Monthly Archive: October 2007

Bad Review Revue*

Author: October 5, 2007

Well, there’s another less-than-stellar review of TEC in The Austin Chronicle. Which is fine; I don’t mind bad reviews. Everyone gets them, and I do sincerely think it’s better to have discussion about your book than to be damned with faint praise. Besides, reviews are generally really positive. If it was nothing BUT bad reviews I might be in the news right now as WRITER MISSING BELIEVED ON BENDER but with so many glowing reviews to comfort me, I can’t complain.

There’s always the temptation to spin a bad review, to either pretend it doesn’t exist or to do a movie-blurbation of it and somehow ellipse the damn thing into something positive. For example, with the review linked above I could pull this:

“Somers, clearly a gifted craftsman, writes in a clean, sharp style rooted firmly within the Chandler school. . .”

And have done nothing wrong. Nothing! But that wouldn’t be strictly honest, of course, and I’d likely be haunted by the plump ghost of Ray Chandler at night, rattling his chains and calling me 1930s insults.

So, I plod onward, head down. I find it interesting that people assume I was attempting something cyberpunk; I can see why, but while writing this the word cyberpunk never entered my tiny little pinhead, and I continue to be surprised. I don’t think TEC hits that mark at all, which is fine, since I wasn’t going for it. Maybe it’s the cover that makes people expect cyberpunk. Who can explain such things? Not me.

Anyway, interviews are bubbling under. People have been emailing me questions which I attempt to address with the sobriety and class that everyone has come to expect from me. Which is to say, not much of either. Watch the skies!

*Stolen shamelessly from www.defectiveyeti.com

Another Review

Author: October 3, 2007

Shipwreck innovation is an amazing thing. So far I’ve been able to fashion an amazing array of useful items from the furniture and other items in my hotel room. It’s an old place, a little dusty and smelling strongly of ancient Murphy’s Soap treatments. The walls are papered with several layers of wallpaper, each more ghastly than the last, and the carpet has that perpetually dusty quality that makes you sneeze just by looking at it.

I’ve been in here for weeks now, forced to blog by My Corporate Masters, without a television, without a radio, with a one-way Internet connection, and my supplies of booze–smuggled in via techniques you do NOT want to know about–running low. So if I want anything new, I pretty much have to make it myself. This is not always successful.

Anyway, I’ve caught another nice review of TEC out there on the intarwebs, over on SFRevue, by John Berlyne. He starts off with

“Jeff Somers’ début novel, The Electric Church is a lot of fun, in an explosive and profane kind of way”

and goes from there. Despite not liking the amount of cussing in it, he generally thinks the book is bully. And so will you. Buy twelve.

Dystopias Ahoy!

Author: October 2, 2007

One thing that keeps coming up in reviews of The Electric Church and interviews and all that jazz is dystopias. You know, those broken imagined futures where everything has gone to shit? TEC is obviously set in a dystopia, sure—any place where the cops are more likely to kill you than serve out justice and where cyborgs plot to steal your brain and eat your knowledge is the opposite of a utopia, I think.

I’ve always liked dystopias. Same way I’ve always liked murder and sadness and funerals—for fiction, that is. Happiness is boring. When you’re happy you mix up some cocktails and sit on the deck enjoying the sunset and murmur things like sure is pretty and who in hell wants to read the literary equivalent of that?

When you’re sad and angry, however, the deck holds no joy for you, so you put on a jacket and get out on the street to walk to the local bar for a few bitter shots, and along the way you purposefully bump someone with your shoulder because you’re pissed, and then they spin and yell at you and the next thing you know you’re spitting teeth into the curb and miserable.

Now, that’s interesting. I can write a story about that.

Utopias? Not so much. Even regular old balanced worlds are kind of boring, if you ask me. But my eye always goes for the rot underneath, the horror of a world you don’t actually have any control over. I think that’s the difference—those of us who imagine they have some control over the world imagine utopias or at least balanced worlds. Those of us who believe we’re all just sliding down a meltstream of existential suffering into a big blob of meaninglessness, well, we see Dystopias.

As with much that I say, this is pure, ignorant opinion. I have no proof or evidence to display, aside from my certainty that I am right. You’d be amazed how often people don’t accept that as “evidence” however.

Paul Di Filippo Likes TEC

Author: October 1, 2007

My days vary here in the hotel. When there is a good review or positive media mention of me, sandwiches are left on the small coffee table in the parlor. When a bad review is posted, or if I’ve failed to blog recently, something is stolen from the room in the night. Once they took the toilet handle. Another time they removed all the light switches. I’ve found I can “earn” back some of these items with good press or energetic blogging. This morning, in addition to sandwiches, I got back my underwear, which is very comforting.

The reason is this mention of The Electric Church by Paul Di Filippo on the Barnes and Noble Review. Huzzah! It’s wonderful to be mentioned in such august company, and by someone who is such a great writer himself.

In other news, I’ve been interviewed a few times recently and should have something to show for all my glib, charming answers in a bit. I tried to work in subtle SOSes with clues as to where I’m being held, but I’m sure the bastards will edit it all out, along with my passionate discourse on the usefulness of Helper Monkeys.

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