If you haven’t read the review, how fucking big is your rock? I would STILL love to hear how that is a bash of the author, editor or publisher but since it isn’t I don’t see that happening any time soon. That is NOT a personal attack on the author. If anything it is a complement that she was able to get a publisher to publish what the reader found to be a shitty book.
Since I don’t believe in being coy unless a man and sex are involved I will spell out what I found.
review for Finders Keepers reviewed by J. Wallace “Voracious Reader” (Tennessee)
Captain Trilby Elliot has parked her rattletrap ship on an uninhabited planet to make repairs when an enemy ‘Sko ship hurtles into the forest nearby. Istead of salvaging useful parts from the crash, she salvages a Z’fharian man, Rhis Vanur, who turns out to be both very useful and very inconvenient. Rhis is useful in that he can help her repair her ship. Rhis is inconvenient in that he insists she change her schedule to return him to his squadron a.s.a.p, which Trilby is not about to do, not when she has a badly needed commission waiting for her at Port Rumor. However, there’s more to Rhis than Trilby knows, and between the two of them they manage to get involved in a huge political scandal involving Trilby’s sleazy former boyfriend, the ‘Sko, and Rhis’s secret identity. And before everything blows up in their faces, they manage to get involved with each other, which complicates matters greatly.Trilby and Rhis are well-rounded characters of the type you don’t consistently encounter in futuristic romances, or any romances, for that matter. They don’t fall fully into romance stereotypes, being more reminiscent of inhabitants of the novels of Anne McCaffrey or Tanya Huff.
More specifically, Trilby is tough, capable and independent and doesn’t need Rhis any more than she needs another hole in her spaceship. This makes it all that much more convincing when she begins to fall in love with him, plus her character doesn’t morph from Space Amazon.com to Space Bimbo once S-E-X enters the picture. Rhis isn’t a foil for Trilby, as they are alike in many ways, which allows them to respect and understand one another. I have few complaints with Trilby and only a minor one with Rhis — he’s such a hard and rather cold man that I wasn’t entirely convinced when he lost his head over Trilby.
The plot is pure, rollicking space opera, with suspense, computer programming, backstabbing, space battles and galaxy-wide threats galore. The secondary characters are neither too few nor too many, and the author doesn’t write any of them in such a way that you can tell she intends you to be intrigued and “demand” the next book. The worldbuilding is satisfactory, if focused on spaceships and technology instead of exotic climes and sexy alien men with psychic powers, but this novel is refreshingly stand-alone. Sometimes you just want to read a good space adventure instead of get trapped in a family saga.
We don’t get to know much about “the enemy,” the ‘Sko, but how much did you get to know the giant insects in the movie Starship Troopers? You didn’t care about the bugs; you just wanted the good guys to shoot bug heads until green goo flew everywhere. Finders Keepers is that kind of good time, without the tragic loss of the most interesting female character prior to the end of the work. A recommended read.
ETA: Has been re-released from Bantam Spectra — track it down!
review for Finders Keepers reviewed by Jody Wallace, Editor, SFROnline
“Captain Trilby Elliot has parked her rattletrap ship on an uninhabited planet to make repairs when an enemy ‘Sko ship hurtles in the forest nearby. But instead of salvaging useful parts from the crash, she salvages a Z’fharian man, Rhis Vanur, who turns out to be both very useful and very inconvenient in his own special way…Trilby and Rhis are well-rounded characters of the type you don’t consistently encounter in futuristic romances, or any romances, for that matter. They do not fall fully into romance stereotypes, being more reminiscent of inhabitants of the novels of, say, Anne McCaffrey or Tanya Huff. They dwell neither in angst-land nor cutesy comedy land, and for me characters I can like and understand will make or break a novel.
More specifically, Trilby is tough, capable and independent, which I just adore in a female protagonist, and doesn’t need Rhis any more than she needs another hole in her spaceship. This makes it all that much more convincing when she begins to fall in love with him…
The plot is pure, rollicking space opera, with suspense, computer programming, backstabbing, space battles and galaxy-wide threats galore… I recommend Finders Keepers… take it to bed with you and stay up late flipping pages.”
–Jody Wallace, Editor, SFROnline
drum roll please…
A. Jody Wallace is J Wallace
B. Someone who really hates Jody Wallace is fucking with her.
C. Someone ripped a review off from a site thinking no one would ever know
It wouldn’t be the first time a review got posted at amazon by someone who didn’t first write the review.
The lesson to be learned here? If you are going to post on the internet make sure your ducks are in a row. Cuz this isn’t vegas and nothing stays secret for long. If you have something to lose, watch your back or stay off the net.
The review didn’t BASH the author as a person. I have no idea where Jody’s Wallace’s name first came from. The fact that she doesn’t list herself as an author or her website at amazon or her reviews on her website means that to me she wasn’t shouting out they were one and the same. And the fact that people kept repeating it WITHOUT facts to back it up or the desire to care if they were even right is a scary fucking thing.
I have nothing to hide. I have never in my 13 years on the internet posted under a sock or as anything other than redwyne/sybil. So I am not scared of being outed myself, I forget who came to the wonderful conclusion on Alison’s blog. If I want to say a book/author/reader/person sucks I will do it as me or I won’t do it.
This shit happened in philedom… over fucking fanfic. One author pissed in someone’s cheerios and they in turn ended up speaking to their boss. I remember wondering how anyone could be so fucking insane and petty.
This is a review. THEY ARE WORDS. Sticks and stones lovey. Even if that review called an author a stupid cunt that would be no reason to hunt someone down, out an alias or screw with someone way of life. Being called names is something you should get the fuck over in grade school. Two wrongs do not make a right and don’t bother with the crap that you were just trying to help a poor stupid newbie.
Call it what you want, wrap it up in shiny happy colors, but this shit stinks. If you had a hand in the witch hunt you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. And if you posted an authors name with no care to if you had your facts straight, you should remember what they say about glass houses and be more careful.
I don’t want to know who deep throat was. Good god what a wonderful support group the romance writers association has to go into its convention with. You can give knives away with ‘RWA 2006’ on them as keepsakes.
I am gonna go finish (reading) my book… stick a fork in me I am done.
Good God!!
I said I was done.
I promised I wouldn’t read about this crappy episode anymore. I did. I did. I did.
I am so fricking furious at this behavior. Big Marquee Letters Should Go Here: PEOPLE ARE ENTITLED TO EXRESS THEIR OPINIONS.
If you cannot deal with the opinions, then don’t put yourself out in public, don’t get an agent, don’t publish, don’t run for PTA president, don’t run for office, and don’t grab a blog.
You HAVE a choice about putting your work, your psyche, your art, your reputation, or your hurt feelings out there for people to react to. And they are entitled to have opinions, like you, to express their opinions, to hurt your feelings, or to hate you.
But what is NOT ok is pretending that spending tons of time and energy being a beeyotch –and you know you did– and screwing with someone’s reputation, is required as part of your civic duty or is a method of offering professional advice.
There’s a webiste in town which published a nasty cartoon after the most recent election, comparing me to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That wasn’t nice, but yeah, you have to shrug it off. What burned me about the cartoon was that a) the image was stolen from a cartoon sales website along with the watermark preventing internet theft, b) the image was then altered, violating the cartoonist’s copyright, and c) incorporated the copyrighted logo of a local businessowner who was thought to have supported one of the candidates (although he actually didn’t).
That’s bullying. It goes after the business owner and his reputation for no good reason. And, yes, I privately reported the cartoon to the copyright holder. But I did not publicly point to the cartoon or to my suspicions of whom had altered the image or posted it. It would have been Wholly Inappropriate, Petty, Mean, and ultimately, Unprofessional.
As for my reputation, or in the case of members of the public comparing me to a whore (been there), and idiot (been there) or a harbinger of doom (well, it was original), I have to take my lumps. And cultivate a sense of humor.
I do not go out and try to ferret out the identity of the cartoon manipulator or bully him in return.
Because I Made The Choice To Be Public. And so did every blogger (to some extent) and every author (in a very conscious sense).
Clearly Suisan, you are not using your powers for good. Because if you truly believed in helping others, you would have held the cartoon artist up as an example so that you could help him and all others who aspire to be like him. Maybe you should check your civic duty oaths.
Came back (yeah, I know) to say that when I said “you” in the above comment, I was not referring to Sybil. Was referring to those who “needed” to give advice.
Screw this!! I’m frigin’ hiding under this rock – I believe I mentioned I’m not interested unless it’s a huge author going batshit insane online 😉
CindyS