My portal fantasy MOON'S KNIGHT (which drove at least one Amazon reviewer to distraction because the protagonist, during the funeral of her best friend, has harsh words for God) is on sale for $3.99USD in ebook today! https://books2read.com/moonsknight
@cstross I mean, I generally stay away from reading ANY reviews, since they tend to interfere with equanimity needed for creation. But figuring out the principle of “an emotional reaction means the book succeeded” made it easier when I couldn’t avoid looking. @NiveusLepus
@lilithsaintcrow@NiveusLepus I have learned from bitter experience to only pay attention to reviews in places like Kirkus, Locus, or newspaper columns. Amazon/Goodreads reviews are almost entirely useless. Only validity is to count the raw numbers (AIUI books with over 700 reader reviews on AMZN get prioritized in recommendations/search results).
@lilithsaintcrowreads a character saying "Fuck God" at a funeral, at the start of a story This must be gratuitous. No way is this related to the character or story
@mwlI think so, but clearly Avid Reader (Anonymous) disagrees. I am glad their experience of existence has been so cushioned as to avoid any event precipitating such shrieking.
@lilithsaintcrow@PictoPirate It's a peculiarly American cultural quirk—I haven't run into it at all in Scotland and not really in England in the past fifty years or so. (In Scotland, "fuck" is a punctuation mark.)
@cstross@lilithsaintcrow@PictoPirate It's the Puritanism here in the US. I have endured far too many people who have no problem with abuse, cruelty, and neglect, but are outraged by a fucking swear word. 🙄
@_L1vY_ It's all about control, methinks. “If I pearl-clutch over how you speak and pretend respectability, my own nasty behaviour can be kept quiet.” @cstross@PictoPirate
@_L1vY_@cstross@lilithsaintcrow@PictoPirate yeah, I had a bad review because my female MC had slept with a grand total of three men before hitting my male MC up for sex. How shocking, a grown woman who thinks she’s dying wants to try a few things out before she goes… I figured it was either Puritanism or just, you know, general sexism, or both, why not?
@PJ_Evans Who knows? I’m just amused—and sort of grateful for the publicity, actually, which is priceless. Like, you can’t BUY promo like this. It’s a gift from the (temporarily despised) gods.
@lilithsaintcrow hahaha, my main couple are a New Yorker with a MOUTH on him and a former old-order Mennonite who has to be coaxed at great length into producing a "Hell!"
I'm an oil patch kid, I swear like it makes the sun come up. What I don't usually do is swear AT.
People who don't know the difference are too precious for words.
@lilithsaintcrow that review is hilarious. I've met people (to my regret) that view profanity and violence as equal. It's laughable. I can see why you would cherish this review.
@SJHoodlet It’s strange because this person claims to have read other works of mine! And I’m all, “honey, there’s salty language there too, did you just miss it?”
@lilithsaintcrow I wonder if it's just because it's associated with god. I know some christians who swear, but "taking the lord's name in vain" is a whole different level of profanity. 😒 It's like they take it personally.
Anyway, I hope you framed that review. It's hysterical!
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