...Again.

Poor, misunderstood, editorless vampire author Anne Rice (yes, I am going to take this opportunity to take a stroll through the memory lane of Anne Rice's batshittery) is once again demonstrating a skin of solid tissue paper.

According to The Guardian newspaper good ol' Rice Whine has signed a Change.org petition to convince Amazon to prohibit anonymous reviews because, the petition says:

"People have found ways to exploit this flaw in the system and are using it to bully, harass, and generally make life miserable for certain authors on Amazon. These people are able to create multiple accounts and then use those accounts to viciously attack and go after any author or person that they feel doesn’t belong on Amazon or who shouldn’t have published a book, made a comment on a forum post, etc."

Well, yes. I'm quite prepared to accept that people have been using the Amazon comments to troll their authors of choice (apparently Charlaine Harris has had death threats, which I feel suggests the True Blood fandom deserves some investigation over at unfunny_fandom)... the problem is that Anne, of course, has form in the Department of Kind Of Maybe Overreacting A Tinsy-Winsy Bit.

Referring to an (I quote) "anti-author gangster bully culture" when interviewed by the Grauniad doesn't really help disprove that.

And hey, check out the links on this Time article - we got spotted!

[This report cheerfully cribbed, albeit rewritten, from aforementioned Time article. Sep made me do it.]

BONUS PROTO-WANK: She's bringing back Lestat, guys! And throwing some rather side-eye-worthy shade at Twilight while she's at it:

Rice [...] has previously spoken dismissively of the vampires dreamed up by Stephenie Meyer for Twilight, saying she "feel[s] sorry for vampires that sparkle in the sun", and that Lestat "would never hurt immortals who choose to spend eternity going to high school over and over again in a small town – any more than they would hurt the physically disabled or the mentally challenged".

Stock up on popcorn for October, folks!

c/p'd from Mousie's hard work:

Emma Watson is guest editing a British magazine that comes out on Thursday.

In it, supposedly JK Rowling shares her regret for making a certain pairing canon over another one.

Nowadays she admits she got it wrong - she should have shipped Harry / Hermione.

( You can see where this is going )
The actual article is slated to come out on Thursday. Prepare yourselves for the Second Coming...

Thanks to an anon for this.

Anne Rice starts an Amazon forum thread on how to write better fiction reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/forum/fiction/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1X9OILUVOYVZ7&cdThread=Tx3SETGL9XAMJT5

As anyone familiar with Anne Rice would be shocked to hear, it goes downhill rapidly. Rice minimods the thread and scolds people for going off-topic, while straying farther and farther off-topic herself. The fun starts on page four:

The Amazon system, wonderful as it is, is ripe for abuse by the mob when they want to go after an
author. Charlane Harris comes to mind as the best recent example.
Disgruntled Sookie Stackhouse fans on the site for the last novel in the series have essentially ganged up on some positive reviewers. For a long time they "neg voted" in masse any good review.
And you're right, the focus shifts to the author, with piles of personal insults.
I infer from all this that these negative fans have found that it is just as much fun to attack an author and try to destroy a publication as it is to become a fan of a series in the first place.
Of course they cannot bring down Charlane Harris or her books, but I do think they want to ruin the experience for her and others.

Around page 59, Anne is caught trashing commenters from the review thread in another subforum:

One thing is clear to me: these Amazon careerist predatory reviewers are HIGHLY sensitive to criticism themselves. Talk about thin skin! One reason they vilify and ridicule any author who dares to respond to a review is that they simply can't take any kind of response themselves. They can't handle it. That's why they struggle for supremacy in such a situation with the endless lecturing to the author not to dare to respond. Some of them are downright scared to death of criticism.
They've picked their bully neg reviewer role because they assumed they'd be immune to criticism and they are fit to be tied when it doesn't work for them.

She explains herself:

This Forum is not about that topic.
I realize you're determined to derail this Forum.
You've been trying for days to take a positive discussion and make it negative.

Does appealing to you as a decent human being have any effect whatsoever?

Can't you understand that there are different Forums on Amazon for different purposes?
Can't you see that?
Can't you understand why some one in a "Meet the Authors" Forum might address issues
of importance to authors that can't or shouldn't be addressed here?

What is it about this that you find so difficult to understand?

Everyone understands perfectly, backs off, and has a group hug while singing a rousing round of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow," and all is joy and sunshine in the Amazon forums forever more.

Cynthia Eden, a paranormal romance/suspense author, has a problem: her professional work has been plagiarized. At length. Word for word. By a Twilight fan. 

I was alerted that a person using the online name of Misconception76 had posted a story called The Devil’s Dance on fanfiction.net. (Here’s a link for you:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7129614/1/The_Devils_Dance).  At the beginning of her work, she includes this disclaimer:

“The Twilight Series character names belong to Stephanie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.”

You see, she’s renamed my characters Edward & Bella.  My SSD Agent Kenton–he’s Edward. My tough female firefighter? She’s Bella.

She changes the names, acknowledges that she’s using them from the Twilight books, and then Misconception76 goes ahead to use my entire Deadly Heat story.  She changes the POV (using “I” instead of 3rd person), but everything else is the same. For pages and pages and pages.

She adds comments at the beginning and end of each chapter–talking about how hard it is to write. How characters can be difficult.

Well, search/replace can be pretty tough on the ctrl+H fingers.

The story has been pulled after about 200 complaints; Smart Bitches added, "And the fanfic rip off was so good that folks made (and then have since removed) Bella-as-a-firefighter fan art. The reviews were all positive until the plagiarism was spotted." As of this writing, Misconception76 has not yet replied to Cynthia Eden's PMs, but she has explained herself:

"It was an experiment with a friend of mine."

IT'S WHO TIME!!! This report was shamelessly snagged from wank_report. *throws cheese to mousie* I thought it was time for some more author rage. Enjoy!

FYI: I have screencaps of most of this so let me know if anything goes 'missing'.

Author Paul Magrs (as in published, hired-for-money author of real books, thank you) gets the cruelest most entitled review ever written in the history of all humanity. http://unreality-sf.net/reviews/doctorwho/2/findreplace.html

Naturally, Magrs expresses outrage on Twitter. As published authors should always do. http://twitter.com/paulmagrs/status/26729418277 After all, how many books has that guy written? http://twitter.com/paulmagrs/status/26730575254 How many have YOU?

The author of review apologizes. http://brendan-moody.livejournal.com/317662.html

Too late, buddy. Magrs still has chafed butt. http://twitter.com/paulmagrs/status/27030688395 You see, Magrs loves fan dialogues with real fans, but not mean ones. Why can't you be civil like him. http://twitter.com/paulmagrs

Others weigh in.
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1550164.html
http://community.livejournal.com/who_anon/10535.html?thread=49908775#t49908775

This report is brought to you by Doctor Who fandom: wanking since 1963.

EDIT: Comments of interest-
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1550164.html?thread=6531924#t6531924
Magrs continues to miss the point of reviewers

Katherine Kerr, editor of Weird Tales of Shakespeare and author of Celtic myth and Dungeons and Dragons 'inspired' novels decides to create another derivative work: her thoughts on yaoi.

A number of people on LJ have been expressing their views on fanfic, so I thought I'd add mine. I despise it.

http://aberwyn.livejournal.com/181755.html Deleted!

Caps of first post:
via alchemynerd on LJ: http://www.sendspace.com/file/7ovake
via alchemynerd on LJ: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nsjfzd
Perhaps you'd prefer PDF: http://knitmeapony.com/fw/kerr_kerfuffle_page1.pdf
Or HTML, via maneman on LJ: knitmeapony.com/fw/katherine_kerr_career_suicide.html


And this includes the professional transformative works:

If someone can think of no better idea than to take a classic kid's book series and try to wring a few more bucks out of it, like the whole 'Wicked' series, then they should get a real job.

Comment #2 is fellow author Jim Hines getting a bit snarky with the idea. She backpedals mightily in the face of a professional author.

There are disappointed fans! She replies to her own post rather than editing it!

Not to mention mocking, accusations of trolling, and weird discussions of how fanfic is like embroidery or other crafting.

First post deleted, with explanation: Because people got "offensive": http://aberwyn.livejournal.com/182244.html Also deleted, cap of this, courtesy of zulu http://tinypic.com/r/akzz1d/5

Then there was a third post, which I missed entirely, dubiously titled "what's wrong with talking about quality?" Cap, courtesy of woodenleg http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5620/swrongwithtalkingaboutq.png


And when the second and third posts were deleted, a martyrish post went up here: http://aberwyn.livejournal.com/182619.html

Lordy, yet another post, preserved below. Edit: Post deleted, but thankfully preserved.

And one (final?) post, this time with comments turned off:

Summing up
1. 3 or 4 of the posts in the mobbing stage were interesting and intelligent; they made a nicely reasoned defence of fanfic. Good for you! You might have changed my mind if it weren't for the others.

2. The rest of the 200 or so posts actually proved my points about poor writing skills, lack of cultural knowledge, and lack of imagination, since they repeated each other's thoughts in varying degrees of inarticulate language. One person, in a post I screened by disallowed, even used a toilet reference that was supposed to embarrass me. He also seemed to think I'm man, oddly enough.

3. A sloppy syllogism for those who didn't get the B'rer Rabbit point:
A. I dislike fanfic and don't want anyone writing it about my work.
B. If you don't read my work, you can't write about it.
C. Therefore threatening to ignore my work does not injure me in any way. Rather, I'm relieved that you won't.

4. The mobbing was not merely rude to me. We can agree on the point that the flip tone of my original post deserved the response it got. However, the mobbing was rude to all the regular readers of this space. It bored them, it cut off their right of discussion, and I suspect it convinced some of them that my original post's opinion of fanfic writers was in the main correct.

Personally, I think this fanfic of the Diana Gabaldon kerfuffle has a paucity of imagination. And relatively dull.

Diana Gabaldon, author of the wildly popular Outlander series, has an opinion on fan fiction: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

Highlights include:

• Writing fanfic is just like breaking into someone's house.
  
• Fanfic is WAY WAY WAY TOO PORNY omg ick people have sexual fantasies!*
  
• What to do about an auction offering fanfic to raise money for a cancer patient? She doesn't want to "seem heartless"! So she seeks advice in the comments. Which are mostly full of "Fanfic? I have never heard of such a despicable load of garbage! Also, CRUSH THAT CANCER PATIENT!"
  

ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE! Accept it if you dare, sniveling pedo thieves!

ETA 2: Previously, Ms Gabaldon has said fanfic is like selling your children into white slavery. Well. Now. I don't even know what to do with that.

ETA 3: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has some discussion on the topic.

ETA 4: And bookshop on LJ/DW has a rebuttal.

ETA 5: See what happens when I leave the sweet embrace of the internet for a few hours? Ms. Gabaldon updates her blog!

ETA 6: Evidently Ms. Gabaldon deleted all evidence of her hissyfit, but some wankas have screencaps in this thread.

ETA 7: kate_nepevu has screencaps and the text of Gabaldon's posts here. And via alchemynerd, more screencaps available here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/tiz4vp
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ibidpj
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r6zik6
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hlknqo
http://www.sendspace.com/file/d9alsh

Thanks for all the links! :)




MOD REMINDER: Remember, my little wankas, we DO NOT troll the wank. Nor do we write fanfic after the author has specifically requested people not and post it in the comments here, no matter how tempting it may be. Carry on. oh god my inbox ow ow



*Just as a point of interest, I was a bookseller for 12 years, and had several customers tell me about the sex scenes in her books. Some were pro ("My friend told me to read these books for the sex scenes, and she was totally right, they are so hot, this is best thing to happen to my sex life in years!") and some were con ("What is up with all the sex all the time? Where's the story?"), but one thing you can't say about her books is that they're sexual-fantasy free. :D

Hot off the wank_report presses:

Jenny Edwards, aka The Rejection Queen, is a "soon to be published author who is still getting rejection letters from literary agents". She runs a blog called Tales from a Rejection Queen, which consists of a laundry list of rejection letters for her writing dating back to 2008. Lest you think this might make for boring reading material, the letters are also interspersed with icons such as "Careful, you might end up in my novel!" and "How 'bout NO!".

Suddenly, the dam breaks. ( Read more... )

Rob Thurman is an urban fantasy author who desperately wants to get the 6th book in her series on the NY Times bestseller list. According to a wee mousie, the way bestsellers are calculated is by applying a complex and seekrit algorithm to the first week's sales, from Tuesday (when new books, like albums and babies, "drop") to Saturday. So it's very important to rack up sales during that time period if you want to list.

Also according to the mousie, Thurman's been going nuts for the past month, posting in all caps, and topping things off with this post. Thurman berates a reader for buying the book on Monday because said reader is having surgery on Tuesday. The reader apologizes, Thurman says she'll need pictures of the surgery.

Thurman's specialness doesn't end there. Non-USA readers have to buy two copies of the book to get their reward (sneak peek at the 7th books), people who buy online are Ebil! and more CAPSlock.

Her tweets are also... yeah.

Hat tip to the mouse, for stealing borrowing chunks of her post.

Patrick from the popular blog Pat's Fantasy Hotlist posts an exclusive excerpt from a new Dunk and Egg story by George R.R. Martin. The first comment to this blog entry:

Anonymous
I m really glad that George can find the time to do anything under the sun, but finish the book that everyone is waiting for. For example, eating, watching football, editing crappy novels nobody cares about, talking about Paris, conventions in 3rd world countries, etc. Also, its really cool how he releases books in England first when 95 % of his fans are in the U.S. Good job fatso! Boycott?

And it goes downhill from here. For more than 200 comments "Martin sucks because he is doing everything except writing A Dance with Dragons" people and "Leave Martin alone! Quit whining and find something else to read!" people are bitching at each other. Highlights include:

( You called me Oprah? It's defamation! )

Eventually Patrick disabled new comments and made this post:

For fuck's sake. . .
Posted by Patrick

Are you fucking kidding me???? Am I running a day care??? I've been running this blog for more than 5 years, and it's the first time I've been forced to disable the comment function.:\

To the GRRM haters and the trolls out there, do everyone a favor and stop reading anything Martin writes. There's enough good SFF material to keep everyone happy, I believe. And yes, a little maturity would go a long way. . .

Never thought I'd be saying this, but you are even worst than the brainwashed Goodkind fans on the Yeard's forums. And Christ, that's saying something!=( As a matter of fact, you make Mystar sound like the Voice of Reason and the Soul of Wisdom. . .

I would like to believe that this is the work of pimply anti-social teenagers who get pick on at school and whose sex lives amount to downloading porn every night. But my gut tells me that it's from "responsible" adults. . .

Come on, man. . .

This wank brought to you by wank_report.

A bit of context: The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF is the next installment in the Mammoth Book anthology series edited by Mike Ashley. Recently, its table of contents, which lists the twenty-one stories and authors that will be included in the book, was posted on the SF Signal website.

Almost immediately, there is some grousing from the peanut gallery -- it seems that not one of the authors included in the lineup are (a)women, or (b)nonwhite. Commenters proceed to point this out, mostly keeping it down to a few sentences and seemingly content to speak up and move on. Luckily, Paul Di Filippo, one of the authors featured in the anthology, arrives on the scene, CAPS LOCK AT THE READY AND BRIMMING WITH RAGE.

( IF MAKING BAFFLING POTATO METAPHORS IS WRONG, I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT! )

While visiting Amazon today I noticed a link in their romance forum for a romance between brothers. Because I always have to crane my neck to stare at a trainwreck, I clicked on the link.

And found Chancery Stone!

...who recs DANNY without disclosing that she's the author and then gets into arguments with posters who don't consider incest overly romantic. Just like always, Stone can't stop posting.

And don't miss the name of her new site--www.danny-is-god.com.

Mild wank, but it's nice to get a blast from the past.

ETA:

Original wank

Well-earned parody of wank

Flouncety flounce flounce

Further ETA: Amazon has deleted many of her more fervent posts.

Son of wank, featuring commentary by the awesome Nora Roberts, who smacks Stone down as wonderfully as you'd imagine--especially when Stone posts a link to her blog and tells them they're getting their 15 minutes of fame.

ETA the third: All Chancery Stone threads have been deleted by Amazon, and she's been banned from posting on its forums.

As a lot of you must know by now, the first 12 Chapters of Midnight Sun, Smeyer's addition to her Uh-may-zing boooookes was leaked on the internet several days ago, and this has chagrined her dazzle verily.

From her official website:

August 28, 2008 (part II)

As some of you may have heard, my partial draft of Midnight Sun was illegally posted on the Internet and has since been virally distributed without my knowledge or permission or the knowledge or permission of my publisher.

I have a good idea of how the leak happened as there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left my possession and each was unique. Due to little changes I made to the manuscript at different times, I can tell when each left my possession and to whom it was given. The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution.

I did not want my readers to experience Midnight Sun before it was completed, edited and published. I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being. As the author of the Twilight Saga, I control the copyright and it is up to the owner of the copyright to decide when the books should be made public; this is the same for musicians and filmmakers. Just because someone buys a book or movie or song, or gets a download off the Internet, doesn't mean that they own the right to reproduce and distribute it. Unfortunately, with the Internet, it is easy for people to obtain and share items that do not legally belong to them. No matter how this is done, it is still dishonest. This has been a very upsetting experience for me, but I hope it will at least leave my fans with a better understanding of copyright and the importance of artistic control.

So where does this leave Midnight Sun? My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely.

I'd rather my fans not read this version of Midnight Sun. It was only an incomplete draft; the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes. But how do I comment on this violation without driving more people to look for the illegal posting? It has taken me a while to decide how and if I could respond. But to end the confusion, I've decided to make the draft available here (at the end of this message on the Midnight Sun page). This way, my readers don't have to feel they have to make a sacrifice to stay honest. I hope this fragment gives you further insight into Edward's head and adds a new dimension to the Twilight story. That's what inspired me to write it in the first place.

I do want to take a moment and thank the wonderful fans who have been so supportive of me over the past three years. I cannot begin to tell you how much each of you means to me. I only hope this note will stop all the confusion and online speculation so that the Twilight universe can once again become the happy escape it used to be. After this incredibly busy year, I am now focusing on spending more time with my family and working on some other writing projects.

--Stephenie

I don't think I need to add much more than that.  Lol.  This is so bloody beautiful...Oh Smeyer...please to be going over there to cry upon your pile of ill-begotten millions.  We all know that that book is going to be finished and published eventually so that you can add to your dragon hoard of booty. 

Who else thinks that she's just waaaaahing for the sympathy and threatening to not provide any more crack so that everyone can forget about the epic fail that was Breaking Dawn and start kissing her ass again? *raises hand*

Edit:

And we get reactions from the Amazon Boards and the ♥ TwiMoms ♥. The ONTD comm weighs in on the situation.

And the NuttyMadam reacts. Though sorry, there's no vid this time since she took it down. But here, have a transcription of the lost vid, courtesy of aegflota

We are all a bunch of meanies hiding away in this little club house of ours.

Smeyer Ego stroking.

Bonus Snack: The Twimoms just cannot leave the poor boy alone!. There's wankiness in the second link, as the TwiMom in the picture appears and asks for her photo to be taken down. Also, Here is a step by step instruction manual on how to go about your Pretty Vampire Actors stalking, for you n00bs who have no idea how to go about it. It is illustrated and everything. The TwiMoms are nothing, if not thorough.

OH NOES YOU GUISE! They be calling the FBI on us!!! WHAT DO WE DO? WHAT DO WE DO?

Twilight is going to save our country from the evil lesbians so you'd better all stop dissing it!

Cleolinda Midnight Sun Commentary! Yay. Lol.

ETA:How do you gain respect for your much derided favorite author? Why, by starting an online petition for it, of course!

Since cleolinda has had more than enough Twilight, it seems, I thought I'd take her up on her offer to move the growing wank to a new post.

Previously, on the Sparkledammerug: People weren't happy.

Entertainment Weekly, previously best known in the Twilight fandom for its extensive coverage of the hype and for this monstrosity of a cover, reviewed Breaking Dawn in the issue released today. The overall grade was a D.

( lion_lamb reacts. Badly. )

lion_lamb isn't the only place where the wank is, though.

SMeyer tells MTV.com that the backlash "hurts." Most comments run along the lines of "LEAVE STEPHENIE ALONE!!!!"

The Twilight Lexicon takes a position on BD, and disallow character-bashing, expressing disapproval at SMeyer's writing, and calling Jacob a pedophile.

And if you're tired of the wank, have an extended Twilight parody in which Edward is turned into a cranky, scrapbooking virgin?

It's going to be a long August.

EDIT THE FIRST: Nora Roberts smash!

EDIT THE SECOND: Dissapointed 'Breaking Dawn' fans organize protest. Twilighters in the comments claim that the haters only make up 10% of the reader base.

EDIT THE THIRD: The Twilight Lexicon is hacked! EDIT THE THREE-POINT-FIFTH: One of the Lexicon mods posts about it on her journal. Is the Lexicon no more? ETC: Screencaps of a troll post made to the Lex shortly before the hacking. ETC THE RECKONING: The hacker speaks? ETA SQUARED: Lexicon admin claims it's not an inside job, posts messages from the hacker. ARE YOU KIDDING ME: And the hacker speaks again! (deleted) THIS DESERVES ITS OWN POST: Amazon.com boards on the hacking, with a surprise guest appearance by Laurel K. Hamilton's personal assistant?

EDIT THE FOURTH: ... off-topic, but were we just deleted for a bit?

EDIT THE FIFTH: Twilight Moms have possibly gone underground. FIVE-POINT-FIFTH: Confirmation! YEAH, WE'RE STILL GOING: The TwiMoms have returned, and ready to stroke Steph's ego all over again!

EDIT THE SIXTH: The Washington Post review of BD. Not wanky, just hilarious.

EDIT THE SEVENTH: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books weighs in. Smug Twilighter alert in the comments.

EDIT THE EIGHTH: Twatlympics?

EDIT THE NINTH: The haters draft a petition!

EDIT THE TENTH: You don't know the history of Twilight. Darla Cook does. TEN-POINT-FIVE: And she keeps on going, too.

DOES IT EVER END: Publishers' Weekly article on the protest. They think Twilight's audience consists entirely of teenagers. Ahahaha... ha.

Mucho gracias to the folks over on wank_report. AND A SPOILER WARNING WITH EXTRA SPARKLES FOR TWILIGHT FANS. I suggest Twilight fans who actually care that much about being spoiled avoid this post like the plague.

( Why do I feel we've been through this before? )
ETA: Fixed the tag on the last link. Sorry, folks.
ETA3: A support request was entered by someone claiming to be from a law firm, claiming to represent the publishing group with a pretty much standard letter that has been going around like a strain of herpes to people leaking the book or even discussing spoilers (julian_black explains exactly why here). I don't think intellectual property laws work that way.

( text can be found here )


Other posts concerning the leaks can be found here and a twilight_news (thanks to hooloovoo_too). Possible confirmation of some of the spoilers has also sparked more wank over here.

There's some more fun over at ontd (the macros start on page 2). The OP itself only concerns the movie, but that doesn't stop people from wanking over the spoilers.

ETA4: system is love.

( Go System! )

And there's now been blurry confirmation on spoilers (thanks to miraba).

ETA5: Ok, guys, lay off the Mormons or I'm going to have to ask you to get out of the pool. I really, really, REALLY hate to quote mcity but plz no Mormon bashing. Let's have some class.

ETA6: SMeyer allegedly wrote a parody version of Breaking Dawn according to this EW article (thanks to greenconverses).

Dearest, beloved, Fandom Wank.

I know you were looking forward to great excitement today. Some of you said words to me that indicated you anticipated fiery 'judgement' upon those who remained fresh and dewey white, those you call n00bs.

Anyway, you got today instead.

Stop anticipating things, we'll just break your hearts.

Sincerely,

Sepia P. Magpie, Esq.



PS: Use this post to reflect on how you could be better people. Or just fuck around in the comments.

Thanks to the wank_report mouse for the tip off.

the summary:

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT. Chancery Stone, fandom_wank mockee and author of the infamous 'Danny' 'mad as hell and not going to take it... er... two years later'! Thrill! As she describes how badass she is! Marvel! As she repeatedly laments the horrors that have lead her down the path of legal action against a certain fan-run journalling site! GASP! As she remarks of herself, "Once I scent blood I'm in there like a heat-seeking missile."

COMING SOON to a tl;dr blog post near you.

( More highlights under cut )

This is not the Starbuck's of wank.* It's a bitter re-heated brew, percolated with the stagnant grounds of yesteryear.

Andrew Burt is the VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Association of America. ( Some pixel-stained technopeasant wretches are less than pleased by his leadership. )

Damage control was done. The e-piracy committee was disbanded. A committee was put together in order to figure out what to replace the old piracy committee with... And lo, the SFWA was graced with a new improved exactly the same damn thing.

There was much rejoicing, in the sense that "rejoicing" means "bitterness" and "more disillusionment".

How would Andy top that? Why, by entering the race for SFWA president.

Thus commences a largely one-sided dogpiling. Highlights include discussion of the Dunning-Kruger effect and a 300 macro.

[ETA via hopefulnebula] Campaign poster macros are great justice!

[Late ETAS for completion's sake on the off chance someone checks back again, which if nobody does is a pity because this stuff contains at least twice the funny.]
"Greetings, gentlebeings!"
Burty supporters defile Earth Logic.
George R.R. Martin weighs in.
Burt as Walter Mitty.
MST3King ahoy!

And now, the raisins d'être, what makes this stale wank fresh again, via the Whatever with a tip of the hat to our lovely nonnymice: The Flickr group.

But wait... The son of the bride of the ETA strikes again
Burt announces that television is a dangerous threat to writers everywhere, as it gives away content for free and often does not involve white scientists having vanilla 1950s-style sex with their 20-year-old coquettish assistants while infodumping about math. He subsequently declares war upon the Writers Guild of America.


* I'm weak. One can only wait so long for RDR updates...
& ETA 'coz I can't spell at 7 AM.

The last Anne Rice wank jogged a little memory in my mind. Way back in antiquity, I remembered an incident where Anne took out various full page ads in the local newspaper in order to harass a local restaurateur. That's right, before she had the internet, she wanked the old fashioned way...in the newspaper! I hunted down the story to share with a friend and I thought, might as well share with everyone else. Without further ado, I bring you Classic Wank!

First of all, in 1995 Anne released Memnoch the Devil. In the book, the vampire Lestat sees his reflection in the window of an abandoned car dealership on St. Charles Avenue and bids farewell to the world or something like that. It was a real building not far from her New Orleans home.

Two years later, a local restaurateur, Al Copeland, bought the mentioned building and turned it into a restaurant. But it was not just any restaurant, it was Straya, a big bright peach colored building full of neon lights and other gaudy decoration. Here's a picture for reference, though it doesn't do the color justice. The interior was equally "eyecatching" and described as "what I'd envision a classy bordello in '50s Havana [to be]." So it was an interesting place that raised a few eyebrows.

It did more than raise Anne Rice's eyebrow. On February 8th, Anne left a phone message for her fans in which she made a few comments about Art Deco and freedom of speech. Why? She seemed to be explaining to them why she took out a full page ad in the local newspaper to call the Copeland's restaurant a "monstrosity" and "nothing short of an abomination" and to tell Mr. Copeland that he should be ashamed. Unfortunately, I have had no luck finding the original ad or subsequent replies in their entirety, so all quotes are from other stories on the crazy in The New York Times (twice), Time Magazine and Nation's Restaurant News.

Not one to take it lying down, Copeland returned fire by taking out his own two page ad in the paper with before and after pictures of the building, defense of his decor, and a promise to see her in court. He sued her for defamation and libel.

Anne posted another phone message on February 9th. Yet another phone message on the 13th of February bragged that people supported her in phone messages because popular opinion polls had the locals supporting Copeland. In fact, other restaurants in the area took out their own ad to support Copeland and welcome him to the area.

Somewhere along the line, Copeland said that Anne was pissed because he bought the building that was Lestat's last resting place. He said he had never bargained on a vampire, but now that he had Lestat he was keeping him. Anne replied with another full page ad written by Lestat! In it 'Lestat' said "Mr. Copeland, nothing short of your indescribable restaurant could shock me out of my torpor and my coma. I am now myself again. It is nothing short of a stroke of genius on your part to create a restaurant that will be immortalized in history, legend and literature."

As if all that wasn't enough, Anne had been talking about opening her own little restaurant, Cafe Lestat, in the same area. She discusses it quite often in her phone posts spinning out one fanciful idea after another. She insists that she isn't competition for Copeland. Either way it seems that her idea never got off the ground.
In her phone messages, between waxing poetic on Cafe Lestat, she just can't seem to get over the fact that she is being sued as he continues to mention if on March 3rd and March 10th.

The lawsuit was eventually thrown out of court, but not before the issue became a subject of great amusement to the locals. A fellow author of vampire lore called the debacle "a gift from the gods to us little people.” Another author recalls how "a whole brigade of revelers appeared wearing plates of rice and beans around their waists, promoting a dish they called Red Beans Anne Rice". Obviously fun times were had by all as everyone pointed and laughed.

Edit: Rejoice! Some of the original texts have been found by miss_eponine.

And here's a little info about Anne's own property buying binge in which she pissed off local residents from thebratqueen.

Either the Bush administration has moved on to oppressing hack crime novelists, or Patricia Cornwell has lostj is continuing to lose? her marbles. You be the judge. From the news section on her website:

( 'We have reason to suspect that someone (or a group of someones) might be mobilizing people to attack me through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, etc., to hurt my sales and reputation.' )The call to arms has apparently been heard. The Amazon reviews for her latest book have been flooded with posts like this:

"This book is a good choice. Loved it...great forensic expertise! Life is complex and living life brings change. These negative reviews are absolute rubbish."

The original post currently doesn't show on Patricia Cornwall's site, so it may have been pulled on further reflection, but I've got screencaps: One, Two, Three.

I picked this up from the blog Dear Author, which engagingly riffs on Cornwell's post.