Gollancz are among the very best SFF publishers when it comes to promote authors and titles. Which makes me wonder how this ever came to pass. . .
Thanks to Larry once more for the heads up! He saw this on Coalescent LJ. Check out this scanned pic as well as this one.
Holy crap, and to think I created a minor stir by calling Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword "fantasy chick lit." Wait till people get a load of this!
The blurb is as faux pas as it gets. One thing's for certain, though. I really want to read Jaine Fenn's Principles of Angels. How could I not, after this???
"A female SF writer so good she's showing the men how it's done." Feminists will have a field day with this one!
It will be interesting to see what the female SF authors out there have to say about this pejorative blurb. . .
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
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15 commentaires:
Oy, SF fandom, sometimes I wonder why I still love you.
Yeap, that is about as bad as it gets.
Love the little "exception that proves the rule" twist of it.
If you want navel-gazing, read this. It was a bit too much for even me.
Wow! That is incredibly demeaning.
Why would anyone take a promotional blurb seriously???
Anyway, Gollancz is heavily promoting three new authors for 2008: Alex Bell, Jaine Fenn and Robert Redick. The Redick book, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, is just out now. Alex Bell's book The Ninth Circle is out in April and as mentioned the Fenn book, Principles of Angels will be out in June.
I wouldn't take a blurb seriously, but coming from the publisher the advertising is basically saying "She's not bad for a chick, in fact, she's not bad at all"
I for one plan on reading this and it has nothing to do with the blurb--in short, the author is represented by John Jarrold and that's enough for me :)
It is demeaning, even though I'm persuaded that it wasn't meant to be offensive.
If I'm not mistaken, this was taken from the Orion 2008 catalogue, which means that every bookstore and library will get a copy. So it's a major faux pas, to be sure.
As I mentioned in the post, I'm curious to see how authors like Bujold, Moon, etc, will when they read about this...
I bet they'll piss themselves laughing.
It's all part of the common perception that fantasy is a more feminine genre and science fiction is a masculine one. It's not true, it's a silly generalization, but I know lots of people who believe it (and I frequently whack them over the head with large, heavy exceptions to the rule).
It says more about problems within the genre than with the publisher, that they feel the need to push to bookstores that this woman's scifi is worth stocking, that buyers shouldn't be put off by her gender.
That's the thing. You don't need to mean to be offensive to actually be offensive.
I've just dropped by to say that the copy of the new gardens of the moon print that i won on your giveaway contest has just arrived. cheers!
Blimey. I do want to read this a lot though -- John Jarrold recommended it, from amongst the other titles he has out this year :) Funny post.
It seems a bit of a silly thing to say. Justina Robson, Anne McCaffrey, Lois McMaster Bujold and Liz Williams, Ursula LeGuin, Melinda Snodgrass, Julian May, Kate Elliott and Nancy Kress (just to start off with) may have something to say about this blurb, and that's without going into Fantasy...
Among women who might have something to say is Elizabeth Bear.
Except she's always so busy producing work that she might not think to bother.
Love, C.
Another author who's opinion I'd like to see about this is Karen Traviss.
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