Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "laudable"
Everyone's Talking About Her
Over at Book View Cafe recently Jo Walton wrote a thoughtful, charming article on the Suck Fairy. (Also referenced here.) You know: the rot that can get into books you once read as a kid that makes 'em suck when you read them again as an adult.
I've had that experience. But also have had the experience of re-reading books that the Suck Fairy entirely missed. For me, some of those spring to mind.
The whole Astrid Lindgren "Pippi Longstocking" series is cool. No matter how many times I re-read Pippi Longstocking, she's still the Greatest Girl on Earth. (Like, if I was going to write a fanfic Lesbian romance, it would be a whole lotta Pippi Longstocking crushing on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and maybe a nail-biting love triangle with Pollyanna.)
And Moomins. (Tove Jansson) Yeah, Moomins don't suck no matter how many times you read the books. Even if LOTR might be heavier going the 200th time you read it, in part because you already know the plot and you named your kids Aragorn and Galadriel; Moomins are kind of unsuckable.
And still, much of the Hugh Lofting "Dr Dolittle series" stands up to being read a dozen times or so. (Yeah, OK, some of the Dr Dolittle books have some questionable racist stuff in them that wouldn't pass muster by today's standards, but Bumpo was still a bright kid who ended up at Oxford.)
And The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton. I read that when it was nearly new, never forgot it, and it was still shiny-bright when I read it again, 25+ years later.
So I kind of wonder what makes these books unpalatable to the Suck Fairy? Oh, perhaps it's partly because the writing is decent, and they're not trying to shovel in too much of an ideological message...?
In reviewing Walton's article, Sherwood gives us this gem, that I've discovered, and probably almost every other writer has also discovered: Most writers began lives as eager readers, but in the process of learning to shape their own prose to do what they want it to, they turn an increasingly critical eye on the prose of their fellow writers.
That's hard to turn off, but I've also recently started just turning it to advantage. If a book isn't doing it for me, I give up. But. If (a) the book is really enjoyable, but (b) I can't turn off my inner proofreader to ignore the nits, then I just turn the old goat loose in the pasture and mark-up the hell out of it. It takes longer to finish a book if you're yellow-lining something on every page or two, but at the end of the day, I kind of like having a pile of notes I can hand back to the author when I say "aw, man I loved your book, here are 200 editorial notes." Does that make me an evil reader? ;-)
I've had that experience. But also have had the experience of re-reading books that the Suck Fairy entirely missed. For me, some of those spring to mind.
The whole Astrid Lindgren "Pippi Longstocking" series is cool. No matter how many times I re-read Pippi Longstocking, she's still the Greatest Girl on Earth. (Like, if I was going to write a fanfic Lesbian romance, it would be a whole lotta Pippi Longstocking crushing on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and maybe a nail-biting love triangle with Pollyanna.)
And Moomins. (Tove Jansson) Yeah, Moomins don't suck no matter how many times you read the books. Even if LOTR might be heavier going the 200th time you read it, in part because you already know the plot and you named your kids Aragorn and Galadriel; Moomins are kind of unsuckable.
And still, much of the Hugh Lofting "Dr Dolittle series" stands up to being read a dozen times or so. (Yeah, OK, some of the Dr Dolittle books have some questionable racist stuff in them that wouldn't pass muster by today's standards, but Bumpo was still a bright kid who ended up at Oxford.)
And The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton. I read that when it was nearly new, never forgot it, and it was still shiny-bright when I read it again, 25+ years later.
So I kind of wonder what makes these books unpalatable to the Suck Fairy? Oh, perhaps it's partly because the writing is decent, and they're not trying to shovel in too much of an ideological message...?
In reviewing Walton's article, Sherwood gives us this gem, that I've discovered, and probably almost every other writer has also discovered: Most writers began lives as eager readers, but in the process of learning to shape their own prose to do what they want it to, they turn an increasingly critical eye on the prose of their fellow writers.
That's hard to turn off, but I've also recently started just turning it to advantage. If a book isn't doing it for me, I give up. But. If (a) the book is really enjoyable, but (b) I can't turn off my inner proofreader to ignore the nits, then I just turn the old goat loose in the pasture and mark-up the hell out of it. It takes longer to finish a book if you're yellow-lining something on every page or two, but at the end of the day, I kind of like having a pile of notes I can hand back to the author when I say "aw, man I loved your book, here are 200 editorial notes." Does that make me an evil reader? ;-)
Rodential Rant of the Day: Gay Gay Gay, Not Kitarō
Today, class, I'll bring to light another example of random stuff that annoys me about books and modern society. (This is part of an on-going occasional editorial series of talks to my bathroom mirror.)
Sheldon Lord's book 21 Gay Street was published by Midwood in 1960. It is a cheap thirty-five cent paperback. (That's just over one-third of a dollar for those who are counting.) If you can find a copy of this ultra rare book, like I did on Abebooks.com today, you'll pay nearly $100 for it. Of that hundred, the author will get precisely nothing because it's a used book. Well, that's OK, we know that authors don't get royalties on used books. C'est la vie, right? (Oh, and for what it's worth, a vintage postcard of the cover of that book can be had for only $143.66. What!? I only paid $12.50 for an original edition of Ann Aldrich's We Walk Alone which is five years older.)
But my real question du jour is: Why isn't this quaint book in print, especially in an electronic edition? It's not like it's orphaned by some ancient scribbler who died a zillion years ago leaving no known heirs and whose publisher has gone the way of the passenger pigeon causing 100-year lock-up of the work just because nobody knows who the hell owns the copyright...
Sheldon Lord is apparently a pseudonym for the actual author Lawrence Block who is still very much alive and is even here on Goodreads, blogging up a storm as of 3 days ago. Mr Block has republished some of his "mid-century erotica" list, and it shows up on his own website as well as Amazon. He has apparently owned up to other books of similar vintage, which is really cool. Good one, Mr Block! I love it. Maybe he just hasn't gotten around to republishing this one...? Who the heck knows. (My guess it that it's probably some kind of copyright snafu, but mentioning that would make me sound like an underground anarchist who wants to give away books for nothing. Or maybe he doesn't know anyone who has a copy, and isn't willing to shell out $100 for a copy that could be ripped apart for scanning...)
Anyway, most people who might be interested in reading 21 Gay Street, and who might willingly pay the nice author a fair or even fat royalty to get a fresh copy, will never shell out $100 for a brittle used paperback on cheap paper. And sadly, boys and girls, you can't even find this book pirated in some illegal download torrent because it's too damn rare. C'est la vie.
Anyways, maybe I'll ask Mr Block why 21 Gay Street isn't available as an e-book... Oh, wait. Hmm, apparently he doesn't have the nifty "Ask the Author" feature enabled. C'est la vie. Maybe one of the six degrees of people I know will know him and can ask on my behalf.
And as usual, anyone who read this far can ask for a free e-copy of An Uncommon Surfeit of Lipstick as a reward for perseverence. It's not crime, but it might scratch your not-X-rated Lesbian romance itch for an hour or two.
Finally, anyone who actually understands and can correctly articulate to me the meaning of this posting's title can ask for one free paperback from Smashed-Rat-on-Press... C'mon. Dig a little.
Sheldon Lord's book 21 Gay Street was published by Midwood in 1960. It is a cheap thirty-five cent paperback. (That's just over one-third of a dollar for those who are counting.) If you can find a copy of this ultra rare book, like I did on Abebooks.com today, you'll pay nearly $100 for it. Of that hundred, the author will get precisely nothing because it's a used book. Well, that's OK, we know that authors don't get royalties on used books. C'est la vie, right? (Oh, and for what it's worth, a vintage postcard of the cover of that book can be had for only $143.66. What!? I only paid $12.50 for an original edition of Ann Aldrich's We Walk Alone which is five years older.)But my real question du jour is: Why isn't this quaint book in print, especially in an electronic edition? It's not like it's orphaned by some ancient scribbler who died a zillion years ago leaving no known heirs and whose publisher has gone the way of the passenger pigeon causing 100-year lock-up of the work just because nobody knows who the hell owns the copyright...
Sheldon Lord is apparently a pseudonym for the actual author Lawrence Block who is still very much alive and is even here on Goodreads, blogging up a storm as of 3 days ago. Mr Block has republished some of his "mid-century erotica" list, and it shows up on his own website as well as Amazon. He has apparently owned up to other books of similar vintage, which is really cool. Good one, Mr Block! I love it. Maybe he just hasn't gotten around to republishing this one...? Who the heck knows. (My guess it that it's probably some kind of copyright snafu, but mentioning that would make me sound like an underground anarchist who wants to give away books for nothing. Or maybe he doesn't know anyone who has a copy, and isn't willing to shell out $100 for a copy that could be ripped apart for scanning...)
Anyway, most people who might be interested in reading 21 Gay Street, and who might willingly pay the nice author a fair or even fat royalty to get a fresh copy, will never shell out $100 for a brittle used paperback on cheap paper. And sadly, boys and girls, you can't even find this book pirated in some illegal download torrent because it's too damn rare. C'est la vie.
Anyways, maybe I'll ask Mr Block why 21 Gay Street isn't available as an e-book... Oh, wait. Hmm, apparently he doesn't have the nifty "Ask the Author" feature enabled. C'est la vie. Maybe one of the six degrees of people I know will know him and can ask on my behalf.
And as usual, anyone who read this far can ask for a free e-copy of An Uncommon Surfeit of Lipstick as a reward for perseverence. It's not crime, but it might scratch your not-X-rated Lesbian romance itch for an hour or two.
Finally, anyone who actually understands and can correctly articulate to me the meaning of this posting's title can ask for one free paperback from Smashed-Rat-on-Press... C'mon. Dig a little.
There are X Number of Ys in My Life, Part 1
There are six kinds of writers in my life... It used to be three, until I started listing them and discovered that things are more nuanced than I thought at first. They're probably more nuanced than six, but at the moment, six seems a reasonable number to blather about.
0. Writers I don't know and whose work I don't know, so they're totally unknown quantities and I can't say much more than that. Come to think of it, in real life, this is the largest category of writers... I now have hundreds of these on my tablet because I've scooped them up as they floated freely down the Amazon. (That's a rodential joke.)
1. Writers whose work I don't care for. This includes loads of writers from those whose work I have read to some extent, but which makes me shrug or yawn or DNF, to those whose work I actively dislike so much that I would never again allow one of their works to darken my book shelves (or my doorway) with its loathsome presence. Well, enough said. There are many reasons for disliking books to varying degrees, including the feeling that a particular writer should have stopped while it was ahead, such as before producing any prose. But dislike and disinterest usually come down to matters of personal taste and nothing more. Sometimes, however, I readily admit that I like what screen-writers and film production crews have done with novels and other works that don't appeal to me as pieces of writing. Not naming names, just sayin'...
2. Writers whose work is alright: utilitarian and solid enough to keep me pleasantly occupied and content to pay for occasionally, if that's what I'm doing. Like an ordinary nondescript mass-market beer with a hum-drum label among a pack of like items. You know, when you go to a restaurant that has 17 beers on tap, none of which are in any way distinctive, except for the token non-alcoholic one. Work that I'd drink, but which wouldn't prompt an orgasm or a letter home gushing about.
3. Writers whose work I like well enough to keep reading once in a while, the way I drink Scotch. Not my everyday go-to libation, and I might even forget about my single malt for a while, but when I come back to it, I instantly remember why I liked it, may want a little more to boot, and I'm damn glad it lasts just about forever on my (wide-open not-locked) liquor shelf. And with writers, I'm glad their names are on my list, and their books are around on the shelf or tablet or store, and that I still haven't exhausted some of them, so there's always more ripe fruit on the tree when I want it.
4. Writers whose work I like so much that I've read all or most of their backlist and I semi-automatically buy everything new they publish. Usually that means they're still alive and still doing things. There are at most a couple handfuls of writers in this group. I've occasionally been known to knock on their doors and beg to beta read their next thing, so, yeah... I don't call myself a stalker...
5. Writers for whom I make little altars in my house and leave tokens in homage, and whose work I generally have a lot of; maybe even their complete works. Just aside: I rarely burn offerings to these writers, but, have sometimes been known to turn them into characters, places, or species in novels... You get the picture. Many writers in this group might be dead, but that ain't necessarily so.
Oh, by the way... I've been thinking of not posting any more on this blog because recently GR took away the only statistic that tells a blogger how many times a posting has been viewed. Oh, well. I should assume it's always zero, I guess. See here for example: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
0. Writers I don't know and whose work I don't know, so they're totally unknown quantities and I can't say much more than that. Come to think of it, in real life, this is the largest category of writers... I now have hundreds of these on my tablet because I've scooped them up as they floated freely down the Amazon. (That's a rodential joke.)
1. Writers whose work I don't care for. This includes loads of writers from those whose work I have read to some extent, but which makes me shrug or yawn or DNF, to those whose work I actively dislike so much that I would never again allow one of their works to darken my book shelves (or my doorway) with its loathsome presence. Well, enough said. There are many reasons for disliking books to varying degrees, including the feeling that a particular writer should have stopped while it was ahead, such as before producing any prose. But dislike and disinterest usually come down to matters of personal taste and nothing more. Sometimes, however, I readily admit that I like what screen-writers and film production crews have done with novels and other works that don't appeal to me as pieces of writing. Not naming names, just sayin'...
2. Writers whose work is alright: utilitarian and solid enough to keep me pleasantly occupied and content to pay for occasionally, if that's what I'm doing. Like an ordinary nondescript mass-market beer with a hum-drum label among a pack of like items. You know, when you go to a restaurant that has 17 beers on tap, none of which are in any way distinctive, except for the token non-alcoholic one. Work that I'd drink, but which wouldn't prompt an orgasm or a letter home gushing about.
3. Writers whose work I like well enough to keep reading once in a while, the way I drink Scotch. Not my everyday go-to libation, and I might even forget about my single malt for a while, but when I come back to it, I instantly remember why I liked it, may want a little more to boot, and I'm damn glad it lasts just about forever on my (wide-open not-locked) liquor shelf. And with writers, I'm glad their names are on my list, and their books are around on the shelf or tablet or store, and that I still haven't exhausted some of them, so there's always more ripe fruit on the tree when I want it.
4. Writers whose work I like so much that I've read all or most of their backlist and I semi-automatically buy everything new they publish. Usually that means they're still alive and still doing things. There are at most a couple handfuls of writers in this group. I've occasionally been known to knock on their doors and beg to beta read their next thing, so, yeah... I don't call myself a stalker...
5. Writers for whom I make little altars in my house and leave tokens in homage, and whose work I generally have a lot of; maybe even their complete works. Just aside: I rarely burn offerings to these writers, but, have sometimes been known to turn them into characters, places, or species in novels... You get the picture. Many writers in this group might be dead, but that ain't necessarily so.
Oh, by the way... I've been thinking of not posting any more on this blog because recently GR took away the only statistic that tells a blogger how many times a posting has been viewed. Oh, well. I should assume it's always zero, I guess. See here for example: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Spend Halloween with Sanguinity!
Just when you thought nothing really marvelous could happen again in California before it burns to the ground, this Halloween we're going to try topping the wildly successful event we had in 2018. (The notice was in the SROP 2018 Calendar blog posting, in case you missed that.)
This year, on Thursday, October 31, 2019, we invite you once again to the enormous Sanguinity Hematode Birthday Bash in beautiful downtown Santa Banana. You will not want to miss this super-scary Halloween night extravaganza! At 9:57 p.m. precisely, by black-light, Sanguinity herself will emerge, wailing like a newborn, from a giant crêpe-paper vulva (we are still not kidding) to begin pouring grog and commence with signing copies of her books in red ink made from her own blood, especially for this occasion.
At last year's event, four members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, fabulously dressed as Horsebats of the Apocalypse, performed a mass "faint-in" before the stage at the precise moment Ms Hematode burst from her symbolic womb. This year, we will be giving away thirteen large posters of that incredible event, all signed by photographer Pansy Schneider-Horst.
Admission is $13.13, which covers bottomless drinks, a black mask, one handful of multi-colored candy condoms from the giant pumpkin, a slice of Sanguinity’s birthday cake, and all the damp pretzels you can endure. Mantissa Etherbright will also be present, in a brilliant costume, and she will happily sign autographs for anyone who recognizes her.
And lest you forget, e-books of Sanguinity's novel The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds in a Garden of Exotic Delights are always available for free to anyone who can follow the bread-crumbs.
Hope to see you all on the dark side, Halloween Eve!
This year, on Thursday, October 31, 2019, we invite you once again to the enormous Sanguinity Hematode Birthday Bash in beautiful downtown Santa Banana. You will not want to miss this super-scary Halloween night extravaganza! At 9:57 p.m. precisely, by black-light, Sanguinity herself will emerge, wailing like a newborn, from a giant crêpe-paper vulva (we are still not kidding) to begin pouring grog and commence with signing copies of her books in red ink made from her own blood, especially for this occasion.
At last year's event, four members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, fabulously dressed as Horsebats of the Apocalypse, performed a mass "faint-in" before the stage at the precise moment Ms Hematode burst from her symbolic womb. This year, we will be giving away thirteen large posters of that incredible event, all signed by photographer Pansy Schneider-Horst.
Admission is $13.13, which covers bottomless drinks, a black mask, one handful of multi-colored candy condoms from the giant pumpkin, a slice of Sanguinity’s birthday cake, and all the damp pretzels you can endure. Mantissa Etherbright will also be present, in a brilliant costume, and she will happily sign autographs for anyone who recognizes her.
And lest you forget, e-books of Sanguinity's novel The Girl Who Grew Crutches From Seeds in a Garden of Exotic Delights are always available for free to anyone who can follow the bread-crumbs.
Hope to see you all on the dark side, Halloween Eve!
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
The main purpose of this blog is to announce occasional additions and changes to the SROP catalog or the site. And it doubles as a soap-box from which to gesticulate and babble...
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