• Mood: quixotic
• Music: Car Talk

well, there's a whole inch of snow out there.

So that fretfully awaited Locus came, and I have read it. And the reviews of Carnival are, I think, quite good. (Apparently, the way one reviews Carnival is by presenting a plot summary and then saying "but despite all this, it's really quite actiony!" This seems to be a trend. Perhaps it's a reviewer's polite way of insinuating that I have too much stuff in my books.) I mean, I'm still not a sooopergenius, and I think I've missed my window for being a child prodigy, but I am pleased by the response. (I bet you didn't know that a Locus review could make you a sooopergenius, did you?) I think that everything I put into the book made it into the reviewers' heads, anyway, which is a step forward.

I may be getting the hang of this. I suspect at this point if I want better reviews I will have to write better books, and I am not sure how to do that yet. I sometimes wonder if my own particular gifts as a writer are not suited to being a brilliant pioneer of science fiction.

(The reviews of Fast Forward 1 and Subterranean 5 are also quite positive. And also agree: I am not an innovative genius. ALAS! Well, whatcha gonna do? I only got the brain I got.)  

Still, I seem to write good characters and interesting plots. So that's something.

(Also, there are rave reviews for Ink and Brasyl and a short story of truepenny's and some other things I was happy to see well-reviewed. Not that I root for my friends or anything. Maybe while we're asking Rob Sawyer to shelve things, we should get him to shelve Ink; I think they're marketing Hal as science fiction, aren't they?)