Richard Dansky's Blog, page 7

Upcoming Appearances

Here's a brief list of cons and gatherings I'll be attending in the next few months. Locations and contributions are, of course, all subject to change

OCTOBER:
4-6 Escapist Expo, Durham, NC - I'll be doing panels with, among others, the mighty Steve Jaros of Saints' Row IV and Bobby Stein from Guild Wars 2

NOVEMBER:

8-10 Nanocon/IDIG Workshop, Madison, SD - I'll be part of a fine contingent of talented folks at the 12th iteration of this convention at Dakota State University. Joining me will be Matt Forbeck, Ken Rolston, and Geoffrey Long

DECEMBER:

3-5 Game Connection Europe, Paris, France - I have the honor of teaching a masterclass on game writing at this conference, my second time attending.

JANUARY:

10-12 Illogicon, Cary, NC

Why I Write Negative Reviews

Chuck Wendig said something interesting recently, about why it's a bad idea for authors to write bad reviews. Now, I'm pretty sure by "bad reviews" Chuck - who is a very smart and thoughtful guy, as well as being a superb writer - meant "hatchet jobs", and he's right. There's no point in ever writing one of those, whether you're an author or not, because they're wasted effort. They tend to piss off the target, they waste your word count (as Chuck notes), and they don't actually provide actionable intel to the audience of the review. I mean, sure, they're fun, in a brief, Hulk-like catharsis sort of way, but chasing the wittiest bon mot in the dogpile is not the sort of thing that produces any sort of lasting career boost.

But if you take "bad review" to mean "negative review", I have to part ways with Chuck. He makes good points: that you should be writing your own stuff instead, that you're potentially costing another writer sales, that fans of the literary turdball you just launched into McCovey Cove might see your byline on your next book and thing "I'm not buying anything from that meanie". But I think, as someone who's been doing reviews for multiple publications for a good decade or so, that not writing bad reviews actually does more damage.

Because if the only reviews you write are good ones, you're being dishonest to the audience for those reviews. Write honestly about everything that comes down the pike - not viciously, but honestly - and you might just gain readers who appreciate your insight and approach, instead of losing the knee-jerk fans who don't want to hear anything bad about their favorites. I started reading Spider Robinson and Tom Easton, not because of their fiction, but because I enjoyed their book review columns in Analog back when I was in high school, and wanted to hear more of their auctorial voices.

But more important, I think, is the impression  you can accidentally create. If you only write reviews of the good stuff, then everything you don't review automatically gets seen as potentially being bad stuff. Because, well, you don't touch the bad stuff in print, and you didn't touch God-Emperor of Pern, so it's at least reasonable to assume that you thought God-Emperor of Pern was bad stuff. Never mind that even the most productive reviewer gets snowed in by ten times as much material as they can reasonably discuss, and that there's going to be tons of good stuff that slips through the cracks. If you make it policy to only review positively, then there will be those who assume that anything you don't hit...was a miss.

I'd rather not give that impression. I'll cheerfully review both positively and negatively, even when it means struggling for far longer than I'd like with a review of a book that I loathed so I can say something useful about it, even when it means slogging through 800 pages of a slow ride to a place I've already been to make sure I did in fact read every damn word of the thing I'm going to be talking about. Far easier in those cases to ditch the book and scotch the review, and move on to something more fun to read and write about. Because if I tackle the whole spectrum, the assumption as to what I'm leaving out can't default to "bad stuff". It can only be described as "stuff I haven't gotten to yet", and that's fairer to other authors than merely taking a few special works into my charmed circle.

So as long as I keep reviewing, I'll review the good and the bad. There's no other way to do the job fairly. That doesn't mean I'll resort to chainsaws - even with the books I hate most, I always try to provide a rationale for disapproval and a suggestion as to who might enjoy the work as it is. But it does mean that I will serve the readers, editors and subjects of my reviews as fairly and as honestly as I know how - because in my opinion, that's best for all of us.

Game Narrative Panel - Livestream

At PAX this year, I was fortunate enough to be asked to take part in two panels on narrative in games, and to do so with some ridiculously talented folks. The recorded feed of the second one - where I got to sit in with Marc Laidlaw, Cameron Harris, Toiya Finley and Tom Abernathy as Chris Tihor moderated, is available for your perusal here. It is, as they say, good stuff.

The Week That Was

So, here's my past week or so:

Saturday, August 17th: Wraith 20th anniversary edition is announced at GenCon by the fine folks at Onyx Path, with me attached as developer.
Monday, August 19th: My sister undergoes cancer surgery. I am pleased to say she is home and doing well, kayn-ahora.
Tuesday, August 20th: Splinter Cell: Blacklist , the game I've been working on as lead writer for several years now, hits store shelves to extremely positive reviews
Wednesday, August 21st: I have some really book-related interesting conversations that I can't tell you about yet.
Sunday, August 25th: I take my father, cousin, uncle and nephew to a baseball game in Winston-Salem. While there, I discover one of my old pieces on Ray Bradbury from Green Man Review has been reposted at Sleeping Hedgehog here as this week's Literary Musing. Earlier in the week, other reviews I've written, of books by Evangeline Walton and Lawrence Block and others, go live here and here.

Thursday, I head west for PAX. It will seem positively relaxing :)

The Irregular Update

So let's see what's out there that I've been working on.

Well, the big news is that Splinter Cell: Blacklist comes out on August 20th. I was, as they say, involved.
Also, the three part series I did on essentials of horror over at Sleeping Hedgehog is still available, along with an interview I did over at the UbiBlog with the estimable Jeremy Bernstein.
Did I mention the New Gothic anthology from Stone Skin Press? Right. Now I have. And speaking of Stone Skin, you can now get The Lion and the Aardvark , not to mention The New Hero (vol. 1) and Don't Read This Book over at DriveThru Fiction.
Right. What else? Well, I'm going to be contributing a column to Dark Discoveries on video games, so look for that soon. And it appears I'm going to PAX and will be on a couple of panels there. (More news on appearances coming soon. Don't tell anyone.)
I would like to take this moment to congratulate my friend and coworker Jay Posey, whose debut novel, Three , is now burning up the charts. If you enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction, westerns, or the anime Trigun - or just plain good writing - I highly recommend it.
And if you're still jonesing for a good read after that and haven't picked up Vaporware , well, you can still rectify that.

Stuff That I Have Written Recently

I'm currently doing a 3-part series on the essentials of horror and dark fantasy over at Sleeping Hedgehog. You can find Part 1 (The classics) here and Part 2 (The moderns) here, and then you can yell at me for leaving out one of your favorites.

We've been keeping busy over at Sportsthodoxy. In addition to welcoming new contributor Bill Fisher, we've mocked Bill "Sports Guy" Simmons, analyzed NBA Draft Day trades, sat down with a professional college football writer after catching a Mike Cooley show, and done a facedesk over Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon.

And that's what I've got for the moment - that I can talk about.

Almost Forgot To Mention (Bull Spec Division)

Lost in all the hubbub over the release of Vaporware (and you do have your copy, don't you?) was the appearance in the latest (long-delayed, alas) issue of Bull Spec of my memoriam for Ray Bradbury. I met the man once and later got a Christmas card from him. What happened in between? Pick up Bull Spec and find out.

Essentials of Horror and Dark Fantasy

I've started a multi-part series on the essential reads of horror and dark fantasy over at Sleeping Hedgehog. Part 1 (The Classics) is now live, with the followups going live every Saturday for the next couple of weeks.

First Post at UbiBlog

The fine folks at Ubisoft's UbiBlog have graciously allowed me a soapbox there. Today marked my first post, and yes, they kept the picture with the dinosaur.

On Seeing The New Hobbit Trailer

Saw the new Hobbit 2: Medieval Boogaloo trailer. Was particularly amused by one overwhelmingly fraught exchange between Legolas and the non-canonical elf, which basically went like this:

LEGOLAS: "It is not our fight."
NEW ELF: "It is our fight."

And now I find myself hoping that the rest of the conversation goes:

LEGOLAS: "Is not!"
NEW ELF: "Is too!"
LEGOLAS: "Nuh-uh!"
NEW ELF: "Uh-huh!"
LEGOLAS: "Well, neener neener neener. But in Elf."