First bad (really really bad) review of Poe

[ellen_datlow]

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.

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

Bella's there for me at the moment.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

That's good. So I wonder what happened to my "view" of my blog...arghhh

[davidlevine]

LJ went all wonky for a half-hour or so just now. Looked like the server responsible for CSS (style sheets) and images was offline, so all we saw was the text (and had to wait a few minutes for that). It just came back a moment ago; try refreshing the page.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Still not working for me. Very disconcerting. Maybe I'll restart my browser and if that doesn't work, restart the computer.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

It finally went back to normal just now.
Thanks!

THIS...

[themadblonde]

is a bad, really, really bad review for you? Cut about 4 over judgemental sentences & the last paragraph & the writer mostly has good things to say about the collection. True, if I didn't know you it might not inspire me to buy the book, but reading the piece as a whole it still sounds very worthwhile (& a little contradictory, as in "this is great, this is great, this is REALLY good, on the whole this is excellent, but it's just not all consistantly blow me away brilliant so I'm disappointed").

Anyway, glad it was only the first review to disappoint you & hope it is the last.

Re: THIS...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yes, because the upshot is he doesn't recommend it at all. However, as you point out there are numerous contradictions so any close reader will come out of the review with (I think) a totally different pov that what he is pushing --that the book is not worth buying/reading.

Yeah..

[themadblonde]

I don't take that away from it @ all, particularly after the top 3 raves. I know quite a few people who would buy a book of ss for 3 brilliant stories. Hell, I'm usually glad if there's one.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't see why the reviewer thinks the choice you made is a bad / wrong one -- to have the anthology's stories not be overly Poe stories themselves, but the authors' own imagined probing of what is horrible and of strong sensibility. Why must an anthology be tightly focused on a single idea or mood? It does have a theme, which tells us why the anthology exists. That should be enough, as long as the stories are good. The reviewer tells us everything is strongly written, far above average 'competency.'

So, well. Anyway.

Love, C.

[catephoenix.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the review by David Langford in the British magazine SFX? It is a really really nice review and he awards Poe 4 out of 5 stars.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

When SH reviewed my collection, Susan Groppi warned me that their reviewers were usually quite hard on the books they reviewed. So apparently, your review was par for the course.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yes. Dave sent it to me.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I don't recall any "generous" reviews by them overall ;-)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

One would think...

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

What I've read of Poe thus far is excellent. I love the modern spin on old tales, those which inspired the authors.

I never pay attention to critics and reviewers. bah

[flinthart.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

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.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Thanks Dirk. I like your review of his review. You've basically said all the things I cannot ;-).

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.

[flinthart.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's bad form for an editor to comment on reviews. But there's nothing stopping a moderately perceptive reader from doing so.