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In the interest of fairness, I'm posting this new review of Poe that just went up on Strange Horizons .
Btw, my lj format has just gone wonky on me...anyone else? I think the html went away--or something--anyone have the same problem?
And the photo of Bella, my icon, is gone.
Fixed!
Added 2/26, Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray mentions Poe (and reacts to the SH review) on her site--you'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the post:
So Many Destinations
She also quotes Catherynne Valente on her new fantasy Palimpsest.
Btw, my lj format has just gone wonky on me...anyone else? I think the html went away--or something--anyone have the same problem?
And the photo of Bella, my icon, is gone.
Fixed!
Added 2/26, Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray mentions Poe (and reacts to the SH review) on her site--you'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the post:
So Many Destinations
She also quotes Catherynne Valente on her new fantasy Palimpsest.
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Thanks!
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THIS...
Anyway, glad it was only the first review to disappoint you & hope it is the last.
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Re: THIS...
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Yeah..
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So, well. Anyway.
Love, C.
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I never pay attention to critics and reviewers. bah
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His complaint that the stories go in too many different directions... that alone would interest me in the anthology. "Inspired by Poe" being the brief, as a reader I'd love to see as many different versions of that inspiration as possible. And if they were all in the same direction, I'd be pissed off. So for me, that comment represents poor judgement.
Then there's his crack that the essays which he describes as "justifying the inclusion" of each story should probably have been the editor's job... that's not the sharpest of ideas right there. Again, speaking as a reader, I'm quite interested by the writer's own perception of the linkage between their ideas, and Poe. I'm far less interested by the editor's idea of the linkage. The editor is just another reader, albeit in a privileged position. Any connection the editor can make, quite likely I can also make that same connection for myself. But the things that only the writer knows... those things are worth bringing to the light of day.
Right there, that's strike two.
Then there's a very simple, very clean and obvious strike three. While Poe was best known for his horror work, his stories that we'd now classify as 'horror' are very much a minority. Poe wrote many stories on many topics, from many directions. Trying to nail all your writers to a crucifix of "horror" when asking them to riff off Poe would be not unlike asking a bunch of painters to cut their ears off before offering interpretations of Van Gogh: stupid, and irrelevant.
I don't mind bad reviews if they're thoughtful and useful. This one has a lot of internally inconsistent material. I suspect you're quite right when you say that a close reading of the review is unlikely to discourage people. But I do think it's a shame that the reviewer and/or the editor haven't applied the same standards to their own material that they seem ready to apply to others.
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I've always considered giving author's a say in why they've written a story (other than for the money of course) an extra added attraction for the reader--one they can totally skip if she's not interested. I don't consider an afterword by each author a "justification" for why the story is in the book. As the editor, I don't need outside justification for including a story.
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