PW on Corambis

[truepenny]

Because batwrangler is a kind and helpful person, I have seen the Publishers Weekly review of Corambis, which calls it "rambling" and "unsubtle," spoils what I thought was an important plot point, and contains a fairly grievous factual error.

Yeah, my Wednesday's off to a great start. How about you?

ETA: cheloya found Harriet's take, which is vintage Harriet and oddly enough makes me feel better.

ETA2: britmandelo very kindly shared the Romantic Times review, which is much more gratifying to my ego and (I hope) a better representation of the book.

Comments

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I've trolled three job sites, including Craigslist, and found zero jobs that don't require a degree in computer engineering and filled out an application for B&N by hand.

So...maybe not as bad as your Wednesday, but bad enough.

Can we get a do over?

escapism ftw

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

My Wednesday's off to a delightful start, as I have turned off the news and completely lost myself in historical clothing eye candy.

http://www.augusta-auction.com/

Click the Tasha Tudor galleries on the left and party like it's 1859. :)

oooOOOoooh!

[themadblonde]

Gorgeous stuff! Thank you for the link!

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Lessee, car finance company rang (for the fourth time)with a 'follow-up customer call' for PK, and were very miffed that he wouldn't give them personal details to prove he was who he said he was, when they couldn't prove to him who *they* were, and that them giving him a number to ring back wasn't actually good enough if they wouldn't tell him what the conversation was about. (We guess it's not urgent otherwise they would have written, etc. before now.)

Knock on the door this afternoon, and a community police person wanted to know if we had heard a disturbance outside at 4 a.m. *two weeks ago*, which neither of us remembered at the time (I think I do now, but so vestigially, I wouldn't trust myself to remember any detail). Having sent her away disbelievingly, we had another visit from another community police person 15 minutes later, though this one didn't wait for us to get to the door before going away so presumably didn't realise her colleague was working the same side of the street.

PK has Lib Exec. meeting tonight (whoopee) and I feel like hunting down one of my fellow students and murdering her. Apart from that, just peachy.

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

Bastards.

I, for one, am eagerly awaiting Corambis and already have it on order at my local indie bookshop.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

As the Bartles & Jaymes guys used to say, we thank you for your support. :)

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks for the spoiler warning about the review.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, and my Wednesday was much like my Tuesday: overcomitted; grieving; and furious and alienated.

Since you asked.

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's terrible. So sorry to hear PW didn't give the love. Hopefully they'll be the exception and not the rule.

Lee.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I hate being spoilered by reviewers - and they are such idiots about doing it.

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

Let's see, I woke up when the cat threw up on the bed. Power went out at work and crashed the document I was working on, and more expensively, destroyed the external hard drive and back-up battery. Although the worst part for me personally is that I spent more than an hour on the phone with Verizon trying to add a service for work - and I really hate the telephone.

and thanks for the spoiler warning. I've been waiting so anxiously for this book I think my eyes are bleeding.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i was just listening to your delightful read-aloud of the first chapter of corambis, and am looking forward to a leisurely stroll over to my independent local bookstore to snap up a hardcopy later today.

just a note from the real world. i bet i can beat up that reviewer from "publisher's weekly", too :)

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Since you ask...I have questioned my desire to go to graduate school (aka my plan for life), pondered my direction in life or lack thereof (why couldn't I have been like my friends, all fired up about stuff in college?), and continued an argument about part-time employment with my parents. I am going to eat some cereal and attempt to salvage the afternoon.

But PW will not dampen my enthusiasm for Corambis. And maybe today is the day when A Companion to Wolves will finally arrive at my library branch.

ETA: Wait, Harriet Klausner says Kay is a woman...huh?...'ware spoilers in any case.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Harriet is wrong.

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

I fumbled up making an apple pie and my cat bit me while I was trying to give him his pills. Also the vet gave me wrong directions on the number of pills. Go me! Ow. But that doesn't come close to PW giving a "grievous factual error."

[newroticgirl.livejournal.com]

I had a letter from my lawyer saying that FIVE FARKING DAYS before our Motion to Dismiss goes before the judge, the other party is finally attempting to pony up some requested documents that we've been asking for since NOVEMBER. *sigh* Nice timing, folks.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Bah. You're a god. Where's their neck?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

<3

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Ignore them? I got April's RomanticTimes Book Review, and they gave you 4 1/2 stars (best you can get). They liked it. I trust them more than PW to review books correctly, as I almost always disagree with PW.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank you! That helps with the sting.

[pameladean]

I always figure that if there's a grievous factual error, the reviewer is full of it and can be disregarded.

My Wednesday is going all right, although overscheduled.

P.

[libskrat]

My librarian-mind says that a PW review doesn't make a whole lot of difference when it comes to the last book in a series. If the other three are in the collection, the last one's coming too.

I know that's not the major source of sting, but maybe it's something?

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Just wrote a long post on the suckage of my Wednesday and managed to hit something weird while answering the phone and it seems to have disappeared. Is that meta or something?

Ignore PW. I'm dancing with impatience for the auction and, as we all know, only my opinion is of any importance.

Perhaps I'll be able to make sense if I get some sleep

MKK

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Oh, and elisem is having a sale starting RSN, so there's that.

MKK

[cheloya.livejournal.com]

Well, I had a 2.5 hour interview for my first technical writing job. But having hunted down that review, uh, I think I spot the factual error already, and I don't know if the reviewer is allowed to call anything unsubtle.

Also, jdsfhsd hjdshfdj jdhfjs, now I wish I hadn't, because important plot point and oh god, Felix. ;A;

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

1. Yes, the factual error is something that gets discussed in Chapter 1.

2. You can't say I didn't warn you about the spoiler. :)

[(Anonymous)]

PW pays $25 for a review the reviewer can't ever claim credit for. What do you expect?

(Anonymous commenter on your friendslist, who has written for them.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

What do you expect?

Well, better of Publishers Weekly, honestly.

[heartofdavid.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm still looking forward to it.

And I'll state here that I read "The Bone Key" last year and it was one of my top 10 reads for 2008. I review the books I read on my LJ, and here's a snippet from what I wrote about it - "There is an old world flavor to these stories that goes beyond the setting; it's the style of the writing - skilled, deliberate, never flashy but twisty and startling. They are mysteries, horror stories, love stories - filled with exquisite tension, drama, revelation and shivers. There is a strong undertow of slash (and one outright slash story, or maybe two). There is really nothing likeable about Booth. He's actually rather annoying. He's such a stifled individual. And yet...I loved him. I felt for him. Because no matter what, and in spite of himself, he gets involved. He's a survivor. He's a fighter but a very reluctant soldier. Certain recurring characters seem to like Booth as well, to his dismay, worry, frustration and his unconscious yearning for contact, any contact. These stories haunt - I still find myself thinking about them and wish I could visit with Booth again. He's a soul both fragile and strong, and I want to hug him and tell him it is okay to be how he is. And I want him to frighten me."

Thanks for the all the stories. I'll keep reading.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

Well, at the beginning of Wednesday (i.e. midnight) I was working on a paper that was keeping me from studying for a midterm in the same class that I had moved to be approximately ten hours later so that I could get a ride home for spring break at two on Thursday, only to get a message from my ride home telling me we're going to leave at 4 IN THE MORNING on Thursday instead hope my professors don't mind! Had a meltdown, didn't study, studied, slept, went to a different class long enough to fail a quiz (don't actually know if I failed it, since I didn't do the reading), then took my midterm, in which two of the questions were probably not asking the same thing but I answered them like they were, and then proceeded to go through the rest of the day in a kind of hazy "I still have to clean and pack and clean and find my roommate and tell her I'm leaving oh I have a concert at nine o'clock WHO SCHEDULES PERFORMANCES AT THAT HOUR ANYWAY,"

and none of this sucks as much as Publisher's Weekly. I finally, finally, FINALLY finished (or rather, started over and then finished) Mirador last week, and I absolutely loved it--thought it was the best of the three that have come out--and seeing as you keep improving, I can't wait to read Corambis. Aside from the whole, you know, I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT/NEED MY MILDMAY AND FELIX FIX thing.

Good luck!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I have an annoying colleague and I've spent the last two weeks getting dizzy at precisely 2pm. (Not a freaky bad dizzy like Mris, I hasten to say. Just the normal dizzy of a person who's been sick since the beginning of January running out of steam after six hours of being vertical.)

To the left, spring break starts a week from today. (Yes! My spring break is 10 days long!)

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Ow. ~hugs~ Where's the person who issues replacement Wednesdays?

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Man, that sucks. Sorry you got a bad review. ::sends flowers, bubble bath, chocolate::