As you may or may not have noticed, the last Harry Potter book will be coming out shortly. Quite a lot of people, some of them members of this community, consider this to be a very big deal. We the mods expect that there may be fictionrants about it, considering its popularity. This is just a friendly reminder to those of you who may rant about the ( Read more... )

Dear Published Author (unspecified since I've seen this multiple times ( Read more... )

Yo, Terry Goodkind.

Isn't it enough you gave us the most Gary Stu and Mary Sue characters in fiction, Namble cock, Robert Jordan rip-offs, gang rape is democracy in action, the chicken-that-is-not-a-chicken, noble goats, rising 'things', melon-sized plot holes and travelling pants, you had to say this at Kirkus Reviews:

TG: The genre is irrelevant; ( Read more... )

( Cut for Kushiel's Justice spoilers, just in case )

Dear Simon R Green ( Read more... )

Dear Darren Shan,

I can't believe that I'm writing to you here, I really can't, but I must.

You are a lovely person, Mr Shan. I know - I've met you. Your books are wonderful. Sure, the character of Darren has a few tangs of self-insert, but you're a master story crafter for young people. You write wonderfully gory horror for the young. I love "The ( Read more... )

Dear Tanith Lee,

You are a fantastic world-builder. Your descriptions are ethereal and delicate, while your writing style is solid, which is a rare talent. You write the kind of landscapes that make me think how unfair it is that I can't live in one of your worlds. I respect that. I think it's a great skill.

...but you can't craft a story for crap.

I' ( Read more... )

You know how sometimes there's stuff in summaries that make you want to run far far away? This is one of them, in my opinion. (You may not feel the same way and that's alright). It is, I assume, a self published book. I heard about it on a comm.

Gay themed comedy, called "Playing the Field". Written by a man, which could be significant, I don't ( Read more... )

To the authors of Spire Comics,

I discovered a few issues online, and read them for the Jack Chick-like fascinating quality that they contained. There were errors, but I was largely able to dismiss them.

Until that one point.

How the hell would a woman find herself released from a concentration camp due to a clerical error?

Oh dear, Anthony Horowitz. Oh dear, oh dear. Have you actually sat back and looked at your Alex Rider series? I mean, seriously looked at it?

Alex is such a Stu. Karate expert, attractive, intelligent, super spy, the list goes on. It's sickening. And, of course, he is fighting against "the man" while getting out of improbably dangerous situations ( Read more... )