Well, I checked for the review in Publisher’s Weekly today and it had gone up.
It’s not exactly awful… just kind of… Meh.
And I was tired and off my game from the time change and the stress of waiting and a dozen other little life things, so, initially, it hit me hard. But I collected some thoughts from friends and Facebook folks and let it mull for the rest of the day. Some thoughts came to mind.
- Awkward pacing. What does that mean, exactly? Too fast, too slow, too both? It’s just sort of a vague comment that I can put into the mental filing cabinet, I guess. Note to self: make sure pacing in future is not awkward. Whatever that means. Flippancy aside, I thought I had paced well, so either my perception is way off or the reviewer’s is. Or it could be taste. As I move forward I may be able to take something from this.
- Reviewer seemed to think it felt dated, kind of like old school pulp fiction. My publisher referred to it as Golden Age. Okay. this I can form an opinion on. I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein and Anne McCaffrey. That’s my era, and I fully cop to showing my age. In reflection, I think on some level, I was trying to write a more overtly gay version of that kind of book. A space opera feel without the pulse-pounding plot. I get that it may not be everyone’s taste. Sort of feels like saying “I didn’t like Jaws because it had too many sharks in it.”
- The comment about older readers. Srsly? OLDER READERS UNITE!
In the end, I wrote the book I wrote and told the story I wanted to tell. Some will dig it, some won’t. And this is the first review. There will be more and some will be good, some will be scathing and still more will be meh again. Nothing to do but take it, absorb it, run with it and move on.
Good analysis. Older readers are an important demographic, and it’s silly to suggest otherwise.