The Making Light thread a few weeks ago that was devoted to shredding Dan Brown was really fun.
I should drop in on that thread. I thought TdVC was pretty dreary, and actually started a very, very funny epistolary spoof of it with a fellow with whom I'm no longer in contact. I wrote a chapter, he wrote a chapter...
Basically (beside being ready to scream if I read the term "The Divine Feminine" ONE MORE TIME), the thing that set me off was the entire "he researched this so carefully" promo blitz that happened before and during its release. Part way into the book I read a comment he made about "The Burning Times", when they theoretically burned umpteen million witches in Europe across two hundred years.
Pretty lousy research. Being somewhat witchy myself, I know the number's false. It was made up by a woman in the late 19th century, and has, for some reason, been quoted as fact (or factoid) ever since.
I spent five minutes on the web, with google, to find that, if they had indeed burned that many people in that length of time, they would have killed one quarter of the population of Europe.
Wouldn't someone have noticed?
Don't even start me on Anne Rice or The Bridges of Madison County.
But enough; that's off topic. Yeah, they're fun to write, those poison pen commentaries. I just imagined the woman who wrote the book I trashed reading the review, as I know authors do sometimes, and being hurt or upset by it. I'm an actor; even if I scorn bad reviews, they wound, and I hate to cause anyone unhappiness.
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I should drop in on that thread. I thought TdVC was pretty dreary, and actually started a very, very funny epistolary spoof of it with a fellow with whom I'm no longer in contact. I wrote a chapter, he wrote a chapter...
Basically (beside being ready to scream if I read the term "The Divine Feminine" ONE MORE TIME), the thing that set me off was the entire "he researched this so carefully" promo blitz that happened before and during its release. Part way into the book I read a comment he made about "The Burning Times", when they theoretically burned umpteen million witches in Europe across two hundred years.
Pretty lousy research. Being somewhat witchy myself, I know the number's false. It was made up by a woman in the late 19th century, and has, for some reason, been quoted as fact (or factoid) ever since.
I spent five minutes on the web, with google, to find that, if they had indeed burned that many people in that length of time, they would have killed one quarter of the population of Europe.
Wouldn't someone have noticed?
Don't even start me on Anne Rice or The Bridges of Madison County.
But enough; that's off topic. Yeah, they're fun to write, those poison pen commentaries. I just imagined the woman who wrote the book I trashed reading the review, as I know authors do sometimes, and being hurt or upset by it. I'm an actor; even if I scorn bad reviews, they wound, and I hate to cause anyone unhappiness.