Because I'm a feminist. And a James Ellroy fan.

I forgive you. I hated him for his excessively overwrought bebop style long before I hated him for his politics. He can write a story; unfortunately, he can only write one story, in one way.

I'd love to see him and Elmore Leonard throw down, though. That would be a fight worth watching.

I'm mapping two of the characters in her original novels onto the television characters

You're not gonna tell who this is? Pout.

The funny part of the "magic realism" subtext that author is talking about is who claims the tag and who doesn't. My sense of magic realism in the US is that it's a poorly-disguised term for chick lit where the chicks do magic.

I must confess, though, I've always found it idiotic that one camp calls it "slipstream" and another "interstitial" and they won't admit they're basically talking about the same thing.

I've always had a narrower view of magical realism. I think of it as a form of fantansy in which a particular actually existing society (usually a very local slice of that society) is portrayed in apparently very realistic terms, or at least in an extremely naturalistic style, and in which small amounts of fantasy or magic are used as punctuation in that portrayal. So at least some Charles De Lint would fit into my definition of magical realism.

signed

Jorge Amado is still my favorite.

You're not gonna tell who this is? Pout.

[snipped]

Edited to point out that Rachel Caine does it too, and has the similar-naming thing going on as well. It's rather distracting, although at least I know what the characters look like. I did however get a little bummed out when she killed off the Jack O'Neill-analogue in the latest of the Weather Warden novels. I'm so easy.

[snipped]

To change the topic. I just finished reading a fantasy series by someone who is also a ficwriter, although I didn't know that when I started reading the series. This has caused some wonkiness in my brain, because now that I know this, I'm mapping two of the characters in her original novels onto the television characters--and frankly, one of them fits perfectly.

That's fascinating, and it's something I think about a lot, since I write fic. I can't help but wonder how the my experiences writing fic will help or hinder my efforts when I finally get of my ass to write something original (which may or may not happen.)

On the politics discussion, when it comes to one of my favorite books, I will run screaming from any discussion of the author and his political views, since I know that if I learn any more, I will no longer be able to turn to that book when I want a nice, cozy wallow in wonderful language. Thing is, I don't see his political views coming through too strongly in his prose.

There are other authors out there where the politics are all too obvious (Tom Clancy and Sheri Tepper are opposite-end-of-the-spectrum examples) and that gets my eyes rolling forever, even if I happen to agree with the views. Of course, what an author thinks is going to impact what he or she writes, but some writers either don't have enough self-awareness to realize they're on a soapbox, or worse, they know they are and don't care.

My thing with Card: He has great ideas for stories, and writes them rather well, to start. And then he gets impressed with himself, and suddenly, turns pedantic and didactic, and, well, boring.

I can't help but wonder how the my experiences writing fic will help or hinder my efforts when I finally get of my ass to write something original (which may or may not happen.)

I think the most obvious problem is short-cutting the characterization rather than the world-building. Micole noted that the two characters in Rachel Caine's novels that bear a striking resemblance to Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill are the two whose characterizations she found the thinnest--and that was before I told her where they came from. It wasn't a problem for me, because I recognized them right away, and filled in the missing bits. It's the sort of thing the writer herself may not notice, because she knows them so well, you know?

It's exactly the perspective people are coming from when they claim fanfic isn't good practice for professional writing. One presumes they're not 100% wrong on that front; I know that within fanfic, it's easy to rely on fanon to do your work for you, so the same must hold true outside fanfic.

Personally, I find that I seek fanfic and published fiction for totally different reasons, so that when I come across something that feels fanficcy in a published novel, I count it as a demerit, despite its being something I would like in fanfic. I've read a couple of first novels where I can tell that the writer comes from fandom, and is still working out how to write for a non-fannish audience.

I'm gonna mark this for deletion or editing when you've read it, Nutty; I suspect she doesn't really want the word to get out.

Go for it.

There is NO frelling evidence that Lewis Carroll was a pederast or a pedophile.

A man with a really weird emotional life, yes. Somebody who couldn't cope with post-puberty women, yes. But there's no evidence that he ever laid a hand on any of his little friends, many of whom spoke fondly of him in after years.

The original novel I'm working on is directly based off a fic in another fandom. I may need to change the heroine's name (even though she's an OC) because anyone who's read the fic will immediately go "Hey!"

Always assuming, of course, that the thing gets finished, much less published.

Way past the Card discussion, but I just finished his latest book, Magic Street and I was underwhelmed. (In spoilerfont for those who plan to read and don't want to be tainted) His attempt to write in an African-American voice made me cringe so many times. He tries to affect the tone of a middle-class black community with his characters attempting but failing to be "street", but it just comes off as badly written and sometimes downright racist. In his afterword, he apologizes for much of this, and I don't think he was, in any way, trying to be offensive yet I couldn't help being offended. I am interested in what others thought of it if anyone else has read it.

As others have said, his ideas for the book were excellent, but in the execution he comes up very short. More and more of his later novels are heavy-handed with thinly disguised Mormon morality, but I keep reading hoping to see a glimmer of The Worthing Chronicles or Ender's Game or even Treason. Politically, he's gotten so far to the right it's frightening. Yet it's hard to condemn a man who loves Firefly and Serenity so much.