'Bridge of Dreams' review: or, I Shall Never Write Again

[desperance]

In the interests of full disclosure, and because it is the Sort Of Thing We Do, I offer you a link to the nastiest review I've had for a decade.

At which I should of course shrug and sigh and say "So it goes", accept that you can't win 'em all and move on. Of course I should.

And of course I'm not, I'm sitting here dwelling on it, fretting about it, convinced that he is right and I am crap. And especially this new book, which I'm halfway through and have been deeply worried about anyway: I'm sitting here staring at the current page, writing phrases and deleting them, chewing my insides out.

For yes, I am that fragile. Stupid, isn't it...?

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

That's not a review; it doesn't tell me anything useful about the structure or intent of the book. Rather, the reviewer got hypnotised by some of the furniture, to which he took a violent dislike.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

...and all his unresolved plot issues are of course dealt with in vol 2, because of course he's only read half a book; and what he's read isn't Arabic in any sense, it's marginally Ottoman, and if he wants to tell the Turks they're Arabs he's a braver man than I am; and, and, and.

And it still reduces me to a helpless unconfident mess.

But thank you.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

However well you write,

20% of your readers will Get It

40% of your readers will not get it, but will enjoy the experience to varying degrees

20% of you readers will spectacularly NOT Get It

20% of your readers will not only NOT Get It but will mistake it for Something Else, and Be Outraged! Outraged, sir! That you could give them the Wrong Thing by Mistake.

(Are those proportions about right?

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

About right, yeah.

Also, Chaz? How dare you write something that tackles you know, real hard issues instead of people zipping around on magic carpets.

SHAME.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*is shamed*

(but I did the whole magic carpet thing already, I have a completely lovely rework of the magic carpet in one of the Outremer books (http://www.outremer.co.uk). That's the irony here, that he just read the wrong book, if he was really looking for Arabic-influenced fantasy. Been there, done that. Moved on. Sigh...)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Sounds about right to me. Trouble with statistics, though, they're not palliative; they don't stop me wanting to batter the Not-Getters about the head until they Get It.

Also, of course, they suggest you're only likely to take 60% of your readers with you to the next book. Which guarantees a fairly swift end to your career, unless you can proselytise more widely; and meanwhile that outraged 20% is out there among your own potential converts, doing their very best to prejudice them before you have a chance, and...

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that "review" about DeFoe, who, it seems, has an overwrought, dated style, that's tough on poor readers. Streamline, get to the point, Daniel, for Pete's sake!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

What mantichore said: you have not plotted your book as he expected, Defoe (or Captain Johnson) wrote in seventeenth century English, and Halo Jones is "not brilliant but pretty good".

Not everyone likes your style. We know this. There's nothing to see here - move along, please.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I liked it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*g* Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

Could be worse. Could be "It's not Alastair Reynolds"...

Simon

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Well, I enjoyed it, and I am looking forward to the next one.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[euphoricstimuli.livejournal.com]

He's wrong, it was good.
I liked the fact that every time I thought you were going in one direction with it, you did something else entirely, & didn't expand on stuff that seemed the obvious (or cliched) way to go. It was interesting.
If he was looking for an 'issues' book then of course he wasnt going to like it.
Im not going to say anything libelous or rude about the guy, Im just going to think it. :-)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. Thank you.

Oneiric Bifröst

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

> What is the relation between dreams and bridges

Does this man know nothing? I would have thought it was obvious, but then I did once write a whole mythology with this as a core idea.

Dreams are the bridge between fantasy and reality, between serial and parallel self awareness, between today and tomorrow. Bridges give access to whole new worlds of experience, they allow you to do things that would be impossible without them, they are verily dreams in civil engineering form.

Re: Oneiric Bifröst

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. All of that, and more. It seems to have passed him by.

Re: Oneiric Bifröst

[lcohen]

perhaps his opinion isn't worth much then, if what appears to be a key concept from the book passed him by?

i've not read your books yet to offer an opinion. perhaps they will sail over my head, too. but i wouldn't take this guy's word for it.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

You write like Chaz Brenchley rather than writing like A. N. Otherauthor. Such things will often polarise people but that's a good thing isn't it?

I can't comment on that book as I've not read it but the Outremer books are STOPPING ME WORKING!

I'm starting to think it's some sort of Templar Plot.




Hmm, Chaz Brenchley is an anagram of 'Czar Be Lynch Eh?', Maybe it's not Templars, maybe it's a communist plot. All these years and finally the truth is out. Yes. I am Anastasia Romanov.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

No, I am Anastasia Romanov!

Sorry about the working thing. Is there any mileage in declaring that reading Chaz Brenchley is work...?

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Well, according to that reviewer...

I could try to claim I'm doing it in an effort to get better at the arcane art of Grammar. I've just got a copyedited manuscript back and it's more highlights then text.

Ouch.

This is what happens when you don't pay attention at school 'cos you just know you're going to be a rockstar.

If you are Anastasia, show me the Faberge!


This may, well amuse isn't the right word. Remember the legend about not leaving cats in a room with the old or the very young? I give you DEATHCAT!

[jemck.livejournal.com]

This is not a review. It's a highly personal and personalised view of a book that this chap went into with a firm set of preconceptions and expectations that pretty much guaranteed he was going to be incapable of judging it on its merits.

For instance, as well as stuff already pointed out, a review should give some thought to place of the work in question within the wider scope of current writing in the relevant genre. Nope, not seeing that here.

So, the book didn't work for him, this chap, whoever he is. That's his loss. And I say that with mild regret for him, rather than snark.

Remember what Raymond Chandler did when some interviewer asked him if he felt bad about what cinema had done to his books? (I paraphrase). He went rushing into the library, followed by startled journalist. And pointed to his books saying, no, it's OK, they're still there, all perfectly all right.

[leela-cat.livejournal.com]

The only thing I got out of those reviews is how seriously I would not take any of his reviews. Apparently, the books are all about him and his needs and they're not there to introduce him to new concepts or to expand his horizons.

If River of Dreams wasn't sitting on my bedside table waiting its turn in the to be read pile, I'd be going out to buy it. After all if that guy didn't like it, there must be something in the book worth reading and exercising my brain over.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Let us know what you thought of the book, yeah? (Contrary to appearances, I do actually value feedback. Even if I do fall apart after.)

[wishus.livejournal.com]

To my shame I have not yet read that book. After reading that 'review', I am of leela cat's opinion. In my shopping basket it goes...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Not a case for shame; there are even - shock, horror! - books that I myself have not yet read. One or two, a few.

And thank you; and, again, let us know...

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The reviewer's first mistake was to read the book with expectations driven, apparently, by some copy somewhere ("I saw it billed somewhere as an Arabian Nights story").

Beyond that, it seems to me that he addresses mostly matters of taste, and in a couple of places, the reviewer seems aware of it ("I hate magic systems that...," "Or at least I do."). In fact, I suspect that the reviewer's taste and mine somewhat coincide: I like prose that says things once, not multiple times in various ways, and I dislike multi-volume continued stories (as differentiated from series). (I'm one of those philistines who don't like LOTR, for example. I'm sure Tolkien couldn't care less, were he alive and aware of it, but some of his ardent fans have been quite upset with me.)

It's not stupid to be that fragile. You feel what you feel. But it's plain fact that you can't write something that every reader will Get, and more to the point (IMHO) regarding this particular review, you can't write something that every reader will Like. No one can. If someone could, it would mean we all have the same understanding of the world and the same artistic sense, and so what would be the point of the world having more than one writer?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

The reviewer's first mistake was to read the book with expectations driven, apparently, by some copy somewhere ("I saw it billed somewhere as an Arabian Nights story").

...Which it isn't; that's a reasonable description of another series altogether, but not this. He may have been confused.

Beyond that, it seems to me that he addresses mostly matters of taste, and in a couple of places, the reviewer seems aware of it ("I hate magic systems that...," "Or at least I do."). In fact, I suspect that the reviewer's taste and mine somewhat coincide: I like prose that says things once, not multiple times in various ways, and I dislike multi-volume continued stories (as differentiated from series). (I'm one of those philistines who don't like LOTR, for example. I'm sure Tolkien couldn't care less, were he alive and aware of it, but some of his ardent fans have been quite upset with me.)

I'm not upset, but I am interested: once you get past the actual years of production, where vol one is published but you have to wait another year for the story to continue, what's the objection to serial stories? Esp with reference to LotR, which has been available for thirty years in a single volume anyway?

[And, um, perhaps you shouldn't read me. I do have a consciously repetitive style, I like to play with the language like a kitten with a piece of string; and I do write long books that are broken into separate vols for publication.]

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Regarding reading you: you're probably right, and I'm sure it's my loss. (Seriously, not just being polite.)

Let me see if I can put this in short form: I dislike "to be continued"; I like "stay tuned for further adventures of..." (provided I actually like the first adventure). I love Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody mysteries beyond all reason; it's all one long story, but the episodes are discrete; at the end of each book, the issues raised in that book are resolved.

My dislike of LOTR, for which of course all the story is available at one time, is that it goes on...and on...and on... and I find it repetitious.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I love Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody mysteries beyond all reason

I loved 'Crocodile on the Sandbank', but tired of Peabody quite quickly thereafter; I think it was the insufferable child that did for me in the end, but I do remember feeling that the fun generally had worn thin by then: not exactly a one-joke idea, but - well, I think I found them repetitive in that other sense, that they revisited old ground too often. New wine in old bottles, or something.

[julesjones]

What they all said, especially the bit about you can't please all of the people all of the time.

I haven't read Bridge of Dreams yet, so I can't comment on that specific book, but one of the things I like about your writing is precisely one of the things he complains about -- the way you play with language. Granted, it's something *I'd* complain about were it not done well, and there are enough examples of "not done well" littering the catalogues. They don't include such books of yours as I've read. When it's done as well as you do it, it's a thing of joy.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

There's a distinct difference between "I did not enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed Book X, Z and Q" and " did not enjoy this book therefore it is a Bad Book" which seems to escape this person. Maybe he could check out the Gor re-issue.

All I can say is that at least this means I won't have to shove him out of the way so's I can get my hands on the last copy on the shelf of whatever the new book will be called when it comes out under whatever name you will be veiling yourself behind. (I can make that sentence more complicated if you like.) So please go ahead and finish writing that book, and do not let the Picky Reader distract you. Not only will it be a good book, I suspect it will be even better than the last one, because you have two cats to drive you distracted now.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, I loved both halves of the book, so there. *hugs* :)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

If that was the nastiest review you've had to contend with in ten years, you're doing all right. It wasn't fun, I can see that, but you know, he got it all wrong.

I really liked those books. And I liked the Outremer series, too.

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

Whatever he said, he's dead wrong. (And I'm not going to read it, because it upsets me when people are unreasonably nasty about good books.)

He *is* wrong, though.

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

He is WRONG and you are WONDERFUL.

It is his (?) journal and he's entitled to be wrong if he wants to, but the fact remains that he didn't get the book. It's not his style, he can go pull something off the shelf and not bother again. There are plenty of writers, enough so someone appeals to everyone.

But don't let him unleash the doubt demons. He is entitled to his opinion; he's simply wrong.