Sometimes one has to point and laugh
Jun. 25th, 2007 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumCliff Burns is a blogger.
Which makes him part of a really selective crowd. Cliff is, however, apparently shit hot at this blogging thing, unlike the rest of us. To make sure he's not relegated to the thin gruel which comes of other people reading a blog, and telling two friends, he is, an unrepentant blog pimp.
Which is a forlorn sort of thing. I know about Mr. Burns because he wandered into Making Light to tell us all about his witty, and trenchant blog, by linking to a post explaining (to a crowd of writers and fans, on a blog run by editors) that the genres we like are all drivel and crap; poorly written, as a rule, and failing to do things the way he thinks they should be done.
He then made an effort to defend this position.
To say he was gently handled is, mostly, true. But that doesn't mean he didn't get a bit of roasting (even with my brain cramping defense of the field including a conflation of Robert Jordan with Joel Rosenberg, the latter being a damned fine writer, Ties of Blood and Silver ought to be better known than it is).
And now he's trying, in his defense to something most people would never have known of, trying to mock people who make pleasant doggerel with Chtulu and Queztacoatl (at least one in the same verse).
He's going to get the hits he's seeking, but perhaps not the response.
Which makes him part of a really selective crowd. Cliff is, however, apparently shit hot at this blogging thing, unlike the rest of us. To make sure he's not relegated to the thin gruel which comes of other people reading a blog, and telling two friends, he is, an unrepentant blog pimp.
Which is a forlorn sort of thing. I know about Mr. Burns because he wandered into Making Light to tell us all about his witty, and trenchant blog, by linking to a post explaining (to a crowd of writers and fans, on a blog run by editors) that the genres we like are all drivel and crap; poorly written, as a rule, and failing to do things the way he thinks they should be done.
He then made an effort to defend this position.
To say he was gently handled is, mostly, true. But that doesn't mean he didn't get a bit of roasting (even with my brain cramping defense of the field including a conflation of Robert Jordan with Joel Rosenberg, the latter being a damned fine writer, Ties of Blood and Silver ought to be better known than it is).
And now he's trying, in his defense to something most people would never have known of, trying to mock people who make pleasant doggerel with Chtulu and Queztacoatl (at least one in the same verse).
He's going to get the hits he's seeking, but perhaps not the response.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-25 04:39 pm (UTC)Really, what part of Sturgeon's Law does he not get? Or are we back to: "What I like is good; what you like is crap."? Because that's a school of criticism with a long history, at any rate, if not a lot of credibility.
But then he has pre-established his credibility--he says it right there!--and the rest of us gullible peons with no taste or perspective will just have to lump it.
Eh. What fun is a rant without egregious misspellings and some cat macros?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-25 05:46 pm (UTC)He seems to be arguing that all story is about, "character" and F/SF fails to live up to that.
But story is about story, and sometimes non-"character" stuff is needed.
But hey, Mr. Burns has established that he's an insightful, incisive and downright iconoclastic writer, so he must have relevant insights.
Then again, he says he doesn't read for pleasure. I don't understand that. Why do something one doesn't enjoy; unless there's a payoff?
TK
no subject
Date: 2007-06-25 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 03:34 am (UTC)