Redressing the balance
Jul. 16th, 2013 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
partheniaI logged onto LJ on Sunday, read the remarkable fact that JKR has been outed as the writer of a crime novel, read the pre-reveal excerpts on Amazon, and ...ordered. I have now read screeds of newspaper comments (sorry, trying to break the habit) saying that it is a cynical ploy to boost sales or a desperate deception which is unfair to real ex-military writers. Because God forbid that the Sunday Times would ever really try to out a world-famous writer, that's simply not their style. Or indeed that a very famous author would get fed up of the hysterical reaction to anything she writes.
I have a feeling that nothing other than 20 years of pseudonyms would satisfy the commenters. And they are totally missing the point: the minute she was announced as the author, shedloads of those amateur critics wheel themselves out to demonstrate their incredible lack of prejudice by saying it's all a pile of shit co-ordinated by shady global publishing forces and they never liked The Prisoner of Azkaban anyway.
I did read The Casual Vacancy when it came out and I was sad to find that I didn't like it. I never finished it, because I don't have the stomach for those kinds of stories. Can't deal with those themes anywhere. It did occur to me that this might be a good technique for someone trying to move on from a megaseries: Hey, everyone, I've published a book! You'll hate it! No, really; then quietly going on to write something else.
Why did I order this one? Because the thought of a new book by a favourite writer is always too good to pass up. And ...crime fiction set in London? Let me at it.
I have a feeling that nothing other than 20 years of pseudonyms would satisfy the commenters. And they are totally missing the point: the minute she was announced as the author, shedloads of those amateur critics wheel themselves out to demonstrate their incredible lack of prejudice by saying it's all a pile of shit co-ordinated by shady global publishing forces and they never liked The Prisoner of Azkaban anyway.
I did read The Casual Vacancy when it came out and I was sad to find that I didn't like it. I never finished it, because I don't have the stomach for those kinds of stories. Can't deal with those themes anywhere. It did occur to me that this might be a good technique for someone trying to move on from a megaseries: Hey, everyone, I've published a book! You'll hate it! No, really; then quietly going on to write something else.
Why did I order this one? Because the thought of a new book by a favourite writer is always too good to pass up. And ...crime fiction set in London? Let me at it.
