Mixed Monday

Read this fascinating piece on the blurbing industry. It notes that reviewers are often surprised at how out of context their comments are taken. The lesson is, if you ever seen a single word blurb or the use of an ellipsis, you should consider that blurb to be compromised. This issue is entirely separate from the authors that blurb a little too often. Stephen King and Alan Furst are prime examples.

Scifi fans will want to read this interview with Richard Morgan. One thing to note is that Morgan appears to think that only lefties like his books, and that conversely right wingers read Hamilton and Asher:

But then the vast majority of the fans I’ve met in the US so far seem to fit pretty cleanly into the left/liberal category. (Seems unlikely they’d enjoy my work otherwise, right?). So maybe it’s just that the conservative element is more vociferous in the US, and that in fact there are any number of Tory-voting SF readers back in Britain, quietly buying and enjoying writers like Peter F. Hamilton and Neil Asher, and simply not bothering to get agitated about leftist scum like me. Could that be right? Anybody’s guess, really.

I think this is exaggerating for effect, but I think he is flat wrong. Most scifi fans I know, even those with strong political leanings will gobble up all three of those authors without a concern for the author's politics. That's just a side point, the interview is quite good.