Ok, I just got my copy of Lies from Clarkesworld. (I couldn't wait for this to show so I bought a second copy to read last month)

Anyway as a bonus Scott included a printout of the Prologue of RSURS and while its much shorter than the one in Lies, let me tell you. It certainly has be practicing up on cocktail recipees so I can win the manuscript. I'm looking forward to this book as much as I am ADWD.

Is this where we should petition Scott to put up that prolouge on his website?

I'm sure he will...like next spring :(. I wish I had ordered from Clarkesworld, but I got mine from Goldsboro. Didn't even know of Clarkesworld at the time. Can't even remember how I found Goldsboro books.

I know you guys will want to torture and kill me, but I've been told that I could get my ARC of RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES as early as this fall! :P

One of the few perks of being a book reviewer! ;) No but seriously, I'm really looking forward to this sequel.

Cheers,

Patrick

You're a funny guy, Pat. Come a little closer. There's something on the tip of your nose...let me just swat that for you... :P

Patrick, will you accept sexual favours in return for sharing that ARC?

BTW, have you all seen the excerpts Scott posted on his LJ a few months ago? Linkies for anyone who hasn't:

http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/143537.html

http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/153970.html

http://scott-lynch.livejournal.com/177052.html

Thanks alot for the links Emily.

Thanks for the links. No wonder I hadn't read them as I hadn't even heard of the geezer back in 2005.

n00b.

STFU n00b! U know nothing!

Emily!

Thanks for the Links! I hadn't back read his LJ to that point.....
Those are awesome!

Shitfuck the man can write fun dialogue.

:lol:

Ah, now the question is, being a book reviewer, have you been bribed to do so? After all, we know that all book reviewers are bribed thanks to the one review of Scott's book. :)

And if you are bribed, can I be bribed too?

Jenn

:P

:o :D :lol:

OK, that's it. How soon can I get hold of the rest of RSURS? And don't give me any crap about 2007 or I'm going to make sure that ...eh... that ... well, I'll come back with a apropriate threat as soon as I can thin of one...

Hmmm, exactly what did you have in mind. . ? :P

Pat

Jenn,

Please tell Scott I'm still waiting for my bribe money! :D And if I don't get it soon, I'll compare RSURS to Terry Goodkind's FAITH OF THE FALLEN! :P

Ah, that infamous review which started such a debate. You know, the funny thing is that it gave Scott so much exposure that I think he actually sold more books because of that one review. It's a crazy world when someone claims that your novel is so atrocious that reviewers had to be bribed to write positive reviews of it, and that this one negative review turns out to be a sales generator!

Cheers!

Pat

I don't know if I should mention this just yet, as I have no idea if this has a chance in hell of seeing the light, but here it goes! :)

When the time comes -- probably at some point next spring -- if Random House is cool with the idea, I wanted to do a contest where a lucky winner would get a chance to win an ARC of RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES. The catch would be that the winner would then have to write a book review and post it on a number of message boards, and in so doing help spread the word about the book.

Now, ARCs are costly and publishers tend not to be all that willing to send them out randomly. But if Bantam Spectra likes this idea, I'd love to set it up. I can already tell you that I'll have one or more hardcover copies up for grabs. But I thought that a chance to win an ARC would be a neat thing.

I'll keep you posted! ;)

Patrick

If Pat won't relent, I have here a ship that I drew with a red crayon which I will consider parting with for sexual favours B)

So basically, you're trying to bribe someone with an ARC so that they write lots of positive reviews on message boards? Maybe there's more truth to that negative review than I thought... ;)

Seriously, I interpereted the "Have these people been bribed to right the positive review" as being more of a joke than anything else, but some people seemed to take it a bit too seriously, they managed to have an impressively long argument considering nobody really seemed to be argue that there was a lot of bribery going on. The infamous review (the reviewer now refers to it merely as "Lamoragate") wasn't really particularly negative about tLoLL from what I remember, it just complained it was overhyped and then proceeded to give massive spoilers for every major plot point.

he never said you had to write a *positive* book review heh.

but pretty cool. I would def be down for that contest! I love ARCS. When I have them. They make me nash my teeth when other people have them annd I don't lol

Pat,

Will do. I'll have him get himself to the nearest Western Union early tomorow morning for you :)

As for the review. For the most part I shrugged my shoulders about it. I think it's rather funny actually :)

Any publicity is good publicity!!!!

Jenn

Ah, just what every girl wants :P

It's *mostly* true that any publicity is good publicity... I do credit that review for spurring some interest in the book. ;)

But as for "being more of a joke than anything else," when others started beating up on the review author for the bribery line, her first response wasn't to claim that it was just hyperbole or obvious exaggeration (which I'll tell you right now I would have looked down upon as cowardly-- "It was just hyperbole" is too frequently a code-phrase for refusing to take responsibility for what one writes)-- she started going on about viral marketing, and how companies do actually place paid shills at various points in the real world, and so forth. In other words, trying seriously to support her premise.

Which wasn't actually *my* biggest problem with the review. As I said on my LJ, if she dislikes the book, I can't persuade her into liking it; I can't convince her to un-have the experience she had with it. I'm sorry she didn't have a blast with it, and I support her right to criticize the hell out of it in a responsible fashion. But I can only shrug helplessly at her sheer level of vitriol and at her fairly inaccurate recapping of the actual events of the book.

I think I've discovered that there are only two circumstances in which criticism really, truly annoys me:

A) When someone I don't know presumes intimate familarity with my motives or my thought processes.

For example, over on SFFWorld, there's a passionate but somewhat... confused individual vehemently insisting that my next book needs to be written "just for myself," as though TLOLL wasn't a great big bleeding self-indulgent love letter to everything I utterly treasure in fantasy and adventure fiction... his direct quote:

"I would love to read a book that Lynch wrote just for himself. Hopefully the popularity and strength of sales will allow him to indulge himself to greater extents in his future works and he can ease back on the directorial and editorial guidance he felt necessary to impose in this one"

Which presumes so much I hardly know where to begin... but then, I have the advantage of actually working with editors and this guy probably doesn't. The ideal function of an editor, as my UK editor would have it, is to help a book become the best possible version of itself that it can be. My editors spotted plot holes, suggested means of better arriving at my obvious intentions, and made many suggestions that I downright said "no" to. Anyone imagining that "directorial and editorial guidance" ground down on this book like a ten-ton weight is of course free to do so. They are also free to believe in the Easter Bunny.

And then there's my other favorite--

B) When someone criticizes the book based on a blatantly careless misreading of a critical point, or blathers something obviously not supported by the text at all.

I'm not talking about tiny little suggestions and facts hidden in throwaway lines; I mean major plot points and character elements. Admittedly, I've only heard this two or three times, but I have seen a few people complain that "Locke seems to have no ability to improvise whatsoever." Which is really interesting, because leaving out all the evidence stacked up in the rest of the book, this implies that the entire "Orchids and Assassins" chapter just doesn't exist. Many things are open to boundless interpretation... but I don't think something as blatant as this is.

Another is the handful of people who've complained that Locke is, in their eyes, a perfect goody two-shoes. They seem to utterly miss or forget the part where Locke completely wrecks the life of Benjavier the waiter in the time it takes most people to eat lunch; poor Ben (who, as the dialogue implies, is trying to stay respectable after some previous trouble) did nothing to Locke and was completely peripheral to Locke's war with the Gray King; for a moment of misjudgment, did he *really* deserve to get kicked out of the only city and life he ever knew? Relocating in a world and time like Locke's isn't as easy as shifting cities in the modern US...

Anyhow, Locke seized upon him as a means to an end and casually, ruthlessly fucked him over. This is possibly the most reprehensible thing he did in the entire book, because he did it so cold-bloodedly and thoughtlessly; even his "rescue" of Ben afterward is perfunctory-- he doesn't employ his trickery to set things aright, he just slips him money and tells him to run for it.

But I digress. All-in-all, I've been utterly blessed by the reviews and reactions the book has gotten so far, and while a few weird ones do occasionally confuse or annoy me, it'd be crazy to obsess over them. ;)

Cheers,

SL

Well just to put it out there I'd happily review RSURS without the promise of any bribes. (Well other than an ARC :) )

Of course I've only got like 3 people reading my blog right now, so.... Probably not the best use of resources. I can't even seem to get amazon to list my review of LoLL. I've submitted it 3 time now.;)

Race,

Add some porn to your content. That should do the trick! :P

Patrick

:blink: Ouch.

I imagine the same people were disappointed by the Star Wars prequels due to the utter lack of lightsaber battles.

my rule of thumb for the naysayers is let me see you write something half as good and inventive.. no.. a quarter as good or origianl. Then i'll listen to you complain heh.

So...any chance we'll be seeing the prologue on the net anytime soon?

Sir Thursday

Somebody ban this guy already.

I hate message board spam.

We got a report on the spam posts today. Difficult to ban as they are not coming from registered members and they are coming from different IP addresses. We're deleting all of them we see and Os is making registration mandatory for posting.

EDIT: http://z9.invisionfree.com/The_Right_Peopl...hp?showtopic=66

Oh my gosh... I forgot about ARC and took me forever that it meant advanced reading copy. For some reason, I didn't know these existed until people were squabbling over Kim Harrison's a Few Demons More...

What determines that you get one anyway? a famous book author /reviewer? Just curiuos.. because June is just SO far away.

And I'm glad that I found out that this would be a series of books, because LLL stood on it's own. I was quite afraid that was it for locke...

Although the thing that annoyed me most was HER, which comes in book 3. I kept waiting for that flashback where she manages to twist locke around her finger(Chains did say she was the charmer or charmer or something like that)

Bantam won't be printing those stupid ARCs until April or May... :angry:

Fortunately, the folks at Gollancz in the UK are going to get them out sooner! Can't wait to sink my teeth into this one! ;)

Patrick

I got an email today - it's in the "post". :D

Go ahead then, just rub it in :(.