reviews and such

[adelaidesean]

Gabe Chouinard has posted a thought-provoking treatise on The Crooked Letter and reviews in general here, in which I am exhorted to become "more purple, so to speak". It's a fair call. :-) Check it out. He has lots of interesting things to say.

(Late addition: the comments to this post include an explanation of the title of the The Crooked Letter. Anyone not wanting to wait until the last book of the series can get the answer now--not that it in any way constitutes a spoiler.)

Also The Library Journal has reviewed The Blood Debt:

'The second instalment in the author's "Books of the Cataclysm" series (after The Crooked Letter) follows the adventures of three companions who battle the unknown to save their families. Set partly in the modern world and partly in a fantasy environment drawn from archetypal myths and legends, this epic belongs in most fantasy collections.'

Nice.

Thanks, lastly, to everyone who came to my signing at Borders last night. It was great to see so many familiar and friendly faces. I'm heartened by the feedback. The Devoured Earth really feels like it's out, now. :-)

Comments

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

Sean, I posted the remainder of the reveiw/essay right over here (http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/97538.html).

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

And the discussion continues over here:
http://pyrsf.blogspot.com/2006/09/crooked-state-of-genre-reviews.html

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

Lou's post was great!

Oh, and it also continues here (me) (http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/98115.html) and here (not me) (http://sartorias.livejournal.com/174363.html). And elsewhere, I'm guessing.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Good to see people talking about the book, and about criticism in general. That can only be healthy for the genre (and for sales ).

In your recent post, you say:
I believe Sean Williams played it safe, not trusting the reader to accept more ornate writing.

The truth is simply that this is the way I write. I was aware while writing TCL that other writers would have written it very differently, and I thought about giving it a go. I decided not to for several reasons, not least among them because I think I'd enjoy it less. It's not really about the readers at all, not until it's being edited, anyway, when issues of how best to communicate regularly arise. In some ways, I think I made the right decision, as a more convoluted style would only (arguably) obfuscate what was already a complex cosmology, and being regarded as New Weird (or whatever) was and still is a secondary consideration for me.

I certainly don't think that ornate writing is harder to read and therefore limits sales, and decisions relating to my style are certainly not contingent on commercial factors. I like to think my style sits somewhere between purely commercial and thoroughly ornate, but obviously that's something for readers to decide for themselves. I'm blind to it, most of the time...

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

You make some *very* good points here. Of course I realize that it is dangerous of me to go out and make commentary on a writer's particular style... if only because there is the possibility of insulting the writer by appearing to belittle the writing ability actually on display (which I wholeheartedly hope I haven't done!). Moreover, such statements a) are useless after the fact and b) smack of armchair quarterbacking.

What I was aiming for (and probably failed miserably at) was to suggest that the book's subject matter may have been improved by the use of another writing style. Hubris, no? :) I've been accused of that before. But the more pointed part of that was my suggestion that fantastic fiction IS dominated by that clear, styleless style, which actually annoys me quite a lot. (Again, personal failing.)

And, just to make sure my ass is *totally* covered, I haven't read more than a handful of your short stories. Hopefully that can be remedied soon!

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

No offence taken at all, Gabe. :-)

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.

Wanna know something ironic?

I just now read your profile page, and see that you're a sometime DJ.

I hope you dug my references to djing!

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Totally. :-) IMHO, music is a valuable source of metaphors about writing. I'm often woffling on about structure and harmonic resonance and rhythm--probably because that's what I studied (and enjoyed most) in high school and uni.

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

Ah, bugger! I am exposed now. The only reason I liked the book is because I'm an occasional dj as well, and wanted to use the references all along....

[pauljessup.livejournal.com]

I agree highly, and posted the same on me blog:
http://pauljessup.kapo.ws

[nethspace.livejournal.com]

On a bit of a different note:

Where did you get the title The Crooked Letter and what is the Crooked Letter that it refers to. I've seen the question asked a few times and I'm curious to here your response.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Thanks for the link, Paul.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

There's an old Yiddish question-answer routine:

"Why?"

"'Y' is a crooked letter."

So when asked "Why The Crooked Letter?" I'm always tempted to respond "Y is a crooked letter", but that would just get confusing. :-) See http://www.geocities.com/serenadetxwords/mom.html for a brief reference to the phrase. I first encountered it in an Isaac Asimov novel and for some reason it stuck.

That doesn't answer, though, why I chose it for this book. For years I'd been researching a novel about a god that eats the souls of people trying to get into the afterlife. The working title of that book was YHVH, after the Jewish Sacred Name of God, or the Tetragrammaton. I never intended to keep it, not wanting to single out any particular religion, but the first letter of that name, Yod did stick as the name of my Big Bad. When it came to naming the book itself, I chose The Crooked Letter because it has an embedded "Y", and also because "Why?" is a recurring question throughout the book. Why are there three Realms? Why are Seth and Hadrian mirror twins? Why is one killed and not the other? "'Y' is a crooked letter" is, in my eyes, a much more evocative response than "Because that's the way it is."

I'm surprised by how unrecognised this phrase is, particularly by US readers. I mean, I couldn't be less Jewish but have known the phrase since I was kid. Or maybe the reference is too tangential. I don't know. Anyway, it's explained in the last book of the series, The Devoured Earth, and now here, for anyone who finds it. :-)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Ditto! Wait until you see my next space opera novel. Full of music references... :-)

[nethspace.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I can't claim to be too familiar with that phrase, but I can see how it fits well with the book as a whole, especially considering many of the origins of names used in the book - Seth comes to mind in particular.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Yes. Finding that balance between subtext and context is a tricky thing. I'm always striving for names that are resonant with the work's theme, but also fitting the world and my own modern asthetic. Like most writers, I guess.

Still, I had a lot of fun working in the Star Wars universe, where names are sometimes chosen by their sound alone. My favourite of the ones Shane and I created were the "Brrbrlpp", a race of aliens shaped very much like this symbol here (http://www.vonnegutsasshole.blogspot.com/). :-)

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Spitznagel cracks me up

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Me too. FAST FORWARD is top of my list of books to order from Amazon.

[mistri.livejournal.com]

I always met with that phrase (Y is a crooked letter) whenever I asked my parents 'Why?' once too often. (for reference, I'm in the UK)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I'm aware that I made a lot of assumptions in my post, so it's nice to stand corrected. :-)

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