Critter Litter 

I'm sure I've mentioned my old writing group before. They're called The Critter Litter and they're still around, still accomplishing great things. I learned a hell of a lot from them over the years and owe the sale of more than one short story to their collective insight. Recently, one of our members, eugie , won the  Nebula Award for her Short Story, Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest, but the others are no slouches, putting out and often selling a slew of pieces, short and long.

Recently, the litter's funny man, Hank Quense announced the ePublication of a brand new collection of stories, Tales From Gundarland. Here's the blurb:

"Laughter is contagious. Enjoy some by reading this book! It's filled with delightful entertainment. Without commercial interruption!
Gundarland: Populated by humans, elves, dwarfs and other races, it presents the background for unique adventures, brilliant heroes and cunning visions."

I look forward to more tales of morbid dwarfs and insane characters forgotten by Shakespeare.

Nice Things About My Lovely Accent

And of course, my flist is a talented place to be too. Hurray for all of us! One of them, whose lj handle I won't reveal in case I'm not supposed to, is the excellent editor-at-large, Gabrielle Harbowy, whom I was fortunate to meet at WorldCon in Montréal. She had some lovely things to say both about The Inferior and, surprisingly, my accent. Perhaps you will all stop mocking me now or threatening to steal my lucky charms :-(

Dating and Reviews

It's not you. It's me.
Or,
I just need time to be with other people.
Or,
We don't have anything in common.

Long ago, before the coming of the crow, the slaughter of the sacred calf, the mourning of the cow -- quite a while back, you might say -- I used to argue with people who were trying to get rid of me. "But dad! I can't swim!" or, "I promise not to eat so much in future."

But these are not things that can be argued with. People like you or not at a gut level. They can't necessarily explain it, but if you push them, they'll have to come up with a reason, something that sounds sensible to their own ears. However, these explanations can't and won't stand up to scrutiny. "What to you mean you prefer his cooking? He buys in all his herbs. You hear me? ALL HIS HERBS!!!"

The same is true for book reviews. Most authors will get both positive and negative criticisms that make no sense whatever. If the reviewer simply said, "I just didn't like it", our writer would shrug her shoulders and seek true love elsewhere. However, serious reviewers have no choice but to try and explain their own subconscious feelings. Quite often, they fail, and this results in angry, upset authors with a pointless, but almost irresistible urge to argue back.

There have been reviews of The Inferior that claimed it had too much description and others that lamented the lack of it. I've even read a complaint that my book didn't have enough action in it. People have called it "wildly original" and "not very unoriginal". And so on.

Where the work of others is concerned, I've seen a well-known blogger deride adult books he didn't like as being "Young Adult" and Young Adult books he did like as "gritty".

Clearly, many of these people don't know what they're talking about, but there is one thing they all did get right; one thing they can gauge with absolute certainty that no amount of argument can ever change: they liked the book, or they didn't like it. Let's leave it at that, shall we? You can't argue your way to true love.

More Web Puzzlement

Well, it's happened again. A post of mine from over a year ago about Ursula Le Guin's utopia/dystopia of Omelas received 78 hits this month, mostly from random areas of the US. I can't explain it. Maybe they had an essay to write and it just popped up in the search. Who knows? Who can plumb the depths of teh interwub?



Me and GRRM

A while back, I posted my WorldCon schedule. It seems that seeing my name in the program, a lot of the panellists have dropped out. Luckily, one of the replacements is to be one of my heroes, grrm . I couldn't be more pleased :)

Here are the details:

Thursday, 12:30 -- The Werewolves of Brigadoon.
The appropriation of Scotland, Ireland and
Wales as lands of “Celtic fantasy” by North
American authors whose Celtic experiences
appear to begin with Sir Walter Scott,
travel through Brigadoon, and conclude
with bad Hollywood movies

World-Building bit


I was minding my own business on a thread about world-building yesterday when it became frighteningly obvious that art is often -- maybe even always -- imperfect. As we say on the intertube, ZOMG!!!

Tolkien left out commerce, Bakker forgot women*, Jordan thought everybody spoke American and so on. Some writers take no account of sex; some ignore going to the toilet -- for hundreds of pages and years and years at a time. Those poor characters (quaffing wine in every chapter) must be bursting, bursting, I tell you.

World-buiding, like fine art, is not, or does not have to be all about photo-realism. You can have impressionist worlds such as in some of Ursula Le Guin's short stories. You can have nightmarish or dreamlike ones that make metaphorical sense only. I could go on. Don't worry, today I refrain.

Hugo Awards bit

No, I didn't forget to vote. I just wish I'd spent more time thinking about all the books I read last year.


Reviews bit

A few more insanely positive reviews of The Inferior to report.

Karin's Book Nook gave us five pairs of sunglasses out of five.

Mari Olson of The Daily Republic says "The second your eyes reach the first page, you’re thrown into this deadly reality and the pace never ends. O’Guilin does an amazing job matching momentum of the situation to dialogue and action — there really isn’t a good time to draw breath for the characters, or the reader."

My lj friend ildrinn has also been overly kind on sandstorm reviews. Read it and weep. Or just weep, see if I care!

"The various alien races are all full of inventive nastiness, and it's an interesting exploration of the ethics and mechanics of survival in some very adverse circumstances. This is very reminiscent of old-school sci-fi, down to the mild but unfortunate sexism, so there's nothing particularly ground-breaking about the book, but the story is very entertaining, the world compelling and unusual, and it's certainly worth a read. Unless you're particularly squeamish about cannibals..."

Dirty bits

You've come to the wrong blog. Move along, nothing to see here.

Edited bits

I've added in another review...





*A very controversial point, so don't ask.

Another lovely and enormous(!) review from The Book Smugglers. Here's one of many, many meaty quotes:

"So far as the plotting for this novel goes, Mr. O’Guilin also does a fantastic job. This is one of those ‘aw-crap-I’m-gonna-be-reading-until-the-sun-comes-up’ type of books. I had a hard time separating the glossy cover from my greedy hands. The pacing is brutal–so much happens in these 500-some pages, and danger lurks around every corner. The Inferior is even more than the simple fantasy/adventure survival story I have presented it to seem here in this review–to avoid spoiling anyone, I won’t go into those other elements. Suffice to say, there is a whole lot more going on."

Review

There's a nice new review of The Inferior in Soteria Magazine.

Here's a highlight:

"A great story which twists and turns bringing an exciting land to life. I really enjoyed this book and the way that it was written. There is some blood, gore and fighting mentioned, and there is reference to "jumping the fire", sex in other words. I don't think this book should just be for young adults though, I think it should have been marketed to the older reader too, as there is plenty here for everyone!"


Worldcon Update

I finally bought my membership. Where is everybody staying? This has already cost me a fortune, so I may go for some of the cheaper options. We'll see.

For some reason, the people of Scotland insist on being nice to me, or rather, to my book. The latest manifestation of friendship comes from The Scottish Book Trust, which has made The Inferior Book of the Month for November, complete with a great review.

God bless their thistley hearts!

A very nice reviewlet from a great book store in Michigan. Here's a brief quote:


You can read the whole thing here.

The DFC

I've been waiting for weeks to see the first outing of this great new comic, The DFC. Today was the day! Two whole issues with some delicious artwork. My favorite stories so far are Monkey Nuts and The Spider Moon -- both have more than a whiff of good ol' SFF about them. But I also have a soft spot for Good dog, Bad dog.


Chocolates

Butlers chocolates make an excellent late birthday gift. Mmmmm....


Goats

This blog never talks about goats.

Somebody must have told www.bookfetish.org that today was my birthday, because they drew up a very long list of nice things to say about The Inferior. "Absolutely incredible" are the first two words of Kurt Noll's review and it stays at that level all the way to the last line:

An exhilarating read, highly recommended and an incredible first novel in what is going to end up an incredible career.

What author could possibly hope for more than that? Now, excuse me, I have some more candles to blow out...

When I first wrote The Inferior, I imagined its only readers would be boys and men. How very wrong I was. At least half my readership seems to have come from the far side of the aisle.

The other day, I got in a new review from 13 year old Clara at the Chicklish web site. Here's the last few lines from the summary paragraph:

Only one complaint: at the end, it left me screaming at the book “NO NO NO, why did it end!" I could have read that book for the rest of my life!!!

I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself today :)