Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Author Throw Down!

No. It’s not a cage match, although I wouldn’t mind seeing that. Damon Lindelof and George RR Martin are having an author feud h
. Sort of. In a New Yorker interview, Martin talked about his disappointment with how Lost ended and talked about being worried that he’d f*ck up the ending of his Fire and Ice series and “do a Lost.”

Lindelof fired back with a series of tweets. Seriously, has he seen Martin’s books? That man could no more be held to 140 characters than lightning could be bottled. Plus, it’s really hard to have a Twitter feud with a guy who is a) not on Twitter and b) is traveling and apparently doesn’t take his computer with him.

Regardless, it all reminds me a little of that book How I Became a Famous Novelist which if you haven’t read, you should. You will alternately laugh and weep as Hely lays bare what so much of us experience in the publishing industry. In the book, the narrator sort of accidentally starts a feud with a bestselling author and it vaults his own book into the limelight.

So I’m trying to decide with whom to feud. I’ve publicly dissed Stephenie Meyer and Elizabeth Gilbert repeatedly. They don’t seem to care. Clearly I need a much more thin-skinned bestseller or a more cogent and pointed attack. Lindelof seems pretty touchy and I did hate pretty much the entire last season of Lost. Really? C.J. from West Wing and a magic spring in a cave? That’s all they had for me? But now it seems done.

Anybody have any suggestions?

12 comments:

Stephanie Doyle said...

Hmmmm author Feud?

You named my top "feudie".

But I have to say part of what I rip Meyers for is also the message in her books - not the writing or the story - but who that girl was and the impact she might have on other girls who believe that thinking that way over a boy is okay.

I might also feud Dan Brown. As an author I would love to question him regarding who that character was in DaVinci Code. Story - fine. But tell me who was the hero, why did I route for him, you had him kiss the girl in the end - why?

I would love to go 10 rounds on that and just see what kind of answers he could come up with.

Stephanie Doyle said...

Did I really spell root as route????

Sometimes I swear I don't know where (or wear) my head is.

Maureen McGowan said...

It is a amazing why some people become famous. And it's not always for the right reasons.

Did you guys watch that flame out a few weeks ago (I'm not going to link). A self-pubbed author didn't like the review a book blogger gave her and she went berserk in the comments, swore, called him and other commenters lots of bad names. Bad behaviour for sure.

BUT... then people who read the blog comments went on Amazon and other places and hit this author up with hundreds of one star scathing reviews. For a book, clearly none of them had read.

One person's bad behaviour does not justify more bad behaviour.

That said, I do wonder if her sales went up... I'm quite sure this book blogger's hits went up...

Molly O'Keefe said...

The whole Lost experience was a grab bag of thrills and disappointments. When they got it right - it was the best show ever. When they got it wrong, they got it crazy crazy wrong. But they went for it all the time - which is brave.

Eileen, I was thinking about you last night becaue I went to go see Elizabeth Gilbert speak as part of a big Interesting Women, Interesting Lives thing in Toronto. And as much as you hate that book - you would like her. I liked her. she's totally likeable. And the whole talk was about her life as a writer - and it was prety effing inspirational - I walked out of there feeling good - might blog about it on Monday.

That said - if you want to go further with your fued - I totally got your back.

I don't have the stomach or nerves for fueds. It's too important to me to be liked...I can't stand the stress.

Eileen said...

Steph, I'm 100 percent with you on your Twilight critique. The glorification of what seemed to me to be an abusive relationship really turned my stomach. That it was presented to young girls as romantic makes me angry. I don't care if it's the route or the root. You just plain make sense. Or cents.

Gilbert was likable? Really? Are you sure it isn't just you that's likable, Molly? Cuz in her book Gilbert comes off as whiny self-absorbed and entitled. (Think that'll get her goat? I could go on.)

Maureen, I did see that flame-up. It was horrific to watch it unfold in the comments. The review wasn't even that bad. The reviewer liked the story, but said the grammar and spelling problems were distracting. Totally crayzee.

Maureen McGowan said...

That flame out was crazee. :) But didn't justify what people then did to her on Amazon... One bad turn deserves another was apparently what those people learned in kindergarten.

RE Twilight. I was talking to a parent recently whose daughter had read the Twilight books well before they were famous and the teen didn't know she was reading a vampire book. Daughter's comment to her mom about halfway through. There's something very odd about Edward. I think he's bipolar. Whatever it is, he's got serious issues.

Eileen said...

You have no idea how much better that makes me feel about Twilight.

I didn't follow the flame war over to Amazon. Some people have too much time on their hands. They should come to my house and fold some damn laundry.

Maureen McGowan said...

I didn't actually see the Amazon stuff, either. Just heard about it on Twitter and some blog. But it seemed so mean.

Yes, what the woman did was stupid. Really stupid. But giving her "reviews" to retaliate? It was like the angry villagers chasing her with torches.

Eileen said...

OTOH, I now recognize her name.

Anonymous said...

Author flame outs are delicious and awful all at the same time.... but it could so easily happen, one evening of bad judgment...

Maureen McGowan said...

RE now recognizing her name. Yup... fame for wrong reasons.

I say we need to start twitter feuds with each other. ;)

Eileen said...

Oh, Maureen, that sounds wonderful! Let's start thinking of insults of 140 characters or less.

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