Friday Links: Whither f/f, the BDB, Sensitive Porno Guy, Author Advice to reviewers

Dec 16 2011 Published by under Friday Five, Links

1. Over at All About Romance, Sandy is bored bored bored:

I just can’t get excited about yet another Regency featuring yet another Miss and yet another wallpaper duke.

Ditto paranormal  and those fated mates.

And spare me from all those small towns are the bestest places in the whole wide world brand of contemporaries.

And, for anyone who might suggest that category romances might fit the bill, as someone posted on an AAR message board a few months ago, when did millionaires get replaced by billionaires?  Greek (b)millionaires, Spanish and Italian aristos, it’s all just the same old.

I have to admit, I need a good long break from Regency London.

2. Another day, another set of Tips on Writing Reviews … from an author:

A friend of mine recently finished reading the advanced copy of Nickels.  She wanted to write a review for it on Amazon, but wasn’t really sure where to begin or what to include.

Just as I felt a few weeks ago that it was unlikely that a reader would read an author’s blog, yet not know how to write an Amazon review, I find the scenario that a reader savvy enough to get ARCs doesn’t. There’s nothing objectionable in the advice given here, but I really have to wonder, when as consumers we are inundated with requests to rate and review everything we purchase, why authors think readers need special help. Posting a review for a book on Amazon is really not different for most people than posting a review of a waffle iron, something obvious to anyone who has clicked a book reviewer’s name only to see all the nonbook items they review.

3. Porn That Women Like: Why Does It Make Men So Uncomfortable? from Slate (via @JessicaScott). This essay on “sensitive” porn star James Deen is so full of fail, I don’t know where to begin, but I did want to point out the Jewish stereotyping: the figure of the sensitive Jewish lover sounds nice, but it’s a bit too close a cousin to the stereotype of Jewish men as unmanly for my comfort. Anyway, it turns out Deen stars in porn films featuring rape scenarios and really rough play. check out the comment thread for arguments for and against the idea that this kind of porn is “porn women like”.

4. LEGO, once the last bastion of gender neutral toys, has come out with a gender coded pink set for the girl this holiday season. check out this post for an analysis of how far Lego has fallen, and tell me that comparing the old Lego ad from the 1970s to today’s doesn’t break your heart a little. Oh, and for everyone who says LEGO is a “boy toy”… I have two boys and a basement full of LEGOs that they never so much as sniffed at (via @vassilikiveros).

5. The Fancy Reader has some excellent suggestions for what would make good steampunk romance, for example:

different perspective of social construction, e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Remember: if you can change the history of a country, then you can change its laws and attitudes. Surprisingly, a very high percentage of authors failed to take advantage of this very best thing about steampunk. Most seem to show that the best they could do is associate women with traditionally male-dominant professions (professor, pilot, engineer, scientist, pirate, etc.) while keeping all major characters white and straight. If you set a story in Britain, consider the possibility of taking advantage of Britain’s neglected/ignored history: black, Indian and East Asians Britons; many were certainly born and raised in Britain before 1880s.

6. If you aren’t yet tired of feminist rants against the portrayal of women in J. R Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, here’s one from Fangs For the Fantasy.

7. Here’s a post from a blog intriguingly titled Requires Only That You Hate on lesbians, where are the lesbians.

Lesbian visibility is pretty bloody terrible in the fiction I enjoy, or even fiction I don’t. So the schtick of those graduated-from-HP-fanfic YA writers, who are ever so lauded for their beautiful wonderful inclusivity? It’s nine times out of ten about hot, hot gay boys. Hot, hot gay boy angst. You’d be lucky if one of the girls in the background… somewhere… likes other girls… somewhere… honest.

We still really don’t see much f/f written, reviewed or talked about in the romance world. And, I hasten to add, I don’t read it and have no interest in it, despite that fact that I do occasionally read m/m. Carina Press, Harlequin’s digital first imprint, is publishing some m/m but not, as far as I know, f/f. Does it not sell? Or is this one of those self-fulfilling prophesies (“if you don’t publish it, they won’t come.”)

8. I’ve been reading a lot of m/m this week as I do annually for Ham/mukah, and I got so sick of first person point of view, I actually sought out third person, and had a hard time finding it. On Twitter, someone said first person is easier than third because of the “pronoun problem” in m/m, and I can see that, but I suspect there is something else going on, although I have not read enough m/m to say what exactly. I will say that anecdotal evidence suggests that the first person narrator is usually the thinner, smaller, and more introspective of the couple. I’ll stop there before I get into trouble.

9. Last day of grading today, I hope.

10. This blog — the first real hobby I have ever had  –  hit half a million page views this morning. Thanks so much for reading.

 

43 responses so far

Monday Morning Stepback: Blue hairs with support hose, AAR v the world

May 23 2011 Published by under Monday Morning Stepback

The weekly links, opinion, and personal updates post

Links of Interest

Over at All About Romance, Sandy writes You Can’t Review Your Friends. You Just Can’t.

Here’s the thing that’s making me increasingly uncomfortable: With Twitter bringing authors and reviewers closer than ever before, a line that used to be hard is now getting blurry.

Day by day you get friendly.  And then friendlier.  And then all of a sudden more matters than just the words in a novel.  That’s only human nature and it’s completely understandable, but it sure as hell can put a dent in the credibility we now enjoy.

51 comments and counting on the post, including Jill Sorenson and Lynne Connelly defending the practice, [Edited to add: Connelly makes several comments, but does not defend reviewing friends.] and lots of Twitter chatter. Commenter Diana is the first to remove the invisibility cloak that has been shielding the elephant in the room:

I think it’s safe to say that we’re talking about the Big Two review blogs here and what concerns me is that they’re REALLY not small in terms of readership and influence. Those blog owners seek mainstream media attention and are often quoted as spokespersons for Romancelandia. You can’t have it both ways, claiming to be “just a reader blog” while sitting on industry conference panels with all the attendant media hooplah.

The twitter lovefests among authors, publishers, agents and reviewers are killing credibility, at least for readers who pay attention. Claire brings up a valid question. How many would-be negative reviews are never written because of established friendships?

Responses on Twitter have been all over the map, But here’s the funniest:

 

 

*****

Ready for your daily dose of Condescending Media Portrayal of Romance? Try Claudia Connell’s The Blue Rinse and Bodice Rippers: In twin-sets and pearls meet the ladies behind Britain’s steamiest novels from the Daily Mail.

Have any of you been the journalism school? Is there, like, a rule that if you are writing about romance you have to start your article with bad pseudo parody?

There’s enough ageist, sexist, and book snobbish stuff here to last you all week (though you know it won’t have to). Just consider, for a minute, the contrast between the journalist’s description of the attendees as blue hairs in support hose and pearls, with the picture of author (I mean, “authoress” *eyeroll*) Jilly Cooper — undated, but looking totally sophisticated, strong, and hot, no pearls to be seen.

Or statements like this:

the average reader of dreamy romantic literature doesn’t tend to set foot in Waterstone’s or download to a Kindle.

Connell meets Roger Sanderson, who has recently parted ways with Mills & Boon, and decides:

I get the feeling that Roger, who like everyone I meet is highly intelligent with a cracking sense of humour, tired of writing endless schmaltz that always followed the same formula: girl meets boy, boy behaves like arrogant brute, girl hates boy, boy shows soft side, girl falls for boy and they all live happily ever after.

Still, there’s some good stuff, like this quote from Mills & Boon author Sara Craven:

Well I’m not holding my breath for a Pulitzer Prize, my dear,’ she quips. ‘People are very snobby about the novels I write, but when you get a letter from a lady in her 80s telling you that she read your book and felt like a girl of 21 again then, frankly, I couldn’t give a fig what anyone thinks.’

Luckily, friends on the other side of the pond are not taking this lying down. Many great comments, some from people who attended the same party. (via @Mills&BoonUK)

*****

Many are very unhappy with Psychology Today’s sexism and racism. Well, we can now add their inability to interpret data. (Via Crooked Timber). That insulting article purporting to show black women are less attractive than other women? Turns out to have been bad science after all.

This is not the apologetic and angry mea culpa I would have preferred. In my opinion, it wasn’t just “bad science”, but overt racism and sexism. However, here’s my favorite bit:

Kanazawa does not follow these guidelines in all of his publications. For instance, in a paper on race differences in IQ he not only commits several theoretical errors, but also failed to consider alternative explanations. Incidentally, in that particular paper he also assumed that the earth was flat!

 

Updated to add: Looks like that racist asshat may be losing his LSE job over this! If so, good riddance!

*****

Last week, I posted an article in favor of adults reading YA, so it’s fitting that this week, we have Laura Curtis at Heroes & Heartbreakers taking the opposite view:

After much consideration, I’ve decided there are two problems for me when I am trying to read YA literature. The first is responsibility, the second is that particular brand of angst peculiar to the teenaged, developing self.

*****

Via Teach Me Tonight, a CFP for Popular Romance and the Ivory Tower:

This seminar will take place — March 15-18, 2012 — during the annual North Eastern Modern Language Association’s meeting at Rochester, New York. Please send abstracts of 250 words and a brief biographical statement to jonathan.allan [at] utoronto.ca. Deadline for abstracts: September 30, 2011.

*****

Kristie(j) from Ramblings on Romance is sharing some of her favorite newly digitized backlist titles. As a newer romance reader, I love getting these recs.

*****

 

From the Dabbler, How to Win Arguments On the Internet Without Really Knowing What You are Talking About. God, is this on the money! One example:

DEFEAT IS NEVER ADMITTED, BUT MAY BE IMPLIED

LAYMAN: Of course God doesn’t exist. Why does your God allow children to be murdered and earthquakes to wipe out whole populations?
BLOGMAN: I must say, you seem rather angry at this God whom you don’t believe exists.
LAYMAN: I’m angry that you think I should worship a God who, if He exists, must hate me and be evil.
BLOGMAN: Perhaps it’s not necessarily all about you?

And one more:

…the National Society of Blogmen Handbook 2006 listed as ‘Five Tried-and-Tested One-Liners for Undermining an Earnest Opponent’:

(TIP: although these ploys can be used in almost any kind of debate, the novice may wish to try them first in a simple question, such as whether euthanasia should be legalised)

1) Nearly everyone gets this one wrong, but you’ve argued it a hell of a lot better than most.
2) That’s certainly how a lot of very smart people used to think – you’ve done well to get there on your own.
3) Clever… if I started from where you did, I’d probably end up there too.
4) Your enthusiasm does you great credit. I wish I still saw the world like that.
5) You’re damned close to a profound insight there.

Go back to the AAR thread, and count how many of those you see there.

*****

From The Chronicle, a really good (but long) article on why privacy matters even if you have nothing to hide.

The deeper problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of secrecy. In contrast, understanding privacy as a plurality of related issues demonstrates that the disclosure of bad things is just one among many difficulties caused by government security measures. To return to my discussion of literary metaphors, the problems are not just Orwellian but Kafkaesque. Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.

*****

Personal Updates:

My older son’s U12 soccer team won its semi-final in the State Cup, so they play in the finals in two weeks. When he was first asked to “play up”, I posted about it, not being sure if it was the right choice. Looking back on the season, I would have to say it was. He has made great friends with the older boys, and his play has improved.

The team they face in the finals is their arch nemesis, whom they have never beaten. We are lucky to scrabble together enough players to make one team, while their opponent is the “A” team, with B, C, and D squads for backup. We’re from “the other Maine” — northern rural, poor — and they are from the wealthy southern part of the state. Of course, all of this floats over my son’s head, but suffice to say I will be cheering my head off on the sidelines.

I’m still so, so busy. I am really despairing of it, actually, but I’ll spare you my angst.

Not sure what I’ll do on the blog this week. Blogging may be light in general until RWA.

HAPPY WEEK!

62 responses so far

Monday Morning Stepback: Hasty, rambling and ill advised edition

Aug 16 2010 Published by under Monday Morning Stepback

The weekly links, opinions and personal updates post. Now with 25% more opinions.

1. Links of interest

Why Girly Jobs Don’t Pay Well, from the New York Times

A Kinder Gentler Vampire, from Smart Pop Books, which offers free essays daily from their books on pop culture. In this essay,  author Vera Mazarian contends that True Blood’s Bill Compton breaks the following mold:

Because, face it,” they concluded, “He’s one of a kind, a noble, nice-guy vampire, with a Scary Dangerous Façade. But underneath, he’s controlling himself—unlike all those other amoral crazy vamps. Okay, maybe he’s a bit on edge. Maybe his psycho brakes need new pads and drums and rotors. But—just look at all that sexy willpower!

“Furthermore, he loves—truly, madly, deeply. But his love is always problematic. Even when our heroine is willing (as a rule, the leading lady fantasizes about jumping his undead bones even while putting up her own Scary Dangerous Façade), he absolutely must deny himself any pleasure. Because what better way to torture a hero than to introduce sexual repression, or even insist on abstinence?”

From Teleread, would you like a vintage book cover for your ereader?

I have been very remiss in failing to link to the excellent series of posts on Georgette Heyer over at Austenprose which is running all month long with reviews, discussions, the works.  Check out Why We Love To Read and Re-Read Georgette Heyer: A birthday Tribute.

I have also been remiss in not notifying any of you who haven’t heard that the first issue of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies is out. Laura Vivanco at Teach Me Tonight has links and other info. One neat thing is that you can read all the articles for free online as well as comment. I serve as a peer reviewer and write book reviews for the JPRS, and hope very much to submit an essay to before the year is out.

This Wilson Quarterly article has been making the rounds in my circles: America: Land of Loners?:

Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.

Friendship has also suffered from the remorseless eroticization of human relations that was bequeathed to us by Sigmund Freud. The culture stands particularly ready to sexualize men’s friendships since the gay liberation movement mercifully swept away taboos against discussing same-sex relationships. In 2005 The New York Times laid claim to coining the term “man date” in a story—under a woman’s byline—about the anxiety two straight men supposedly experience if they brave a restaurant or museum together and run the risk that people will think they are gay. The “bromance” theme, once strictly a collegiate sport among scholars scouring the letters of passionate 19th-century friends for signs of physical intimacy, has since made its way into popular culture. The pathetic state of male friendship—and the general suspicion that men who seek close friends might be looking for something more—was captured in last year’s film I Love You, Man, in which a guy decides to get married, realizes he has no one to be his best man, and must embark on a series of “man dates” to find one.

I must be the last person in the world to hear about the Smart Chicks Kick It tour, consisting of 18 YA writers whose books feature strong capable heroines, including Melissa Marr, in September, starting in Texas and ending in Ontario (from Arts and Letters Daily). I had a long talk with my friend this weekend, who is a national expert on literacy, especially adolescent literacy, and we kept having this disconnect, where I would say “YA/girls/romance/genre/UF/SFF” and she would be talking about books I had never heard of, many with male protagonists. Clearly we were coming from two very different places. She has promised me that I can interview her for a post, so that’s forthcoming.

Lurv a La Mode is asking Where Do You stand on Rape in Fantasy and UF?

Sandy’s All About Romance column, Speaking of Audiobooks, is excellent. Check out Romance Audio Bests By Author. I am currently listening to — and loving — Jo Beverley’s The Dragon’s Bride, narrated by Simon Preble, who has the virtue of not trying to mimic female voices.

My Experiences with Disability in the Kink Community, at FWD (Feminists with Disabilities). Did you know that some people think the leather community is not as accommodating of chemical sensitivities as it could be? Or that the post author would actually have to warn commenters that this is not the place to talk about how kinky it is to have sex with people who are disabled? I didn’t until I read this post.

At Critical Mass, word of a review of a book I want to read: Bring on the Books for Everybody: how literary culture became popular culture, by Jim Collins, a professor of film and tv at Notre Dame. Here’s part of the blurb:

Bring on the Books for Everybody is an engaging assessment of the robust popular literary culture that has developed in the United States during the past two decades. Jim Collins describes how a once solitary and print-based experience has become an exuberantly social activity, enjoyed as much on the screen as on the page. Fueled by Oprah’s book club, Miramax film adaptations, superstore bookshops, and new technologies such as the Kindle digital reader, literary fiction has been transformed into bestselling, high-concept entertainment. Collins highlights the infrastructural and cultural changes that have given rise to a flourishing reading public at a time when the future of the book has been called into question. Book reading, he claims, has not become obsolete; it has become integrated into popular visual media.

The Washington Post on how writers today use transparent pesudonyms. (h/t Literary Saloon)

2. Opinions

a) Like anyone with a book blog, I get offers of free books. I usually delete these emails without comment. But the one I got today was so clueless, I had to share.

Clearly not realizing that everyone else just offers you the damn book, she writes:

I have a challenge for you. It involves writing, reading, and communicating. If you rock it you get a free book. The challenge? Check out my website. Subscribe to my blog. Email me.

You get a free book, my novel.

And how does she entice me? By telling me “you’re my friend, obviously” (I have never heard of this person), and then informing me that “this novel is not available anywhere but my hard drive”.

SOLD!!!

b) A review at All About Romance really annoyed me recently. It was a C+ review of Victoria Dahl’s historical A Little Bit Wild. Apparently the heroine likes physical pleasure. The reviewer is having none of this:

Being unapologetically lusty is bizarre enough

and

Double standard or not, I didn’t like it when she reveals she has dallied with more than a few men for no particular reason – luckily this eventually comes back to bite her in the butt.

I’m tempted to say those comments had no business being in the review, because they have little to do with the text. When I read an AAR review, because it is more of a professional website, I expect to read about the book, not the reviewer’s personal sexual ethics. On the other hand, maybe it’s just down to my distaste for the reviewer’s opinion.

c) The Linda Howard thing. After a spate of bad reviews. Linda Howard went on Facebook to say that she has been ill and that her books have suffered. I first learned of this through this discussion at Book Lovers Message Board, and then Jane at Dear Author posted about it.

Three things: (1) it is awful when anybody is sick, (2) but Howard’s claim that she is not talking about her health troubles to deflect criticism strikes me as disingenuous, and (3) the point of a review is to review books, not authors. Imagine how reviews would look if we had to take all these causal connections into account (not something Howard is suggesting we do, I realize)? “Sally Smith’s latest book really shows the effects of the fantastic sex she has been having with her new husband! Those sex scenes are hot!” or “Well, I met that author at RWA, and she’s a real asshat, so I am not surprised her heroine is a bitch.”

d) A comment in the DA thread by Devon annoyed me:

For what it’s worth, menopause can also do a number on creativity and writing style. Maybe that would explain–in part–why many of the older writers we used to love have dried up creatively?

Yeah, they shoot horses, don’t they?

On the blog this week

A guest post on Twitter dos and don’ts for authors and others (maybe I should have called this “Rant Week!!”)

Tuesday, the Dracula post, which promises to be long and unwieldy.

Then… who knows.

HAPPY WEEK!

19 responses so far