Load Up on Guns, and Bring Your Friends

I’m a bit busy today, doing a bunch of interviews for my next PW feature story, so posting will be sparse today. But I wanted to note Jack Shafer’s response to the WaPo/Marianne Wiggins flap:

“Stamping out conflict of interest may result in a ‘fairer’ book review. But will it produce a better one? I think not.”

Keep in mind that Shafer cops to a “prejudice against fairness,” and argues in favor of greater accuracy in book reviewing: “If the Post is going to apologize for publishing the Wiggins review on ethical grounds, I’d like to see it ask for reader forgiveness when fully vetted and unconflicted reviewers give bad books a free pass.”

15 August 2005 | uncategorized |

Now We’ll Never See That Butterfly Effect Sequel

Lee Goldberg passes along the news about a fanfiction writer who wants private subsidization to complete her Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, and the scornful reaction that ensued among other fanfic fans. He calls it “the funniest thing I’ve read in ages,” while Nick Mamatas calls her, in one of the few parts I can quote, an “incorrigible, self-involved parasite.”

I found out about all this from John Scalzi, who observes:

“Don’t kid yourself: Goldberg and Mamatas are the sideshow to the fanfic community pile-on. Which, incidentally, worked, since the fanfic writer in question abandoned her idea to take money and also, in the wake of 500 messages, the majority of which were (heh) disapproving, decided to take a little break from the online world. But the sheer ferocity of the response is just boggling, and should answer any doubt on the part of non-fans as to whether most fanficers have a grip on reality. Clearly they do, because they understand what the penalties are for trying to cross the line, both to themselves and to their community.”

You know, even as somebody who’s rattled the donation cup online myself, I’ve got zero sympathy for this woman–not because, as one fan put it, she wanted “monetary compensation for a goddamned fucking hobby,” but because of the difference between our “hobbies.” I mean, I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing here with the reportage and the commentary and the spotlights on other writers, and she’s basically the online equivalent of those guys you see hawking $5 bootleg DVDs on the sidewalk.

12 August 2005 | uncategorized |