Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:52:58 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: reading likes and dislikes
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 06:37 AM 03/26/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>I'm afraid I fall into Candy's camp where Bester is
>concerned.  I've enjoyed some of his short fiction,
>but The Stars My Destination really didn't do anything
>for me.  I think perhaps my expectations were too
>high, since everyone kept telling me what a
>masterpiece it was. don't think I hated it quite as
>much as Candy though.

And actually, my dislike of TSMD grew gradually.  I actively disliked the
book the first time I read it, but it didn't stand out in my memory enough
for me to remember it the next time I read it, or the next time, or the
next time...  I finally memorized the author and title so as *not* to read
it again.  So I class it in the "never read" category and suspect that my
hatred for it would be less if I hadn't accidentally read it over and over
and over.

>I kind of feel the same way
>about Arthur C. Clarke.  Love the short fiction, but
>while I didn't actively dislike Rama or Childhood's
>End, I don't consider them masterpeices that I would
>encourage eveyone I know to read.  Of course, I also
>feel that way about lots of nonSF authors too.
>Virginia Woolf comes to mind.  I know she's supposed
>to be brilliant, but while I enjoyed her nonfiction
>essays A Room with A View and Three Guineas, I've
>never liked her fiction, but I've ended up reading a
>fair amount of it because everytime I mention not
>liking one of her great masterpeices, someone always
>says "try this one. it's much better."

My tastes are rather plebian.  I also am easily upset by what I read, so
when I read something I want a happy ending.  And the middle better hadn't
be too scary or upsetting.

I loved all of Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar books, so I picked up Out of
This World and In the Empire of Shadow.  Awful.  When he killed off the
hero's wife and kid (he sent a six year old girl off to die as a slave for
ghod's sake), I flipped to the back to see if he was going to pull some
sort of happy ending out of his hat, and when he didn't, I put the book
aside and had nightmares for weeks.  I'll probably have nightmares tonight
just from remembering it.  So now, when I see a LWE book the first thing I
do is check to see if it's an Ethshar book.  If it is, I'll buy it,
otherwise...

And we won't even get into the psychoanalyzing of the author that this invites.

>Of course, if my critical abilities weren't still at
>the Beavis and Butthead "liked it/it sucked" level,
>and I could actually articulate why I liked or
>disliked a particular book, then maybe my friends
>would actually be able to recommend books suited to me
>tastes in fiction.

That's normally where my critical abilities are, I'm just slightly ahead in
that I know I like cotton candy and dark chocolate.

Candy
Candy