The Bodhisattva

This discussion has been everywhere lately and it’s a topic I don’t care too much about. Call me uncomplicated, lacking sophistication or whatever I’m simply not interested in the merits of a reviewer or how how someone else may view my own merits or even if I had any. In the end what happens is you go through hundreds of comments on dozens of blogs, read another dozen con reports, then read the 100’s of responses to both of those and in the and I always feel like Allen Iverson.

Come on fellas we are talking about reviews!

So instead of giving longer meta responses I’m just going to do some sporadic shorter posts of some of my own observations.

First Truth:

Most blog exclusive reviewers want to be published in a print venues or one of the established sites.

There is this wave of bloggers over the last couple of years who are putting out opinion, setting up contests, doing interviews and are gaining backing from publishers to do all of this. Not only that, they have a built in fan base as many are members of populated message boards and online communities. What will occur is this need for further validation that will hit them for a period of time and what you do before that this is try to be innovative. Contests, signed books, then you get this feeling that you people are coming for the door prize and not the opinion. You think you are that guy that in a room full of people sitting around you gab just so they can qualify for a free cruise.

What is the model for this need of validation?

For me, when I was first getting into reading opinion I was reading Locus and SFSite at a time when there was great change in the market. People like China, Stover, Joyce, Carroll, VanderMeer, and Link among others were first starting to make waves in the greater fan base and the person bringing this news to us was Gabe Chouinard via Dislocated Fictions and various articles in Locus. I realize Gabe is a bit of a pariah at the moment to some but I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say a lot of bloggers who started over the last couple of years drew some inspiration from the stuff he was writing. The truth is most of us will never get the chance to write for those publications (and frankly some who do are rather uneventful to begin with) but I think it gave him and that from of message a validation even if it was a case of simply being loud at the right time and place. What occurs for the rest of us is that after awhile we become less gung ho and ponder conformity for the sake of some non-existent status quo. We realize we are not taking over the world and we come place where we ponder what side we want to live on. It can be difficult not to get caught up in the marketing end and becoming a wing of publicity. I think Pat may be thinking some of the same. He brings up the topic of credibility and I think that’s where the trap comes in and attempts to bite us all in the ass (or arse if you will). You can be that guy that hands out books and be a credible source of opinion the two having anything to do with each other is a delusion. If everybody gave everybody books I find it hard to believe the world would a lesser place. If I have to take it as a criticism - let it be my sin.

We pretend there is an establishment after we already went through the trouble of not only bypassing it but exposing it to be inadequate and outdated. They have been doing the same shit for 15 years, probably still wearing Umbros and OP, there just hasn’t been anyone around to tell them they were indeed wack. Well, we are here, you’re wack and welcome to stay but try being a little more quiet. I think there is a misconception that online sources of opinion are a poorer shadow of print opinions. I vehemently disagree. Nobody is trying to pass themselves off as an alternative, nobody is trying to be you, we are not striving to achieve your level. Frankly we* judged and deemed you unworthy to represent our fiction and hobby. People aren’t stopping to read print sources - they never did, this is the generation of people who were bred on online commentary.

You didn’t get permission to start doing what you do to begin with, why look for validation now? The reaction thus far has been soft. The reason for this is because we have bunch of talented online writers who are wannabe print writers who are stradling the fence. It’s this archaic reverence that causes us to take get chided by a bunch of people - let’s be honest - we don’t even know and take it. I say fuck’em. Why be coy? Why act like you give a damn? Why act like you owe them something?

We want to see our name on paper.

_{*’We’ will be defined in the next installment - “Claiming fandom: put your damn hand down” - and if you don’t like ‘we’, replace it with ‘I’ - I don’t need help calling it what it is}