“Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe.” – ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’
It is a central tenet of this blog that reading books written by human people is a good and cool thing to do. I like the weird ones, too—books so unique or idiosyncratic they could have only come from the singular mind of an interesting writer (plus a whole neighborhood’s worth of trusted readers and editors and influences). That said, I’ve got some grievances to get off my chest about you book people, and I don’t care that it’s not Festivus.
There are two lines of thinking I’m insanely frustrated by, because they’re both such a specific kind of vibe ruiner. There are the people who need to read a different book, and then there are who I call the Epic Bacon people.
(Please note: much like how Sawako Nakayasu’s Nothing Fiction But The Accuracy Or Arrangement (She can be read as though “she” is missing from the beginning of every line, please assume I’m yelling “KNOW WHAT I THINK” before the start of each paragraph)
Please Read A Different Book Tier
The Roald Dahl updates are a miserable, cynical cash grab. Worse than that, they annoy me on principle. Rewriting a text to fit contemporary sensibilities is awful. Why shy away from the fact that Dahl was a virulent anti-Semite? That goes entirely against the wishes of the author! He chose his words carefully, and he meant them. Don’t you go altering my books after I die. I know good and damn well that eating cheeseburgers is a sin against the Earth. I have the decency to feel bad about it, but not the decency to change the huge chunks of my novel and long portions of my poetry extolling the beauty of the cheeseburger. Don’t tell people I was a vegetarian at heart. Tell people I’m a jerk for not being a vegetarian.
Roald Dahl’s books are magic, but they do have an extraordinary mean streak. That’s never exactly been secret. If that bothers you enough to not read the books again, seek writers influenced by Dahl or who deal with similar subject matter. If it doesn’t bother you, I don’t think there was a huge Cancel Roald Dahl campaign. Anyway, there’s no shortage of magical worlds filled with children who are more special than they seem. Hey, speaking of!
JK Rowling is more pathetic than a forgotten box of Kix cereal and so is the New York Times. I’m not going to link Pamela Paul’s op-ed piece defending Rowling, but this is all you need to know about it:
NYT’s coverage of trans people and trans issues has been so awful their own contributors, not to mention groups like GLAAD and Human Rights Campaign, wrote an open letter begging them to show even a modicum of responsibility. The very next day, Pamela “not to kink shame but that’s a pretty weird porn obsession” Paul publishes a defense of JK Rowling. The former NYT Book Review editor is quickly becoming a nemesis of this book-loving blog.
If you’re a Harry Potter fan, it was a good run, but it’s time to cut loose. There’s no separating art from artist with this one because she still profits off of everything Harry Potter-related. Luckily, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy world is full of great and interesting writers, which you can find in cool literary journals.
The “Epic Bacon” People Tier
GodDAMNIT did something else bad happen with lit mags? This one is so heartbreaking and stupid.
Remember when all you had to do to go viral was something EPIC with BACON? The internet was young, but eventually you have to grow up. Some people still find Spencer’s Gifts funny, though, which is why cool Sci-Fi/Fantasy literary journal Clarkesworld had to close submissions recently. Personally, I don’t understand how someone could use an AI chatbot to write a story, sign their own name to it, try to scam an indie lit mag out of a few bucks, and then have a good night’s sleep. To me, using AI to write a story and having the shamelessness to try to pull one over on—if I may slander my own environment—a goddamn online lit mag for crissakes would be the height of loserdom. But maybe I don’t hustle enough or whatever.
Lastly, Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey sucks, because of course it does. The “horror twist on public domain characters” genre is potato salad at the six-hour mark of the cookout. I think I had a “thank you” portion of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters before getting irritatingly bored with the whole thing. Let’s do something actually thoughtful with public domain characters, please?
Because ultimately, all these things bum me out. I don’t come to literature to be bummed out. Reading is too fun for this bogusity. Let’s be thoughtful readers, anti-bigots, ethical people, and thinkers who go past the first idea. Ugh, I’m so bummed out. On Friday, we’re talking about something cool.
Don’t use AI to write your stories.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris