Oops – I did it Again
With the title of that song bringing back memories of bad music and lost innocence, imagine me wearing a skin tight dress and prancing around on a stage ala Britney Spears. I hope the damage I just caused isn’t permanent. And don’t worry, performing as an entertainer in Vegas is not in my list of possible future career choices.
The title of this post refers to book reviews. Specifically reviews on my books. As a writer I’m not supposed to read my reviews, let alone talk about them. Yet here I am, doing it again. You’d think I’d learn!
2013 has been a good year thus far (knock on wood) as far as sales and reviews are concerned. Indeed, I’ve been rocking some very impressive reviews over the past month or two, including one I received very recently on my Blades of Leander books, although I don’t remember if it was Child of Fate, Victim of Fate, or Silver Dragon that hosted this particular review.
In it the reviewer talked about how they enjoyed the book and then drew parallels to Game of Thrones. I was shocked by this, but I think it’s a good thing. I can say I “think” because I know practically nothing about Game of Thrones.
It’s true! I’ve never read the books although thanks to advertising I can tell you that George R.R. Martin is the author. I have never seen even a clip from the television show, nor do I know what channel it’s on (something tells me it’s an HBO series?). What I know about Game of Thrones comes from the posts I see on Facebook, and I skim over them quickly.
So, naturally, you want to know what the hell is wrong with me. How can I not know about something as awesome as Game of Thrones? Er, well, I’m not much of a TV guy. My wife and I will occasionally slip in a late night showing of NCIS off of the DVR, but that’s it for me. Plus I don’t have HBO (if GoT is on HBO, if it’s not never mind). I did manage to sneak in watching the new version of the movie, Red Dawn, on Sunday afternoon though (quick review: entertaining, but it requires a LOT of suspension of disbelief).
So why don’t I rush out and learn all I can about GoT? Simple – I don’t want to be influenced. I respect the work and success of my fellow writers (most of them, at least). I don’t want my books to be subconsciously influenced by what they’re written, nor do I want to pull away any attention from their work.
There are a couple of other very successful fantasy authors out there that I swap dialogue with from time to time. I have a lot of respect for these guys (Michael R. Hicks and M.R. Mathias) and because of that I try very hard to steer clear of their stuff too. It’s difficult sometimes – I want to see if I can pick up the secrets of their success but I don’t want to copy them. I would love to collaborate with one of both of them someday, but now I’m getting ahead of myself!
So back to the point of this post – I’m honored and impressed to hear that I’ve got something that reminded someone of the extremely successful Game of Thrones series, but it was pure accidental and coincidental on my part. I hope, however, that this might lead to a coincidental and accidental boost in sales though.
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .
