everyone loves blue dog

Reviews, Part 21

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New reviews of my work:

1) Patrick of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist gave Game of Cages 7.5 out of ten because he liked the book I wrote but would have liked a different book better. “Game of Cages is an entertaining blen of urban fantasy, mystery, and action. The pace is crisp, making this one another page-turner.”

I’m honestly tempted to tell him not to bother with the rest of my books because it seems pretty clear that we’re not interested in the same things.

2) Rob D. Smith at A Thousand Masks liked Game of Cages quite a bit. “But if you like tautly crafted hardboiled magic tales, go out and get this book.”

3) MTimonin also liked Game of Cages, and sees where the overall story is going. “Connolly has some very good characters here, and his premise is intriguing.”

4) K.C. Shaw at Skunk Cat Book Reviews loved Child of Fire very much. “In short, this is probably the perfect example of an urban fantasy.”

5) K.C. Shaw also read Game of Cages and liked it a lot, although not as much as the first book: “I don’t usually read sequels immediately after reading the previous books. This series is too amazing to resist, though.”

6) The most thoroughly neutral review of Child of Fire yet: “It would be accurate to say that if one likes Butcher’s work, Connolly’s will have some appeal.” That sentence is as close as the reviewer comes to expressing an outright opinion on the book; I’ll take that as a “didn’t care for it.”

7) Drey at Drey’s Library gave Child of Fire a “Good” rating: “Child of Fire is a pretty good first offering from Harry Connelly, and I’ll be finding out how Ray fares in the next installment, Game of Cages.“

Reviews, Part 20

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New reviews of my work:

1) I try not to duplicate info on my blog and Twitter, and I don’t usually post links to Amazon.com reviews, but I’m making an exception for Charlaine Harris: “Ray Lilly is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read lately, and Harry Connolly’s vision is amazing. I can hardly wait for the next one.”

Score!

2) I didn’t see this when it came out, but Game of Cages got a terrific review from Booklist: “Ray’s voice continues to be charming despite his rough edges, and the plot more than taut enough to keep the pages turning at a breakneck pace; and there is definitely some fascinating history hidden beneath the surface of the world Connolly is spinning, and it’s thoroughly entertaining.” (no link, because I copy-and-pasted it from Amazon.com)

3) Jeremiah loved Game of Cages: “Wow… Way down the rabbit hole with the series after reading this book. Love it.”

4) An unnamed reviewer at Daily Ebook Reviews not so much. “Overall, I’d say the story felt like it was constantly firing away on two cylinders instead of four. Given how much I enjoyed Child of Fire, I know Connolly can do better than that.”

5) Chris Valin at Wax Tadpole liked Game of Cages: “Where the sequel surpasses the first book is in the fleshing out of both the main character and the world in which he lives.”

6) Game designer Rob Donoghue also liked Game of Cages: “… it rockets forward, once again underscoring how scary you can make something without ichor by illustrating it’s impact more than the thing itself.”

7) David Hines didn’t like Game of Cages as much as Child of Fire, but he still liked it: “It’s still a really solid horror action/thriller, and if it’s not as conceptually exciting as its predecessor it does a good bit to compensate in the thrills department.” He also didn’t like the title. Me, I love “Game of Cages” as a title more than any of the others I’ve come up with so far. Child of Fire and Circle of Enemies are okay, but I lurve GoC so much I can remember where I was when I thought of it.

“I’m not an author. I’m a writer.”

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Heh. I finished up the latest section of A Key, An Egg… yesterday morning. It was a really difficult section, too, in which a home invasion completely destroys the protagonist’s house, and dangerously ups the stakes.

Now I get to start the whole book over from page one. After a healthy dose of outlining, of course. Fun!

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Ta-Nahisi Coates said that obesity is the third rail of the blogosphere, and damn if he isn’t right. He links to a rather tame and unimpressive post about the BMI which had to have comments closed because people went nuts.

Because… yeah. As a culture we’re raising awareness about sexual pleasure and, even if we aren’t 100% sane (or ever likely to be) we’re tossing the issues of privacy, preference, et al back and forth.

Not so with the pleasure that comes from eating. People are still weird about their food. Anyone who talks about vegetarianism knows that. People have strange compulsions regarding their food, and they hate to let other people examine them closely.

Coates also says, in the comments, that his legs hurt constantly when he was 295. Damn. I weigh about that and have the same problem…

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Last, I want to take note of this essay by Richard Kadrey about his new Sandman Slim novel.

Let me start by saying these books sound very good. They sound like they would fall right into my reading sweet spot: Fantasy elements in a book inspired by the best crime and detective fiction of the previous century. Wait a minute! Is this my book? ::checks Amazon.com sales ranking:: Nope! His numbers are too good.

My point is, that if I weren’t trying to write something utterly different from my usual stuff, I’d be all over this guy’s books like ugly on an ape. Then I read this:

It all comes down to this: I’m not an artist. I know artists. I have friends who are artists and I’m not one of them. Mickey Spillane said it best, “I’m not an author. I’m a writer. That’s all I am.” Occasionally I wonder if I even write novels. I write long shaggy dog stories. Messy, kind of odd and noisy. I love the graceful sloppiness of early punk and the garage rock you find on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets record series. I feel like my books and stories are similar to the way Iggy Pop describes The Stooges music, “It’s dumb. But it’s smart dumb.” My books are basically Raw Power with commas.

Hmph! I’m guessing Iggy Pop isn’t a musician, then, because he doesn’t play music.

I’ve gotta spray this grafitti again: If you’re writing fiction, you are an artist. I don’t want to get into a debate about where to draw the line through art/not art. Fiction isn’t an edge case. Fiction is art.

Now, it may be bad art. It may be utterly conventional art. It may be an ass-kissing hand-jobbing desperate-to-please whore in a Mary Sue mask, but it’s still art.

Art isn’t a term of praise. It’s not a label we reserve for those things that “terrify” us but never “seduce” us. It’s not a superlative. If you make something that exists mainly for the purpose of evoking an emotional reponse from people–in other words, if you’ve written a story, you’ve made art.[1]

[1] What say you, Wikipedia? “Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings.”

That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I know; I used to be one of them. Also, I used to get as obnoxious about it as: “Yes, I wonder about the nature of our existence, but I don’t get all Tolstoy about it.”

So I understand the urge to try to avoid being an artist. Who wants to be compared to Tolstoy? Who wants their readers to think the books we write are good for them? Does McDonald’s go around telling customers that their burgers are high in fiber?

Hell no. McDonald’s wants to sell their burgers; they only talk about the taste and talk about nutrition as a side issue. Eat this tasty burger! Read this exciting thriller! Don’t worry, I’m not like those high-minded guys your school teachers forced on you. I’m fun!

It doesn’t work, and it damages the art you make.

Call it low art if you want. Or pop art. Hell, call it “art-tertainment.” I don’t care. But don’t try to tell me it’s not art.

And buy that dude’s book, because it sounds awesome.

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Jeez, I’m really ranty these last two weeks, eh?

Let me make up for that with this: you can win a free copy of GAME OF CAGES (plus other awesome books) by entering this Suvudu contest.

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Anyway, I won’t be around to respond to comments for a while. I’m in training today and tomorrow. Pity me!

I’m wearing a sandwich-board sign that says “Harry Connolly, author”

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Yesterday (the day before? omg–must get handle on life) Sherwood Smith linked to and discussed Sarah Prineas’s rant against authors who market their books (titled: “I will be your friend but I won’t be your fan”). I recommend reading both, including the links comments (corrected).

And yeah, I get it. I do a little marketing here and there: I’ll retweet a nice review, or give books away on my blog. I try not to be obnoxious about it, but everyone has different tolerances and I’m bound to annoy someone.

That said, I know very well that there’s little I can do to affect my own sales beyond write a book people want to read. The number of copies I’ve given away and whatever effect that might have, is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of books I’ve sold. But I do it anyway; don’t ask why.

I have my limits. This blog will never turn into all hard-sell all the time. First of all, because it would annoy me even more than it would annoy you. Second of all, because that’s not my job. Third of all, because even if it was, that job would suck and I’d quit. I won’t be sponsoring complicated contests where you have to type out a long string of book titles. I won’t be sending Facebook “fan” requests.” I don’t plan to do any readings. I won’t be asking people to give my 5-star reviews on Amazon.com or anywhere else. I won’t be asking people to call all their local bookstores and ask if they have have my latest in stock.

I will do other things, though. I’ll keep sending my books to reviewers (anyone want to recommend some? I don’t want to duplicate efforts from the first round, but I’m interested in finding new review venues). I’ll still donate books to charity auctions; this is my favorite thing to do, because it does a slight bit of good for the world at large. I’ll still sign bookstore stock. I’ll still have giveaways. I’ll still mention that most people can ask their libraries to stock certain books, hint hint.

Probably the most effective thing I’ve done is contact folks I know online who have large followings and offer the book to them in the hopes that they’ll review it. I try to emphasize that it’s at their convenience and I wouldn’t ask them to gin up a fake positive review. That doesn’t always work, of course. Sometimes they never get around to reading it. Sometimes the review is middling. That’s fine by me–I’m grateful for their time. But when they really like the book, that’s a big deal.

I mean, basically it’s all about word-of-mouth, but when we’re talking about online reading communities, some mouths have access to more ears than others. For ex: According to his figures, John Scalzi’s blog gets 35-40 thousand unique visitors a day. My blog? 52, and that’s on a pretty good day.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t want to leave everything up to other people. Maybe it’s just that I want to do my part in making the book succeed.

What do you guys think? Is there a level of promotion you like and expect (“You have a new book out? Why didn’t you tell us?”) and where do you get exasperated and turned off? Was there a particular author promotion you thought was effective? Have you ever bought a book because of an author’s marketing?

And just because, if you want two copies of Game of Cages leave a comment on my main blog or LiveJournal saying so. I’ll choose a random winner sometime tomorrow morning. The extra copy is so that, if you like the book, you can give it to a friend; if you don’t like it, you can give it to an enemy.

Reviews, part 19

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The latest reviews.

1) Andrew Wheeler liked Game of Cages very much: “And, if Harry Connolly can keep his plots this gripping and Ray’s dilemmas this compelling, he’s on track to be one of the important fantasy writers of the next decade, someone who can help lift urban fantasy out of its wish-fulfillment rut.”

I can’t say how happy I am to being compared to Dennis Lehane(!)

2) Screenwriter Bill Martell says he couldn’t put it down. “Okay, I’ve finished reading Game of Cages, and it rocks!”

3) Ophelia at Karissa’s Reading Review gave Game Of Cages four out of five stars, although she thought it was too fast-paced. She’s still planning to pick up the next in the series, though: “The action is again very well written and relentless. This is a book that is hard to put down, it shoves you from one action scene to another and leaves you breathless.”

4) LiveJournaler firstfrost give Child of Fire 4 stars: “… it was definitely creepy.”

5) Beth at Library Chicken (!) gave Game of Cages a B+: “The characters in Connolly’s stories seem very real, especially Lilly.”

6) I will break my moratorium on Amazon.com reviews for this one by “M. Soar” who gave the book 4 stars but thought it was a little violent. However, the quote I’m offering is this one: “Kindle review – no errors in format on my K3: a nice clean copy. Thank you, Del Rey Books!”

Yes, thank you for that, Del Rey. I haven’t seen my book on the Kindle, but I do know the physical book is beautiful to look at. It’s really a well-designed package.

7) Nicholas Kaufmann gave Child of Fire a great big thumbs up: “The worldbuilding in this novel is wonderful. Connolly manages to avoid getting overly expository, which is hard to do with a world this rich, and lets the reader piece things together for him- or herself.“

Six things for a Sunday

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1. My wife comes home from her Italian yoga retreat tonight. I can’t wait. As much fun as I’ve had with the boy this week, I miss her. We both do.

2. The apartment is clean but cluttered, for those of you expecting to hear that I’ll be spending the day in a frantic cleaning jag. The living room needs to be picked up, though. It’ll take about 15 minutes.

3. My desk is another story. I’m tempted to just throw a match on it to rid myself of these meaningless stacks of paper.

4. I can’t stand Talk Like A Pirate Day. Can’t we let that idea die?

5. I deposited my on-publication check for Game of Cages yesterday. Damn, that feels good.

6. Sales for Game of Cages seem to be doing pretty well, too. It’s not a guarantee, but it bodes well for the future of the series.

“Did you think all this up yourself? Out of your head?“

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Today was the book signing. What do you mean you don’t believe me?! Proof? Here’s the proof!

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That’s me, in case you didn’t realize. The white shirt I’m wearing was freshly ironed twenty seconds before that photo was taken, but as soon as I hung it on myself it shriveled like a flower petal dropped into acid. Those are my books, my pens, my individually-wrapped prunes dried plums, and my oh-so-stylish sneakers.

If you’re wondering how it went, I sold eight books, four of book 1, four of book 2. That’s about five books more than expected. For those that care, here’s how it broke down:

Two books to a neighbor, the mother of Mango Eater’s best friend (she was the only buyer I already knew).
Two books to a woman buying gifts for her house-bound 94-year-old friend.
One book to a man buying a gift for his 20-year-old daughter.
One book to an aspiring writer.
One book to a bookstore employee for her son.
One book to an older woman who was scary skinny. She’s the one who provided the subject header above. (My response: “That’s the job!” She then asked rather stridently “Who’s this Ray Lilly? Is he good or evil?” What I wish I’d said was “I reject your dialectic!” What I actually said was “Uh….”)

I also mailed off all the giveaway books except the cookbooks that Carol Wong won. She hasn’t responded to two requests for a mailing address, and it would be a shame if her books went to the library or something because she used a spam trap address in the blog.

Now I’m back home and I’m not stress-eating or stress-drinking or stress-napping. I’m just hanging out with the family, and as soon as Mango Eater finishes building his Lego, he’s going to read us the next chapter of Harry Potter.

Book signing rules

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Having read the long list of restrictions at Tony Blair’s book signing, I’ve decided to institute my own list of restrictions for tomorrow’s signing. Please adhere closely to these rules.

1. No photography. All photographs with cameras or camera phones is strictly prohibited due to the danger of capturing one of The Author’s many bad sides. A sketch artist will be provided and pencil sketches will be available for a reasonable price.

2. Backpacks, purses and satchels are allowed, but all fannypacks will be confiscated and disposed of in the alley out back. Because dude, fannypacks.

3. The Author is happy to add a personal dedication to books as well as sign them, but no dedications will be made out to given names. Nicknames only. Also, The Author will be assigning all nicknames on the spot. Got that, Skippy?

4. To keep things moving quickly, all conversation should be limited to complimentary assessments of The Author’s appearance and demeanor, as well as unqualified praise for his books.

5. No cell phones conversations, Twittering, texting or “sexting” permitted, unless The Author is allowed to read/listen in, and finds the conversation amusing.

6. Physical assault is strongly discouraged. The Author should not be spit upon, slapped, struck with a weasel (dead), shot, punched, stabbed, struck with a ferret (living or dead), kicked, or head-butted. In fact, let’s just go with “No touching,” okay?

7. Child care will be provided for book purchases who require it. A special playpen will be installed before the event; readers will not have to worry about children escaping the pen, as it is a very modern kind that comes with a top.

8. Readers are not required to bring their own pen, but those who don’t will be charged an additional $1 ink fee to help compensate for the loss of The Author’s specially-formulated brand of ink (from Bic).

9. All pens provided by the readers themselves must be disinfected by The Author’s staff before the signing. Charge for that: also $1.

That’s all, I think. Adding a tenth restriction seems… excessive. Better to be easy-going and understated.

See you tomorrow, and be sure to OBEY.