are all gone... there were some edifying and eloquent replies in there about what actual civic virtues ought to look like. And also about why, once again, "what I meant" is not "what we read" and you can't answer for the fail of the latter with the former. Anyway. She clearly wasn't even attempting to learn anything, but someone else might have, if it remained to be read.

[nos4a2no9]

and also about why, once again, "what I meant" is not "what we read" and you can't answer for the fail of the latter with the former.

Yeah, I feel like poor Barthes is rolling over in his grave. The author may be dead, but not many authors seem to be aware of it. Ack, Meres! Zombie authors! *hits them with a shovel*

Why are so many bestselling authors deaf to reader interpretation? "What you meant" as a writer is a totally different animal from "what the readers found." Moon should know this. And yet... Anyway, there's one more author to scratch off my list.

[ifreet]

But Nos, there are right interpretations and wrong ones, and only the Author can know for sure which is which. Surely we readers should bow to the Author's superior knowledge about what is meant?

... the nice thing about talking online is that I don't have to try to keep a straight face while I type utter nonsense.

[ifreet]

The deletion of those comments is so frustrating, I can't even express.

And word on the hiding behind "what I meant." Argh. If what I read and what you meant don't match up, that's not necessarily my fault. Especially if there are a large number of people 'misreading' the post the same way.

an addendum to the post

[ifreet]

The things that go without saying tend to get me in trouble, and since I made this a public post, it's completely possible that someone who doesn't know me doesn't know my things that go without saying...

I mean exactly what I say when I say I'll "counter-recommend" other authors. I'm not pulling nor advocating pulling Elizabeth Moon's books -- even if I had the ability to do so, I wouldn't. The bookstore I work in stocks many, many books I dislike. There are entire books in the pol sci/current affairs section that are, essentially, the same xenophobic garbage that Elizabeth Moon now espouses, spread over many more pages than her less-than-coherent 'citizenship' entry. There are books that are worse. When people ask for them, I sell them, and I try to get out of any 'this author is so good/right/truthful/patriotic' conversation might ensue as quickly as possible. Moon's novels at least aren't openly hateful/fearful, from what I remember. (Admittedly, my main memory is the graphic torture scene from part of The Deed of

[ifreet]

Yeah, the first couple paragraphs are ok. I don't disagree that citizenship carries responsibilities as well as privileges. And then the stupid begins. One of the responsibilities of a liberal democracy (liberal meaning Constitutional rather than left-leaning) is that we build in protections for political minorities from the potential tyranny of the majority. There's a reason certain individual and state freedoms were built in at the beginning.

Since Race!Fail started in scifi/fantasy author blogs before the discussions and arguments spilled across fandom, I'm not at all surprised that some scifi/fantasy authors still don't know better -- but like you and Valente, I am disappointed.