amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:
Schwab is not being fair to Lawrence here and he didn't do any egging on of followers to her. She's a burgeoning superstar in SFF, selling more books than just about anyone not elite tier. He retweeted her review bc she wrote it, even if it was somewhat negative. That's it.
From what I understand though, she didn't name the title or the author in that "tweet" (it was not really a review). So that's the part that hitches me up in the whole thing.
She simply tweeted: "The book I just read was basically a list of problematic archetypes: victimized mother, whore, prude princess, innocent child oracle."
Which is a super random tweet to me.
And then someone must have done the work (possibly through her "currently reading" on her GoodReads account at the time, I don't know) to figure out that it was PoT and Lawrence she was talking about.
After which it sounds like the responses started coming through? I could be wrong, I was not aparty to the original thread. Just laying it out as I've seen it reported today to make sense of it.
amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:
but Lawrence's subsequent books have been stunning stories centering mostly women in some very tough situations with style and grace and compassion.
I agree. I think his female characters are much better now than they were at the start. I also even think her comments about PoT are off base and simply feed more into what she's comfortable with rather than what she read. Like Cause said, none of those things make PoT a bad book, or Jorg a bad character. They simply make him a less palatable person as that character, and I think that's quite alright and should not reflect on the author in any way, and instead should lead the reader to make judgements about what they can and cannot tolerate in fiction and make book choices accordingly.
amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:
Really think Schwab is being super unfair about this.
It sounds like she's carried the interaction around along time and I don't want to dismiss her feelings on the subject, but I think I've found my way to agreeing with you after spending the day trying to find out more about it, and that even if Lawrence's fans went after her for tweeting things...that's not on him for retweeting it. At least I think that's where I land on the subject.
Like I can't find any evidence that he specifically did anything wrong besides the notion that she espouses if you tweet about someone then you should be wary of how your followers will react and if they will go on the attack for it. Which is a convo we can have...but I agree that what's happened here doesn't appear to belong in the orbit of Sykes and Cole.
amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:
The more concerning tweets of Lawrence are the ones with KKHarrin and Kate Elliot.
And yes, Elliott is the one that gives me the most pause. I'm a huge fan of her work, and find her to be a really genuine and easygoing person on social media...so when she chimed in to support Schwab I think that's the most today that I've been like "Wait, maybe there's something to this I'm not seeing..." because of the level of esteem I hold her in.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 25 June 2020 - 07:27 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon