Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 204

What is plagiarism, anyway?

Plagiarism has, as you might have noticed, been mentioned several times recently here, with links to, for example, Courtney Milan and Nora Roberts. Previously, the people at Smart Bitches with Trashy Books have done a lot of work on one plagiarism scandal or another, as for example here. But we all know basically what we mean by plagiarism: someone stealing sentences, or paragraphs, or unique elements of some kind, from an author’s work and passing that material off as their own.

However, there’s not much doubt that some people do get confused and start to feel like everything in creation is plagiarism. There was a recent-ish Twitter post about the failure to distinguish between plagiarism, the use of well-known tropes, and so on. Then you get a huge scandal like this #Copypastecris thing, and I do worry a bit that this can lead to pointing fingers at perfectly honest, reasonable work and saying, Look, there! Plagiarism!

Therefore, here’s a post on Stuff That Is Not Plagiarism.

1) A retelling.

This can be a fairy tale retelling that sticks closely to a Brother’s Grimm story, or any story that pulls elements from a fairy tale or any well-known story, such as The Girls at the Kingfisher Club or, for that matter, West-Side Story. This category grades smoothly into —

2) Inspiration.

It’s not necessary for a story to be inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in order for inspiration to be legitimate. If you take an idea or image from a story you read and grow your own story out from there, that is not plagiarism. In fact, I can’t offhand see how else any author is supposed to come up with the bones of any story. There’s no creative vacuum out there, into which Brand New Ideas pop by spontaneous generation.

In some cases, I’m very aware of which images or ideas inspired one or another of my books.

I know that Roger Dean’s art directly inspired the setting for The Floating Islands, and Gillian Bradshaw’s historical novels directly inspired the Romanesque aspects of Toulonn and the Greek-ish culture of the Islands. I don’t know about the rest of it. A lifetime of reading, I guess.

I am completely aware that Robin McKinley’s Chalice was an important influence on The Keeper of the Mist. That’s where the idea of a small, bounded country came from. Of course everything else is completely different — the type of boundary, what the boundary is for, the metaphysics, the surrounding world, how the boundary is created and maintained, everything. All the characters are totally different, the situation is totally different, the antagonist is totally different . . . the only other thing that might have come through was the warm feel of the story, and actually I don’t think I got that either. Chalice feels warm and hums comfortingly and Mist isn’t like that, or not much.

I know that one of my most recently completely mss was inspired by CJ Brightley’s Honor’s Heir. Practically everything changed dramatically — characters, societies, broader world, surrounding mythology, type of problem, everything. But even though virtually everything is very different, that novel was still the direct inspiration. Then my own manuscript served as a jumping-off point for my current WIP, where I’m keeping the same kind of relationship, sort of, and some of the beats in the plot, and changing everything else.

Okay, moving on. Inspiration is the one I feel like I have the easiest time talking about from my own experience, but both re-telling and inspiration bend into —

3) Being in conversation with another well-known work or multiple works.

For example, Walton’s Among Others, which drew on the history of SFF during the course of the story. Or, for that matter, Scalzi’s Redshirts, which was practically as meta as you can get. Or Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe. Or, not quite the same as any of the above, Sarah Prineas’ deconstruction of fairy tales in Ash and Bramble

These are all really up-front, obvious examples of SFF works that are deliberately in conversation with a whole genre. It’s not necessary for a work to be this meta for it to do that, though. Almost any coming-of-age military SF is probably going to develop from the author’s response to Starship Troopers, for example. Or a single work can be a response to another single work, like Wicked by Gregory Maguire, telling the Oz story from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view.

Or for a real conversation, look at Sir Walter Raleigh’s poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” which is so obviously a reply to Christopher Marlowe’s poem of the previous year “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.”

4) Homage

All these categories blur together. Is it retelling or homage when Sharon Shinn re-writes Jane Eyre as Jenna Starborn? Knowing that the author did this because she especially loves Jane Eyre makes me feel like her retelling ought to be classified as homage, rather than strictly as a retelling, even though it’s that as well.

Here’s a long post about homage by an author who also chose to write a novel in homage of Jane Eyre — Gemma Hardy, by Margo Livesy. It’s well worth reading just to example one author’s approach toward the task of retelling a classic novel, and for her thoughts about homage in general:

We are not diminished or dulled by borrowing and lending. In the best homages the contemporary artist is able to plumb some aspect of her or his own deepest interests, to reach what really matters, while simultaneously agreeing with or repudiating, delighting in or detonating, the original work. … On my journey I have paid homage to several writers — they had no say in the way I borrowed their landscapes and their insights, their nightingales and their bad behavior. I hope in doing so to have brought attention to their work and, at the same time, I hope to have made something new.

5) Pastiche

Writing in someone else’s style — hard to pull off, but fun. Temeraire leaps to mind. I remember thinking, WAY too many semicolons, this cannot be Jane Austen’s actual style. But when I pulled Pride and Prejudice off the shelf to look, I found nope, Austen also used that many semicolons. Novik actually did do a really good job writing in this much older style as she threw dragons all over the landscape.

Here’s a post about Mary Robinette Kowel’s Glamourist Histories, arguing that these fantasy novels are a perfect pastiche of an Austen novel and a fantasy novel. I don’t know that I think anyone’s really captured Austen’s style, but tons of people have certainly tried.

6) Parody, such as Bored of the Rings.

In fact, you could certainly make a case for Scalzi’s Redshirts to be a parody. What do you think? Parody? Or inspired by? Or in conversation with? Regardless, this books is not meant to be read in isolation. It’s aimed at Star Trek fans (and critics), not at people whose reading choices lean more toward the soaps and less toward space opera.

Here’s a post that places Redshirts squarely in the parody camp. And Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic, too, which I’m not sure I agree with. I would have said perhaps humorous fantasy, not parody. Though certainly by the end of his career, I would say that Pratchett was writing actual satire, not parody and not humorous fantasy either — though his work always did have a lot of humor in it, even then, of course.

One more: An author might, from time to time …

7) Just straight-up rewriting someone else’s book, with permission, for fun, such as Scalzi did with H Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy when he wrote Fuzzy Nation.

Scalzi has this to say about that:

Yes,  Fuzzy Nation is a book that is a reimagining of story and events of Little Fuzzy, written by H. Beam Piper (and nominated for the Best Hugo Novel in 1962).

Yes,  it is authorized — after I wrote the novel I sent it to the rights-holders of the Piper estate and asked permission to try to get it published. They agreed. Little Fuzzy itself is in the public domain; however, both morally and practically speaking I thought it essential to seek permission, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was doing this without the full awareness and participation of the Piper estate and its rights holders.

This is kind of interesting, because sitting right here on my laptop, I do have the first little bit of a rewritten version of Philip High’s Invader on my Back.

This was a novella I liked a lot when I first encountered it. Wow, is it dated in a lot of ways. Yet I still like it. And then I thought, okay, re-envision it this way, here’s the new version of the protagonist, here’s the new situation — very similar but not the same — a robot fox companion instead of three falcons . . . not that there’s anything wrong with falcons, but I like foxes and I wanted to do something different.

I just played around with this for 25 pages or so. Then I made myself stop, because going to the fairly extreme amount of trouble of contacting the High estate and asking for permission, well, I have other things on my plate and plenty of other things to write. If I ever finished it, though, that’s exactly what I would do.

Unless it morphed into something completely different, with mere remnant echoes of the original. And if it did, I would just send my own manuscript to my agent and add a dedication to Philip High in honor of the inspiration.

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Back cover copy

Okay, so for various reasons I just had to sit down and write back cover copy for one of my recently completed manuscripts.

As always, this was hard. But I kind of think maybe I like how this turned out. Here it is. What do you think?

Never let anyone guess your name. Never let anyone guess your curse. Never let the nightmare loose. Vích has lived by those rules for a very long time. She always assumed that if someone made a mistake and called down calamity upon the world, it would be her reckless brother Lahn, not her. But the mistake was hers, and now she may not be able to hold back the rising darkness.

Never let anyone guess your name. Never get too attached to anyone. Never, ever let anyone push Vích too far. Lahn has always known how to sidestep trouble and enjoy life, even though he can never really be part of ordinary society. Most of all, he’s always known exactly how to help his sister keep control of her terrible curse. But he didn’t expect to find himself bound to serve a foreign priest, forced to leave Vích on her own just when his sister’s finally caught the eye of an enemy. The worst kind of enemy: someone who knows their names …

That is not too misleading. Absolutely no hint of the weird, complicated worldbuilding. But still, pretty close to accurate for the basic setup.

Hopefully before too long I’ll have a chance to offer that back-cover copy to an editor, and I hope I remember it’s sitting right here, ready for me to pick it up and send it.

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This is not “assistance;” it’s play

Saw this via the Passive Voice blog:

Computer Stories: A.I. Is Beginning to Assist Novelists

Robin Sloan has a collaborator on his new novel: a computer. … Mr. Sloan is writing his book with the help of home-brewed software that finishes his sentences with the push of a tab key. …

Mr. Sloan … composes by writing snippets of text, which he sends to himself as messages and then works over into longer passages. His new novel, which is still untitled, is set in a near-future California where nature is resurgent. The other day, the writer made this note: “The bison are back. Herds 50 miles long.” … He writes: The bison are gathered around the canyon. … What comes next? He hits tab. The computer makes a noise like “pock,” analyzes the last few sentences, and adds the phrase “by the bare sky.”

Mr. Sloan likes it. “That’s kind of fantastic,” he said. “Would I have written ‘bare sky’ by myself? Maybe, maybe not.”

Raise your hand if you think this method of composition sounds like LESS work than just writing the story out of your head.

Anyone?

Didn’t think so. This sounds kind of like fun, but it doesn’t sound like any kind of assistance. “By the bare sky,” says the algorithm, and there Sloan is, thinking, Oh, that’s a neat phrase. Then he has fit it in the passage somehow and, I presume, read through the paragraph to make sure it feels right. I mean, sounds good, reads smoothly, all those things the computer can’t begin to judge.

This kind of thing sounds A LOT like those twitter games where people start typing and report what text suggestion software suggests to finish the sentence. You know, things like:

My name is … Earl

I was born in … darkness

I once went … to a party dressed as a chicken.

All of the above are actually what Google just suggested for me, including that entire one about the chicken. Did not see that coming. Sounds to me quite a bit like The bison are gathered around the canyon … by the bare sky.

As a toy, this sounds kind of neat. As a tool, well, I’m not persuaded that’s a reasonable categorization.

Also, it’s not artificial intelligence. I read SF; I know what artificial intelligence REALLY looks like: Computers that are people. Definitely not the same thing as algorithms that spit out semi-random phrases at the touch of a key.

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Page proofs

Here’s a post at Kill Zone Blog: The page proof nightmare

In the traditional publishing world, milestones define the production cycle of a book.  You turn in the manuscript, then you get the global edit from the editor.  Next come the larger structural changes and you turn those in.  Copy edits are next…

The final step is the one I hate – the page proofs.  That milestone is my last shot at making sure that the book is exactly what I want it to be.  Did the copy edits I rejected make it through anyway?  Have any other errors made it through?  …

For me, this is a staggeringly stressful process. … Once I get lost in the “fictive dream” … I don’t see the little stuff.  So, for the page proofs, I have to force myself to . . . Read.  Every.  Word.  It takes forever.

I hate page proofs.

Ouch!

Actually . . . although I get what Gilstrap means about getting lost in the fictive dream (a very nice place to be lost imo), I enjoy page proofs.

You don’t have to try to figure out how to do a biggish change as per your editor’s advice. You don’t have to stop every second page to evaluate a copy editor’s suggestion. You can just . . . read every word. Straight through.

It’s the nearest thing to seeing your book in print that you’ll have until it’s, you know, actually in print. You probably aren’t going to read it at that point — it’s in print! Yay! But you are super familiar with it and beside, you just read the page proofs.

For me, reading the page proofs is like . . . reading a book. Sure, every now and then I’ll pause and make a little change. But mainly I turn the pages thinking, “Oh, I forgot about this scene, but it works pretty well!” and “Hey, that’s a nice sentence.” Not only that, but if a sentence isn’t nice, I can actually whip out a colored pencil and fix it so it IS a nice sentence. I wish I could do that AFTER publication too, as I’m certain to happen across things I want to change every single time I open a real copy.

By and large, for me, the reading experience is a pleasure for page proofs — the stage when it’s easiest to imagine the reader’s own reading experience. When I enjoy the page proofs, it makes me feel that yes, there’s a pretty good chance readers will enjoy the book.

Yet another example of Everyone’s Process Being Different. I just bet Gilstrap likes developmental edits better than I do.

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If Dr Seuss knew calculus

From a post at Math With Bad Drawings:

Ha!

I don’t remember any calculus, but luckily I don’t need to know calculus to find this funny.

Several other cartoons at the link.

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Recent Reading: Magic’s Poison by Gillian Bradshaw

Okay, yes, I liked this book quite a bit, and yes, it was nice to read a fantasy novel. It’s just contemporary romances and other books with very familiar settings are so easy to get into when I’m really busy with my own projects.

This one was easy to get into, though, and not too overwhelmingly distracting, and quite good. Recognizably a Bradshaw, though I’m not sure I would have realized it was hers if I hadn’t known it up front.

Here’s part of the description from Amazon:

Marin had never expected to be in the middle of the biggest magical crisis for two centuries. A peasant by birth, she was uncomfortable enough with her noble status as a Guardian, charged with policing the use of magic—even though her district, the White River, was a mere backwater. However, a renegade sorcerer in that same backwater district somehow obtained a supply of a notorious magical poison—the venom of a race of serpent-people who’d been believed extinct—and it’s up to Marin to stop him. It obviously won’t be easy: the last people to use that poison ended up ruling the world.

Have you read this? I want to ask something very elliptically in case you haven’t. If you’ve read this book, did you realize The Big Secret right from the beginning?

My take on The Big Secret went like this:

Meet a specific character for the first time. Almost immediately think: Hmm

Later, think: YES, FOR SURE.

Later, think: Oh, well, I guess not. Too bad! I would have totally put this plot twist in the story!

Almost immediately after that: Oh, how about that, I was right! How does Bradshaw justify this???

And then she semi-plausibly justifies it.

This was a neat twist, but what I wonder is, does everybody else suspect it almost immediately?

Now, real comments about the novel:

It took a while for me to actually get interested. For me, Marin is kind of a ho-hum protagonist. In fact, I never was that interested in Marin. She’s fine. Nice young woman, likes horses, sensible, but honestly, not very interesting. I did not really get into the book until I met Estevan and Jarritt and a handful of other characters. The duke is just the sort of male lead I like best, in fact, and if he’d been the protagonist, I might have got into the story faster. But for various excellent reasons, he couldn’t take the pov.

Things get moving better after we meet the ophidian character, not just because of the ophidian, but because the story comes together at that point. Tension ratchets sharply upward, problems look potentially unresolvable, and various startling plot twists occur. I don’t mean The Big Secret, I mean other things. I do appreciate a really intelligent character.

So if you start this one, you might consider going on with it a bit even if your response to the beginning, like mine, is sort of lackluster.

The ending is, like the beginning, sort of lackluster. Not bad. But the main tension is resolved well before that and the ending qua ending feels more like an epilogue . . . maybe because there’s a lot of tell-don’t-show, but that can be fine sometimes. I suspect it’s actually because the ending is once more focused very much on Marin, and I just don’t find her that engaging. I mean, sure, nice. But not very compelling.

Okay, so, ranking Gillian Bradshaw’s books, where does this one fit?

Right at the top, these five, in this order:

Beacon at Alexandria

Island of Ghosts

The Sand-Reckoner

Cleopatra’s Heir

Render Unto Caesar

Then a notch or two below those, these four, in this order:

Wolf Hunt

Bearkeeper’s Daughter

The Sun’s Bride

Alchemy of Fire

Then, a notch or two below those:

Dark North

And waaaay at the bottom:

Horses of Heaven

The Arthurian trilogy.

Agree? Disagree? I realize some of you may shuffle the order of all these around, but surely everyone puts Beacon somewhere near the top and Horses of Heaven somewhere near the bottom? I know for sure I had already accepted Mary Stewart’s Arthurian quadrilogy as definitive long before I read Bradshaw’s, so that probably influenced my feeling about those.

Also, I have read all but Horses of Heaven and the Arthurian trilogy several times minimum, so it’s not like I think Dark North is bad. Just not as good as her others.

Now, where would I put Magic’s Poison in this list? I’m thinking . . . maybe right above Alchemy of Fire. It’s not bad. I liked it. But the disinterest I felt toward the protagonist makes me slot it in fairly low, even though the much higher interest I developed toward some of the secondary characters — one in particular — means that it winds up in the middle of the list, far above Horses of Heaven or the Arthurian trilogy.

Okay, now I’m going to go start the second book in the series. It’s a four-book series, incidentally: Magic’s Poison, The Enchanted Archive, The Duke’s Murder, and The Iron Cage.

I gather the first two feature the same characters and stand as a duology, then the third is set several years later and the fourth a decade after that. They’re all cheap on Amazon, so I’ve picked them all up.

Incidentally, I note that I bought Magic’s Poison four and a half years ago. Sheesh. Glad I finally got to it.

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Recent Reading: Truly by Ruthie Knox

He wasn’t the kind of
guy a woman wanted to pin her hope and dreams on.

Of course, he turns out to be exactly the kind of guy a
woman might pin her hopes and dreams on, because this is a romance.

Let me describe the setup as briefly as possible.

May, a young woman from the Wisconsin, is involved with a Packers quarterback. He proposes in front of a huge crowd in a way that makes it crystal clear to May that he values her because she doesn’t distract him from really important things like football, she rejects him in a dramatic manner, walks out, has her purse stolen, and winds up in NYC, on her own, with five bucks and no phone or ID.  That’s the immediate backstory.

Awkward situation, you will agree.

So she asks this guy for help, and he happens to be feeling
like he really needs to practice playing the role of the white knight, so
that’s how this story gets off the ground.

I liked this novel a lot, partly because of the great
descriptions of food – Ben is a chef, or was until recently – and partly
because it’s a pretty darn good book. Characters are good. There’s lots of
great relationship stuff besides the romance part: May and her sister, May and
her mother, the sister and her fiancée, Ben and his father. Lots of the
relationships are screwed up; getting (nearly) everybody to a better place is a
big part of the story. Breaking off a relationship that’s not working is almost
as important as getting a new relationship off the ground and counts as getting
everybody to a better place.

The writing is very good, very smooth, lots of nice moments
like this:

“The thing is, May
said, “I’m not as sad as I should be. And that makes me sad, because it makes
me realize I was being a dope. And then I wonder what’s wrong with me, and then
I go into this whole mental spiral, and that’s no good.”

“No.”

She turned her head
sideways, resting it on her knee. All wrapped around herself, gold hair and red
sweater, long legs and black boots. She looked gorgeous and disappointed. He
wanted to fix her, but he was the wrong person. Ten times more broken than May
was.

“I have a suspicion
that I’m in the middle of one of those really important life lessons,” she
said. “I’m just not sure what the lesson is yet.”

Pretty good, right? This is a great look at a moment that
feels absolutely real, with bonus great description. I can picture May
perfectly in this scene.

I like Ben a lot. He’s got real problems – anger issues –
and he hates it and he’s trying to find other ways to deal with things. Very
nicely handled, because you get these layers: a good guy underneath, and then
the angry guy over that, and then the pose of the white knight over that, and
then on top of that a realization that when you play the role of the white
knight, you don’t get to stop:

There was simply no
way he could go now. Not if it meant leaving her here to deal with this – her
sister’s wedding, her mother’s expectations, Dan – when she seemed so
ill-equipped to handle it.

Christ. Evidently you
couldn’t just play at being a white knight. Once you put on the armor, you had
to carry the fucking lance.

All these great, important moments as they both sort out
their lives, or start to. Important life lessons, definitely. I like how Ben is
angry and May tells him that’s okay. I like how she sets limits and sticks to
them. I like how he stops being so self-protective and starts being able to
reach out.

This is the third Ruthie Knox romance I’ve read, and by far
my favorite. Partly the story itself and partly, yes, the fantastic
descriptions of food. I wouldn’t have minded toning down the sex scenes a bit.
Though that’s usually the case for romances, and in this case I didn’t actually
skip them, quite.

This is quite the romance year for me, so far, though of
course it’s early days yet. Still, at this rate, by the end of the year, I’ll
have to write a post sorting out my top ten romance authors. Sure wouldn’t have
seen that coming ten years ago, or even five.

Next up, will be a fantasy, though: I’m in the middle of Magic’s Poison by Gillian Bradshaw.

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Yet another type of scam

Hey, did any of you know about this one?

Step 1: Author (or maybe plagiarist, I don’t know) produces a book and self-publishes it.

Step 2: The book enjoys a certain number of sales, which tale off.

Step 3: As the sales decline, the author sells the rights to another person.

Step 4: This person changes the character names, puts on a different cover, puts her name on the book, and re-publishes it as though it’s a different book that she wrote herself.

Thanks to yet another post by Nora Roberts, I now know about this.

Wow.

Such creativity! Maybe these people should try applying that creativity toward writing their own books. Granted, that would take longer and be more difficult.

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Must-read Regencies

From Book Riot: CORSETS AND CARRIAGES: 15 MUST-READ REGENCY ROMANCE NOVELS

As you may have noticed, I don’t always wind up agreeing with Book Riot posts about, well, many things. In particular, I clicked through to this post with a deep, deep interest in seeing whether the author might possibly declare that of all Regencies in the world, the one you must not miss is Watership Down.

However, I am somewhat reassured to see that actually, all the choices here are in fact real Regency Romances, or at least they look like that to me.

The author of this post, Namera Tanjeem, has this to say about Regencies:

Officially it occupies only the narrow slot between 1811 and 1820, when King George IV was Prince Regent. Enterprising authors have, however, managed to make it stretch from roughly 1800 to the 1830s (until Victoria comes along in 1837).

Which, yes, and I certainly contribute to the stretching phenomenon because I really can’t remember from moment to moment exactly when George IV was regent. Nor, for that matter, do I care particularly whether a romance is set in this short period or somewhere a tinch outside it.

Now, I would definitely think first of Georgette Heyer and secondarily of Courtney Milan, because I’ve liked some of hers and have several on my TBR pile right now.

And Sherwood Smith, actually, because I read Rondo Allegra pretty recently, so it’s on my mind now, along with her fantasy novels.

So, let’s see who Tanjeem has picked out as Must Reads for this genre:

Okay, yes, here’s Georgette Heyer. She’s got first and second place on this list, for Arabella (I haven’t read it) and The Corinthian (I sure have, and really liked it).

Already I’m more in tune with this list than the Urban Fantasy one with Watership Down on it. Okay, I see now that Tanjeem is listing her entries in order from cleanest to most explicit — that’s actually very helpful, thank you, Tanjeem — and this is why Heyer is at the top. Next in line:

SIMPLY SCANDALOUS (WAYBORN SIBLINGS #1) BY TAMARA LEJEUNE

I’ve spent YEARS trying to find an author like Heyer. Lejeune is the one who comes closest. Her novels are just as clean, just as funny, and very nearly as witty.

Well, now, that sounds promising. The title Tanjeem recommends isn’t available for Kindle, but I see a different one is, for 99c. Sure, I’ll try it.

Several others, and then, yes, here’s Courtney Milan:

UNVEILED (TURNER #1) BY COURTNEY MILAN

The dyslexic hero is this one is AMAZING and the prose is gorgeous.

Oh, that does sound interesting. I might very well like that. I have at least two of Milan’s on my TBR pile, don’t need to add another one right now, but this title sounds good.

Next is Tessa Dara, a name I’ve certainly heard of, but I don’t believe I’ve read any of hers.

A WEEK TO BE WICKED (SPINDLE COVE #2) BY TESSA DARE

Dare has long been a household name when it comes to the regency romance, but this one is by far her best. The banter between the protagonists is second to none, and their romance is sweet as sugar.

Bookish, science-obsessed spinster Minerva Highwood needs to be in Edinburgh for a geology symposium. (They don’t exactly know she’s a woman…but she’ll deal with that when she gets there). Meanwhile, the rakish Colin, Lord Payne has decided to accompany her out of purely altruistic motives. (And also a very small desire to see her naked). The two of them proceed to engage in the regency version of a road trip all across the country – yet it’s incredible how many scrapes two innocent people on an innocent fake elopement can get into.

Certainly sounds like the right Tessa Dare for me to try. Regency geology road trip; that’s different.

And various others …. hmm, some look like I might check them out, no one else I’ve heard of offhand.

Okay, one author Tanjeem doesn’t mention whose books I do like is Theresa Romain. I have particularly liked some of her Christmas-themed Regency Romances, and I’ve meant to pick up something else by her … you know what sounds good? This one:

Mrs. Brodie’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies appears exclusive and respectable, a place for daughters of the gentry to glean the accomplishments that will win them suitable husbands.

But the academy is not what it seems. It’s more.

Alongside every lesson in French or dancing or mathematics, the students learn the skills they’ll need to survive in a man’s world. They forge; they fight; they change their accents to blend into a world apart.

The above appears to be a set of two novellas, one by Theresa Romain and one by, let’s see, Shana Galen. I like the idea, I know I like Romain, sure, let’s try that one.

Another author who’s missing: Carla Kelly. I know some of hers are set during the Napoleonic Wars because I read this one, for example, and it is, so as far as I’m concerned she’s a Regency writer.

My favorite of hers is Softly Falling. Not quite sure when that was set, but since it’s set in Wyoming, it doesn’t count as a Regency anyway — but certainly a Historical Romance, and a good one. Oh, yes, I see Kelly definitely has a somewhat expanded period; here’s one set in 1912. Maybe that’s why Tanjeem doesn’t count her as a Regency author.

Now: a little pause to appreciate the absence of Watership Down — or any other wildly unsuitable choice — on the linked list. For the rest of my life, I’m going to look with bated breath at Book Riot lists to see if Watership Down has somehow morphed into Gothic Romance or Space Opera or heaven knows what.

If you read Regencies — or historical romances at all — what authors do you particularly like (other than Georgette Heyer)?

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Invisible writers

Here is Janet Reid, hitting an emotional reaction that took her by surprise:

I finished a terrific book recently and wanted to reach out to the author to say “wow, I really liked your book!” Maybe boost the signal a bit with a mention of the book on Twitter.

Went to the author’s website.
No contact info at all. No social media links at all.

Ok. So, the author doesn’t like all that folderol. I get that. You just want to write books and be left alone.

Ok. I’ll leave you alone. I won’t write you a note about how much I liked your book. And I won’t mention you on Twitter. And I won’t use your book as a contest prize.

Harumph harumph harumph.

That was my first (not very adult or thought out) reaction …

I realized after some thinking, that this kind of annoyance is a very recent thing. Twenty years ago, when I read a book I liked, I told my friends. And maybe yammered to my publicity clients, or bookstore event planners. It never dawned on me to write a letter to the author’s publisher (the only way you could contact authors back in the Paper Era.)

Now with instant communication and everyone hanging out at the CyberSpace Bar and Grill, it’s expected we’re all reachable. And want to be reached.

Well, clearly, no. …

It’s a good book.

And then she shows it to her blog readers: Bearskin by McLaughlan, which looks possibly pretty good. A thriller involving poaching in Appalachia, I gather.

But this is an interesting reaction!

Now, when I finish a book I really loved by a new-to-me author, I do sometimes search for that author on Twitter and say I really liked it. Or if I write a review (very likely for any book I love), then I send them a @ on Twitter to let them know.

But if the author isn’t on Twitter, that’s it. I don’t feel annoyed because the author is unreachable, because (a) a glance at Twitter is the full extent of my efforts to locate the author; and (b) it has never occurred to me to be offended if an author is a little difficult to track down.

Is this because I’m a little older and also clearly remember the days when the only way to contact an author was to write to the publisher?

Or because I’m just so introverted that it doesn’t occur to me to make a big effort to track someone down, far less feel offended if they’re not readily contactable?

I’m now curious: do you routinely feel like you ought to contact the author of a great book at all? And would you feel even momentarily annoyed if that author was not easily locatable on social media?

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