What are you tired of seeing? What are you tired of dealing with? What do you want to change?
Post a link to this thread? The discussion threads in blogs are so confusing. >_
The lack of editing ability is getting to me..........
Eeee....Kate!!! I'm SO scared that those authors will jump ship and start writing those tired stories and plots. I'm waiting for new books out from Lillis, Hassell and Alexander...and even though I had nitpicky issues with Charles and thought that would have been better with no romance subplot, I'm dying to see what the gay Holmes & Watson get up to next! I hope none of those voices change. They really are stand out in a sea of the same old same old. I'm especially worried about Hassell since he has the "dude factor" going for him and fangirls flock to that and can corrupt him like a lot of men authors seem to do (WTF IS WITH GRL???)....At least he seems to not give much of a damn about any of it. When he starts posting cutesy pics and talking about his sex life on Goodreads I'll be worried. XD
nitpicky issues with Magpie*** >_< why no edit?
Re Magpie...omg that makes me want to change my rating from 3 stars to 4 but I feel like I can't do backsies!! And THANK YOU! I'm glad you agree! I felt like a freak of nature when I said that the M/M felt out of place at this point...I would have liked a bromance that slowly developed into something more. I liked the resistance because of the bad blood between their families....It would have made the payout so so worth it...
Re Santino: HAHA!! Okay, that makes me feel better. I followed his Twitter for the giveaway and he's such a normal person on there that I would lose faith completely if he started acting like one of those showboating male authors/big name fan readers (
OMG BOOKLIKES
***if he started acting like one of those showboating male authors/big name fan readers. i wont name names because i dont wanna be the first one to get yelled at on here :D
***maybe Booklikes hates parenthesis?
Maybe that's what it was! I did use an arrow key. Booklikes needs to get it together!!
I agree about not naming names...but I will say that...I'm really sick of authors AND some readers showboating around...Is this what marketing is? I've never seen it in fandom or with professional authors. It reminds me of that song from that movie with Natalie Wood..."You've Got to Have a Gimmick!"
"You've gotta get a gimmick if you want to get ahead!!!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRSawe33sA
You know, Mandy, after a while, I sort out in my head in which reviews (from which people) I can find helpful and which are not. So it didn't really bother me anymore. At the same time, I'm probably less sensitive about things, and if there are dramas, I tend to just tune in out of my head, and moved away,
Having said that, I agree that this genre starts to feel really saturated and it's difficult to find highly refreshing one. I actually rated higher these days but only because I become a bit nitpicky. I only read authors whose works I tend to like. I don't immediately jump into over-hyped and gushed about books. I take time in my choosing. Plus I read lots and lots of fanfiction to keep the slash-brain in me happy.
I agree with a lot of what you say, Kate.
1. Yes, and I resent that people believe they can trick me like a toddler in Asda where the sweets are kept in the lowest shelves.
2. I've such a posse sticking to my heels at the moment. Just because I dared criticise in reviews, or give a review based on my family history, gloriously led by an author who's fangirling and telling me things about integrity. And I've fallen now several times for these over-enthusing reviews on new books which were crap, only to learn that all that squeeing and fangirling belonged to the author fanclub (or worse).
3. Thankfully I didn't meet many of those.
4. Yes, but for somewhat different reasons. Firstly I really really hate BDSM gone wrong without meaning to do it wrong. Then, roughly 75-80% of BDSM out there isn't BDSM, it's an instrument to write the two men as boy and girl without (they think!) coming over as writing chicks with dicks. Then, gay men are not a homogenous mass. Gay BDSM is not homogenous regardless of how much it may seem so (especially in the USA where segregation is much worse). However, lots of gay men play in pansexual places, and especially S&M is not necessarily a sexual thing. Yet m/m presents an ever samey soup of leather D/s without any variations /even within leather/! Hello? God beware that a gay man might play with a female. The sacrilege! Then, there are people getting themselves whipped who for instance just want to turn the voices off in their heads. And such a thing as a pure maso or sadist exists. Others just love the pretty ropes. BDSM is not just M/s or D/s. I'd love reading well-written BDSM, but that is like asking for hen's teeth.
6. See my point about writing BDSM to fit that spiel. I don't mind reading about someone who isn't an alphahole, but I'm tired of an endless series of not-so-adult late teenagers or men incapable of functioning at all.
7. Women. I want them in my m/m. Not in the guise of some infantilised, submissive or however else emasculated "smaller" chick with a dick in the couple. Not as bitches or beards or mothers or bossy sisters either. I'd like positive women please, understanding ones, such who sleep with the men, because that happens and it happens quite a bit, those who bear children for them and raise them with them, because that also happens. Avoiding having women in m/m is synonymous with biphobia for me and THAT happens a fecking lot in the genre! This ties in directly with the fetishising of rutting gay men.
I don't arrive at the same breakout authors though, I really disliked Shattered Glass for instance, and I've yet to read The Magpie Lord. I haven't read ICoS yet, having a bad track record with these free series (I dislike SF, and both TA and CP are on the whole okay, but nothing I'd really squee over). I couldn't stomach The Mechanical Heart either, I don't want to read about teens behaving like toddlers with religious issues mixed into this. If only someone could convince Val McDermid to write m/m...
Steel ... I haven't read ICoS yet as well, knowing I had issues with several of the free online stories. I DNF-ed SF, TA, CP ... although I did like The Mechanical Heart and Shattered Glass.
Reply to post #19
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I think it's a matter of specific taste with these two. I don't watch movies which have the sort of yakking going on as in Shattered Glass, and I'm not so deep into fanfic as being fascinated by that plot and background. The two boys came over as not older than 10-11 to me, which ended up giving me a major squick. I remember I read several books with completely infantilised characters that week and I was ready to throw my kindle across the room ;)
Steel...I'm curious when you say author fanclubs or worse. Makes it sound like there is a M/M gang out there waiting to pounce...I've heard stories about this happening and have seen a couple of blowouts with authors or big name readers causing a stir, but it seems like everyone forgives and forgets later and the bad behavior passes on by.....
I didn't like SG for the same reason Steel...I didn't really like the main character or is internal yammering...I also agree that I thought it was weird that the MCs in Mechanical Hearts carried dolls (but as someone with a teenage brother...I can admit that they weren't too far from the mark with teen boys who like fandom. Have you heard of "bronys" :p)...but I do admit that even if I didn't like SG at least it wasn't the same old formula as the other romances.
Same with Magpie. I think the gushing over Magpie is more because it's better than most of what's out there than because it's really brilliant....I think it would have been brilliant without the stuffed in sex and M/M....I could see it more as a general suspense/paranormal novel with homoerotic themes but the M/M feels out of place...And I didnt particularly like Crane...too douchey for me and not in the right ways. Again though...I love that it's different and the author took a chance on focusing on a unique and interesting plot instead of the romance.
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