My Willing Suspension of Disbelief is Suspended

Well, it has finally happened. I, a huge fan of fantasy fiction, have been broken. My willing suspension of disbelief (with apologies to Coleridge) has been indefinitely suspended… can you believe it?

Saddest of all, it was a pair of former favorites who killed it… and neither are fantasy authors.

But I have to be honest, this is getting rampant. There is a epidemic of bad writing plaguing me like a rare avian flu transmitted by the saliva of the petit north american pug finch.

No… no… old stand-by authors are phoning it in and the line is fraught with static.

Survivors of century upon century of betrayal and torture—immortal warriors who have been trained to accept unimaginable pain—fall in love and learn to trust nearly immediately with absolutely no reason to do so. Sure. K. Oh, and no backstory? Right. Oh, and an abrupt, vague ending? Excellent.

Regency rake with a full stable lifts a woman carrying an infant onto his horse to share the ride back to her place rather than putting her on another mount, or—in a jarring moment of historical accuracy and, well, fucking LOGIC—a carriage-type device of some sort… and in spite of the biting December cold, their lack of familiarity, and—erm—an infant—becomes instantly aroused and defies gravity and physics with a saddleback triple-balancer erection. Seriously? Ringling Brothers would kill for that act.

Grey eyes with emerald highlights? I want to see the wallpaper in your guest bathroom. No, I’m not shitting you. Can I come by later? I’ll bring donuts.

An ancient god who has not walked the earth or had access to any electronic media using current American cultural slang, operating a laptop without being able to read modern language or having ever seen one? Sure. Same guy has a modern shower and all the best goodies in his private chamber just off the torture wing, where he is a slave? EXCELLENT! Hey, I know another writer who is inviting me over to see her guest bathroom… you two should hook up!

Last week I read a BEST SELLING author out of a NY publisher… who made direct reference to growing roses from rose seeds.

I give up. PRESS PLAY

No $hit, Sherlock…

Aspen Mountain Press is a gigantic, gaping craphole.  This is no surprise.  Authors got screwed.  This is unfortunate, but no surprise.  Laws were broken.  This is an outrage, but no surprise.

What still blows me away is that nobody seems to have the dazzling and magical ability to see it coming.  I’ll give you a super-duper tip:

CHECK THE AUTHOR LIST BEFORE YOU EVEN BOTHER TO SUBMIT.

The majority of the list over at AMP means nothing to me, but several names do jump right off the page.  I’ve never read their books, but I’ve read their absolutely insufferable forum/blog postings.  They lurk all over places like Absolute Write (no link, sorry, I wouldn’t point anyone to that place) condescending to newbies.  Many are ops or mods or whatever you want to call an asshole with super powers, endowed by virtue of… well, you tell me.

I’ve never purchased an AMP book, and many, many authors there never saw their books  published.  I’m sure many are wonderful writers.  I wish them all the best.  But seriously, I just looked at the list again, and I’m seeing the same half dozen know-it-alls who seem to somehow, in spite of knowing it all, always appear right in the middle of every bitch-slap-a-palooza over a crap publisher screwing authors.  How, oh how, do these poor bastards—endowed with super powers, mind you—ALWAYS end up victims of crap publishers?

Ironically, over at Absolute Wrong, if you read the thread (to which many of the brand-spanking-new accusers point), you will note at least one mod, at the opening salvo of the AMP inquiry thread, noting they have signed with AMP and know of no issues.  You will note other know-it-alls chiming in with “so far so good” assurances.

I’m clearly no expert, since I have no shiny hat, and have been endowed with nothing empowering me with the super-ability of pedantic bullshit… but I’d just avoid anything with which those idiots associate.

Now gimme my tights and cape.

Don't Eat Pumpkins

It's that time of year. Every cafe, restaurant, and Yankee Candle reeks of pumpkin spiced garbage. I HATE FREAKING PUMPKINS. So if you eat them, you should really hear this story...

How Pumpkins Became A Delicacy

Many years ago, not long after the Wompanoag Indians had befriended the local white settlers, two members of the Mashfeeld tribe gathered on the edge of a bog.

Sukonnet and Sukattet, two brothers, had reached the end of their rope. And they were sharing the rope.

"Well the damned Pilgrims ate all the shellfish, lobster, venison, and trout," said Sukonnet.

"Yeah, now the turkey are gone, too. And they have plundered the cranberry bogs. I told you we should have killed them all," said Sukattet.

"Well... there are these." Sukonnet held the round, orange globes, which had ripened in the first days of autumn, between his hands.

"That's a Pumpkin," said Sukattet, who knew that pumpkin was a Mashfeeld word meaning ugly assed squash that tastes like watery poo.

"It's all we've got," said Sukonnet. "They've eaten everything else."

"I'm not eating a pumpkin," said Sukattet.

"You'll starve."

"I don't friggin' care, I'm not eating a goddamned pumpkin," Sukattet insisted.

But the nights grew very cold, and the traps remained empty, and the pumpkin sat there staring at them outside their small mud lodge. Finally, October came, the time of the harvesting moons and frosts. Sukattet and Sukonnet were really at the end of their shared rope, and the knot they'd tied in it was loosening.

"This really is bullshit," said Sukattet.

And they carved open the pumpkin, cooked it, and ate it.

It sucked. They barfed.

So Sukonnet and Sukattet went to the white settlers and said to Miles Standish and the rest of them, "this is the pumpkin, which is a rare delicacy of our people. Pumpkin means 'large melon,' and it is very highly prized. You should eat this in stead of the ugly, spiny, hard-shelled lobster, which is poisonous."

Sukonnet then snickered and Sukattet kicked him in the shinn.

And so it was that the settlers began to eat pumpkin, though they were forced to slather it with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves to make it palatable. And school teachers were forced to eat lobster because lobster was gross and icky.

And Sukattet and Sukonnet became legends, and had streets named after them in the old hunting grounds of Mashfeeld... which remained a paradise even unto this very day.