On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 02:47:11PM -0600, David Rodemaker <dar at horusinc.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 12:08:03PM -0600, David Rodemaker > > <dar at horusinc.com> wrote: > > > Probably to one degree or another, but I think that mainly > > Steve wants to be > > > published. > > Norman of Gor didn't seem to have trouble. > Y'know that's sort of like discussing H.R. Eddison as being at the forefront > of modern fantasy writing, or Lord Dunsay. I didn't say he was good. I said he got published. > > > Laurell K. Hamilton had an interesting set of comments on this 'issue'. > > > Evidently one of the reasons she can write that sort of thing (or Anne > > > Bishop or Jacqueline Carey I would guess) and not have it > > rejected as porn > > > (soft or hard) is because she's a woman. > > > Then she gets nailed because 'nice girls don't write (or read) > > that sort of > > > stuff'... And then everybody goes out and buys it! > > Eh. Not anymore. > > Her first 4 or 5 Anita Blake books were really good adventure > > stories that happened to have a bit of sexual content/tension. > > Then she turned off practically everything but the sex, and the > > books started to suck (no, no, in a BAD way). It's been going on > > that way long enough that I've pretty much decided not to buy > > anything of hers in hardcover until she straightens out again... > > and this was just after she got promoted to hardcover in the > > first place. > > Since everyone else I know who has been reading the books has > > been saying the same thing, I suspect that the publisher must be > > going "ouch". > Since she's on Book 10, with #11 coming out this year, in hardcover, I > suspect that somebody's buying the books. Evidently she's one of the few > authors to have a seriously cross-genre (like fantasy-horror-romance) > fanbase. The complaints I've read and heard focus less on the increase of > sex and more on the lack of Jean-Claude (and sex with him). I confess that I have still been buying in HC up through the last new release -- but that was the first HC release, AND also the book that made me decide "not in hardcover". > That's before we even touch the Meridith Gentry novels which make the Anita > Blake stuff look like tame. True, which is why I won't buy those at all. > Besides, Obsidian Butterfly had hardly any sex in it at all. <g> You did read the book, yes? Just because Anita wasn't having sex doesn't mean it's not there. > I only just started reading the damn books this Yule, and was suprised at > them, but still liked them. As did my wife, as did the other people who we > threw them at. You haven't been following long enough to spot the flaws, then. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp