Recent Reviews and other meanderings

First of all, I want to let everyone know who ever reviews me that any time I fail to respond it is due entirely to the fact that I have not seen it. Difficult as it is to get a review I sort of feel I am obligated to respond - even if the review is shit - and I do get a few *shitty reviews.

*Shitty reviews are a specific category of review that is simple, short and without explanation. They can be positive or negative reviews. But nothing is more shitty than not having explanation for a review - good or bad.

Influences: On occasion I get asked about my influences, how I come up with ideas and what the hell was in my little brain when I wrote the story - so here goes...

My favorite author is Michael Moorcock. Perhaps not the best writer of this or any generation, he is extremely influential. This is, of course, mostly due to his imaginative tales. But also because of his penchant for offering up tales that are not entirely predictable. That is, the hero is not always a "Good guy" and he doesn't always win the girl. Sometimes he is entirely fucked over, and no character is guaranteed to see the end of the tale. In other words, his work is not Epic Pooh. http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.p...

I've also a rather heavy influence from Robert E. Howard.No, I don't write adventure/fantasy but much of my verbiage and stylistic choices come directly from Howard.

The final influence is my ego and really bad erotica. Sounds weird, I know. The truth of it is that there is a lot of really bad erotica that take excellent ideas and destroy them with bad prose and ridiculously silly notions - and my ego tells me I can do it better.

Now, I am off to get back to editing my latest tale of woe.