More fooey. At least I didn't have to wait a long time.

[ritaxis]

Small Beer doesn't want my book.

They have a couple of things to say about it -- stilted, too much infodump. I promise I'm not going to go into a defensive tailspin. I usually like the book, I usually think I got it about right. But. If somebody doesn't like it, then I wonder. I know there's taste. But. Oh, just, fooey.

I wonder if it's the dialog -- which is written in a Spanglish future slang, and the protagonist has trouble expressing himself? Or the narrative? If it's the first, well, I don't think there's anything to do about it. I worked really hard to get those people to sound just like that. Just. Fooey.

I don't know what to do next.

I'm going to Potlatch tomorrow, but now I don't want to. I want to stay home and cry.

Comments

[julesjones]

Bad timing. :-( Go to Potlatch anyway, it will almost certainly make you feel better. I am at home at the moment, should you want to call in here tomorrow on the way to have a rant to someone you will not be spending the weekend with.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think I found something else to do next. It's a long shot, but it's better than nothing. There's an editor at Ace who will accept query letters, and it says he likes hard sf and sf with romantic elements. Well, it's not all the way hard, but it has that technology prominence I think hard sf usually has, and there's a great dealm of business about the implications of terraforming and environmental manipulation. And it has a whopping big romantic element -- the protagonist is all romantic (though his romantic vision isn't to be part of a couple, but to have a lover within a communal household, because that's the kind of scoiety he lives in!) Anyway, I'm redoing the query letter again.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's the dialog -- which is written in a Spanglish future slang, and the protagonist has trouble expressing himself?

David Feintuch has written a book like that - half of it in unintelligle future slang, and I've given it away because it was so horrible. (It wasn't a good story, either.)

I haven't read yours and don't know how much it would grate on my ears, or the editor's ears, but if it's too prominent and takes too long to puzzle out, two things will happen - unless the reader really *wants* to read it; they'll either find it too much work or they go into analytical rather than story mode.

Could this find more favour with a more literary publisher, maybe? (Not because it's hard to read, but also because it seems full of social issues and literary devices from what you've said on your journal)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

On reflection, I think I know where the "stilted" comes from: the opening, which is a description of a drunk kid falling off a tractor, and contains a whole lot of details. And I think I like it. And it's not the complaint I got from the others who didn't want it, so I think it's personal taste, but it's still disappointing not to be liked by an editor who likes Sean Stewart and Maureen McHugh, who are both my hero.

Warning: what follows is a long bit of dialog. I think it's typical, maybe, of the way people talk.


"You never been in trouble like me, huh, Tomás?" Chuy tried to make it sound like a joke.
"Not like you, but I made a couple few mistakes my first couple of years at the University. I straightened up though. I was afraid I'd get kicked out and that would have been pretty bad
for the community."
"What'd you do?"
"Dropped the ball on a bunch of deadlines. Other places are different from the Rancho: they say you have to do something by this date, you better do it by this date, or they don't even know who you are anymore. You watch out for that in Nuevo Modesto, too. You toe the line, do just what they tell you. You do that and you should be all right. Maybe you'll get along so well in Nuevo Modesto you won't even want to come back after your birthday."
"Only if they come through with some boys. I can't be expected to go through my whole young life alone." Chuy gazed out at the striped fields running multicolored right up to the low horizon, interspersed with the weeds so carefully introduced by the first settlers. "You know that guy Mark? Your friend from school?"
"What about him?" Of course Tomás knew him. Mark had been his roommate during most of his time he'd been at the University in Banner.
"He's just the greatest guy I ever saw. How come you aren't together with him? Isn't that why he came to live at Castro?"
Tomás shrugged. "He asked me that himself a few times. I don't have a good answer. Why are you asking me about him?"
"Why do you think?"
"Really? You like him? He's cute and all, but you don't have much in common with him. Except a disposition committee, maybe." Tomás was grinning as if he were offering to tease Chuy into cheering up. But the committees were entirely different. Mark was a desirable immigrant, and it was only a matter of form that he had to demonstrate his worthiness to join the community and get a share in it.
"Yeah," Chuy said, deflated.
"Tell you what. He drives truck, right? But he's qualified for a history teacher. You study up, when you get back you'll have something to talk about with him."
"Sokay." The very thought of talking about history with a teacher, when he hadn't been in a school in so long -- not even a cutie like Mark could make that unintimidating.
"So you're going to be careful in muni town? Be cool? Keep your passion to yourself?"
"Yeah. I don't get why they're like that though. Used to be Chistas, most of them, like my folks. They get those ideas from someplace?"
"Because the people who set the tone there aren't Chistas and never were Chistas. They slopped over from the company towns."
"Don't get how they can set the tone when they just sneaked in yesterday," Chuy said, echoing an old frustration: The Altagracia Valley was supposed to have been set aside during the development grant period just for the integral communities, the Ranchos, just as Best had been given to the industrial development collective, just as Prospect had been open to the collectives from home, just as Hallow had been given to the religious communities who called themselves Pioneers.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Oh, pooh! Commiseration on the rejection. I haven't read any of your stuff, but from the way you talk about it, it always sounds interesting. Of course that's not always an infallible guide. I've just given up on a book that has had glowing reviews and I know from what the author says about it that they intended it to make all sorts of deep and valid points, much of which I would agree with. But I just couldn't stand the main character/s and emotionally the book felt all wrong.

I suspect that, emotionally, your story would feel right to me, but perhaps it's not gung ho enough for the US market? Have you considered trying the UK? I know the market here is smaller, but it publishes things like the Jon Courtenay Grimwood Pashazade trilogy a long time before the States would have anything to do with it.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Small Beer doesn't want my book.
Their loss. Their loss.

Anyway, it won't do any good looking at the book right now, while the wound's fresh. Put the book away for a bit, keep working at current project, then look at the book again after a bit. If it still looks good, it probably is.

And I hope you enjoy your day today.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Damn, and I thought that would work.

Well I like it.