I finished reading Kelley Armstrong’s Stolen over lunch yesterday. Oh, don’t worry, it was great. I have no intention of burning it! Anyway, in my quest to decide what to read next in my TBR pile, I realized I have three of Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn novels hanging out in there, courtesy of several lovely blog giveaways. We won’t talk about the obscene heights to which my TBR pile has grown. Anyway, none of them are the first one (I think the earliest one I have is the third), and I was scouting around trying to find out whether I needed to read the series in order or if it didn’t matter. Since Google and Twitter failed me on that front, I sent an email to Lynn herself. She was lovely enough to reply this morning (how cool is it to get email back from an author within 24 hours!?).
The answer to my question was that there’s enough info in each book so that you can read them out of order without misunderstanding anything, but there is apparently a relationship that develops over the course of the series, so if that kind of thing would bug you, you should read them in order. Good to know! I shall pick up the first one on my next trip to the bookstore.
Anyway, she made one other comment, thanking me for my email, as the previous one she’d answered was from a woman who wanted to know what the best accelerant to use was when she burned Lynn’s books.
Holy crap! Who does that? I mean, obviously, there are people out there who feel compelled to bash an author and send hate mail (which is bad enough), but burning books? In my world that’s sacrilege. And telling an author about it? How rude! Well, actually, from a psychological torture standpoint, that’s actually a pretty good way to get back at an author, now that I think about it. But for Pete’s sake, let’s all be ADULTS here. If you don’t like a book, fine. Don’t recommend it. Throw it against the wall maybe. Donate or sell it. Recycle it even. But don’t burn it. It’s a waste of resources (and probably a fire hazard).
I’ve never understood book burning. Or book banning for that matter. Everyone has different tastes and no book is inherently bad or corrupting. It’s all in the eyes of the reader. Given the number of books that are out of print and will remain so (one possible awesome side effect of the wave of the e-book future–the possibility of a backlist NEVER “going out of print”), the concept of burning books that we can’t get back… That’s like destroying a natural resource. It’s despicable.
I’ve read plenty of books I didn’t care for. Some I outright hated. Several I question the sanity of publishers for putting out there because they were utter crap. A few hit the wall. Most of the ones I didn’t like, I just turned in for credit at my favorite used bookstore and moved on. The only books I have ever felt compelled to burn myself were the myriad of political science texts from my European core classes in international studies in college (which I didn’t burn), and my master’s thesis (which I did burn–there was a party, a small bonfire, and beer–it was very cathartic).
Anyway, have you ever hated a book SO MUCH that you felt compelled (and even followed through with the compulsion) to burn it?
And hey, if you’re a Lynn Viehl fan, drop her an email or a comment over at her blog. I think she could use a little cheerleading today.
Love the Darkyn books. The prevailing storyline that runs through the series is pretty predominant (and intriguing…), so I’d also recommend starting with #1.
Lucan (hero of, I believe, #3) is a bad, bad boy and therefore obviously my favorite of the bunch. I haven’t read Rob (of hideous pink cover fame) yet, though. STN is at the top of my stck.
And although I seem to remember ripping a book into itty bitty pieces years ago because it profoundly offended me on many levels, I honestly can’t remember what it was.
I didn’t waste my time venting my outrage to the author, though. I’ll never understand what people hope to accomplish with that. The book that displeased them is a done deal, and it’s unlikely the writer is going to adjust the current WIP to accommodate an abusive emailer.
>>Several I question the sanity of publishers for putting out there because they were utter crap.
LMFAO HERE HERE! Mostly I find books i”m just Meh about (which IMO is the kiss of death). But once in a while I DO find a book that makes me go, “Some MOFO was smoking CRACK when they bought this POS.” WTF…just WTF. That said, I’d NEVER write an author and tell them their book blew chunks. I’ll confess, I actually sent one back to amazon.com bec it was so bad. The other one I think I gave away. I feel bad for inflicting the book on others, but trashing a book is against my nature, no matter how bad it is.
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I confess. I threw a book away once. I didn’t even recycle it. I chucked it. Then poured coffee grounds over it. It was so bad that I wouldn’t have dared give it to any of my friends. I didn’t even want it back in circulation anywhere, so I couldn’t, in good conscience, return it to the UBS, put it in a garage sale, or donate it anywhere. It was that awful.
But I didn’t write to her, either.
I’ve never sent hate mail and I’ve never burned a book, but I did rip one in half once. Straight down the spine. It felt soooooo good. I don’t think I’ve ever been so furious after reading a book. I was tempted to write a scathing review, but I didn’t. I told a few friends, but I never told the author. I figured the author’s sales and reviews probably spoke louder than my snotty comments every could.