Hey guys,
Simon Spanton, Richard Morgan's editor at Gollancz, and I have been exchanging emails regarding hype. He had some issues with my review of Morgan's
The Steel Remains(
Canada,
USA,
Europe), and we talked things over.
I would have liked to discuss the topic a bit further, as our definition of hype and all it encompasses appears to differ to some extent, but my getting on that plane bound for Poland in a few hours precluded my doing so. Still, Simon feels that this discussion is worthy of a wider audience, and he invited me to post it on the Hotlist.
Unfortunately, this is not a discussion he and I can finish at the moment. But perhaps you guys can add to it and make it even more interesting. . .:-)
- Simon Spanton's first message after reading my review:
Dear Pat,
Thanks for your review.
As someone who has seemingly been instrumental in ‘hyping’ Richard’s book I’m genuinely interested in learning what you believe constitutes hype?
All the best
Simon
- My reply:
Hi Simon,
I certainly helped build the exciting buzz surrounding this book, no question. But the hype began when reviews and advance praise started floating around. Before that, the SFF community, myself included, was just eagerly awaiting Morgan's take on fantasy.
Advance reviews made the book sound like it was the best thing since sliced bread, and I believe that the hype raised expectations to an unattainable level. I would like to think that I'm immune to hype, but I was taken along for the ride, as many others have been. So I wanted my review to put things back into perspective. And I sincerely believe that readers will enjoy the novel a lot more if they don't go into this want thinking that they're going to read a future classic of the genre. Whether TSR will indeed become a landmark fantasy book, only time will tell. . .
Much like Lynch went through with TLOLL, I guess I didn't want Morgan to experience an even bigger backlash (given his talent and backlist) from angry fans when the book doesn't meet their expectations. Some people were saying that Scott was the second coming of GRRM, while his debut was a world away from what Martin is doing in terms of style.
I'm now extremely curious to see how people will receive it, especially Morgan's scifi fans, many of whom will probably cross over to fantasy. . .
Cheers,
Patrick
- Simon Spanton's response:
Pat,
Please, let’s get a sense of perspective here.
Hype:
1. Deception or racket
2. intensive or exaggerated publicity or sales promotion
3. To market or promote using exaggerated or intensive publicity
4. to falsify or rig
You refer to ‘advance reviews making the book sound like it was the best thing since sliced bread’. Is this really hype or are these enthusiastic reviews whose enthusiasm you don’t entirely share? If you believe its hype then you believe that all or some of these reviews were exaggerated or false. Exaggerated or falsified by whom? The reviewers? Me?
Or do you believe that these other reviewers were innocent but somehow ‘taken in’ by the advance pieces I sent out, by the manuscripts. Or even by the claims I made in my accompanying notes that this was a book that would send waves through the fantasy genre. Surely not by a shoutline ‘Fantasy just got real’.
Let’s get real here. Sending out advance copies to bloggers is NOT hype.
Claims that suggest it is display a real ignorance of how hype REALLY works. They also encourage the sort of misguided comment on your blog about genre publishers operating some sort of sinister ‘hype machine’.
Again, I’d ask if you believe there has been hype, point to examples.
Best
Simon
- My reply:
Hi Simon,
Shit, I have a foot out the door so I can write much. I don't believe in conspiracy theory, so anyone who believes that genre publishers operate sinister hype machines is a dumbass. This is a business, and publicity people will come up with stuff that will hopefully entice readers to give their titles a shot. In that, you guys are no different than any other publishing house. Watch any commercial on tv, and you'll never see a company encouraging you to buy the other brand. That's how marketing works, and we see it is all aspects of our lives. Books are no different, and no I don't think that you or anyone at Gollancz are using deception to lure readers in. I mean, just remember when Voyager claimed that Hunter's Run would set a new benchmark in science fiction! Are you kidding me!?! But that's what marketing people are paid to do.
I think the hype regarding TSR remains comes from within SFF readers, at least a large part of it. It's Richard Morgan, for fuck's sake, and we want him to blow our minds! So we are already predisposed to be "influenced" by any positive buzz. Heck, people on message boards were getting excited about the damned book last summer, a full year before it was even released. We didn't even know what the novel would be about, and yet we were jumping up and down in anticipation.
When the advance praise from Joe and Darrin came, we were all salivating! Then the blogger reviews went up, and things reached a new level of excitement. I'm not saying that those bloggers wrote false or exagerated reviews. But I think that in their excitement, they may have, consciously or unconsciouly, overlooked some of the story's shortcomings. I'm guilty as charged of having done that in the past concerning titles that I was really looking forward to, and I was called out on it. Nothing wrong with that. We are only human, after all, and sometimes we really want some books to be so damn good. Just to give you an example, though he wrote a glowing review, [name withheld] came out and said that TSR had nothing on Altered Carbon and Black Man. I believe that, had I read it when you initially sent me the ARC, I would probably have enjoyed it more. As it is, all those positive reviews made my own expectations go up a few notches (and they were high to begin with), and in the end no novel could have met those expectations. . .
We, as readers, in a way create and magnify the hype. We want this book to be great, and when reviews keep telling us that it is, well we just keep hoping for more, and more. So I'm not saying that you and the folks at Gollancz did anything wrong. Man, you're riding that wave for all its worth, and so you should! We rarely so such a buzz for a book, especially when you're not named Martin, Gaiman, or Jordan. So I see nothing wrong in the way you guys played your card. And I don't think anyone of those bloggers can be blamed of anything but overexcitement at the thought of finally reading that new Morgan fantasy book.
The funny thing is that I never once said that TSR was bad. I said it's a good book, though not great. As I mentioned in my previous email, I didn't want to see a backlash when readers who are expecting too much out of it lash out on message boards. I have now sold 28 copies through my amazon links, and not one cancelled after reading my review. It's just a question, or so I believe, to go into this one with the adequate expectations. If you want and entertaining, action-packed, and shocking fantasy adventure, then TSR should satisfy you.
Do you remember in 2006 when Lynch's debut came out, and some advance praise made him sound like the second coming of GRRM. What you saw most often when someone hated the book was the fact that they believed that it would be a convoluted tale of epic proportions. What they got was a fun-filled, ass-kicking, caper that came like a breath of fresh air in an often stagnating genre. I loved TLOLL. But if someone thought that he would read the opening chapter of a tale similar to ASOIAF, of course he or she could be sorely disappointed. If you're looking for an action film and you end up seeing a chick flick, you'll be unhappy.
So I guess it's just about going into this one with the right mindset. That way, you come out happy and no one is bitching. My friend, it's not like this is the David Bilsborough's The Wanderer's Tale of 2008!;-) But by jumping genre, Morgan will now be compared to the top dogs of the fantasy field. It's a different ball game.
Okay, gotta go. Just don't think that I felt that there was some malicious intent on anyone's part to push some crap at unsuspecting readers. The hype I'm talking about is as much a creation of some inherent factors in each of us (our desire to see this book be as good as we want it to be), as it is a creation of the marketing and the advance reviews.
Hopefully I made a bit of sense. . .
Cheers,
Patrick
- Simon Spanton's response:
Pat,
Well this is much closer to it. Though I think we need to be careful when we attribute different views on a book to some kind of misreading or an overlooking of a book’s faults. I’m long enough in this game to know that people can get caught up in excitement, also that others feel that they have to distance themselves from it. Neither position is necessarily closer to an accurate reading of whatever book is being discussed. Simply because there is no such thing as one ‘accurate reading’. There are individual readings.
But none of this is about the key point here and that’s the misuse of the word ‘hype’. One of the delights for me of the growth that we’ve seen in the blogging phenomenon as it relates to its involvement in genre publishing is exactly its resistance to hype. By and large the blogging community and the forums have been remarkably resistant to the blandishments of the publishing industry – independent from and willing to be ornery towards whatever the industry hopes might be the next big thing.
So it’s doubly frustrating and irritating to see the self same communities and forums flinging accusations of ‘hype’ about in such a loose and ill-disciplined way. I really don’t see hype working on the internet – whether generated from outside or within the community. There are always people ready to dissent and the nature of the medium gives the dissenters the opportunity to be fairly heard and represented. ‘Hype’ seems to be a bogeyman just as the ‘swathes of formulaic elf and dwarf, kitchen boy destined for greatness fantasies’ are bogeymen; ie there just isn’t that much of it around. What are we scared of? We’re creating threats out of shadows so that we can shore up our own belief in the importance of what we hold to be true.
As in:
Xxxxx is a hugely important author because he stands out against the swathes of clichéd fantasy that I am properly aware of the shortcomings of (or at least I am now).
Yyyyy is a hugely important author because he stands out against the swathes of hyped authors who I’m proud not to have been taken in by.
If people come fresh to forums and see accusations of hype flying about it serves no-one – they assume conspiracy and they take on suspicions about new authors rather than deciding for themselves or on the basis of a real debate amongst like minded people about the actual merits or demerits of a book.
Let’s banish talk of hype so that we can stop jumping at shadows.
Simon
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Okay, so it's your turn now! Normally, I would never disclose information of this nature. But since Simon Spanton feels that this could benefit from getting out there, feel free to spread the word around! I'll try to monitor this discussion while traveling. . . Next time you hear from me, I'll be on Polish soil! Adios amigos!:-)
