New PM Reviews
Working on a post about Albacon that seems to be growing into a post about cons in general. It’s going to take me a while to get that one done, so in the meantime, here are some more reviews of The Painted Man:
NextRead: This reviewer teased on his site for a few weeks before posting his review. In it, he mentions his thoughts about the sexual/violent content of the book, which lead to some debate in the comments section on whether the book should be considered YA (Young Adult). My opinion? It should not. I never intended the book to be for the YA market, but I can see how people could make that mistake, since it begins with the protagonists as children.
Dominion Post put a very complimentary review here (second review in the article).
Dan Garner bought the book on a lark and wrote a nice little review here.
Livedoor: This one’s in Japanese! Google Translate sucks for Japanese, but it’s good enough to tell that the reviewer is a Japanese housewife who liked it and is eager for the next one. How cool is that?
Courier Mail: This one is somewhat critical, but that’s cool. He still liked the book enough to recommend it, and I’m always interested to see what people didn’t like/believe, even if I don’t always agree.
In other news:
Suvudu is a blog jointly maintained by the folks at Del Rey books. It’s a great idea, letting industry folks take turns gabbing about the stuff they love that got them into the business in the first place, along with a few shameless plugs about what people are actually working on. Google pointed out there was an entry on me last week that amazed me. Apparently, Terry Brooks is recommending me to people!
After the Albacon post, I will start on the one about Scott Meredith’s Writing to Sell, which might also take a while to finish, but which, I think, will be a really great post and discussion forum, because the topic is dear to me, as it is the symbol of my writing epiphany.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for clarifying the point on whether The Painted Man should be considered a young adult novel.
I hadn’t seen it marketed as one but seeing as I’d read a few comments about whether it could be one I wanted to point out the sex does play an important part in start of the novel and might not sit well with every ones idea of a YA title.
Best,
gav.
It’s completely understandable, Gav. As I’ve said on my blog before, I favor a very clipped and active writing style without a lot of flowery prose. That says YA to some people, as does starting the story with children as protagonists (even though they are adults by book’s end).
You’re right that sex is generally not considered YA appropriate (though violence and gore is, for some inexplicable reason), and I could have left it out to cater to a wider market, but I think sexuality is a large part of what defines who people are, and making their sexuality clear to the reader is crucial to helping the reader understand their point of view.
I tend to include the defining milestones in the lives of all my characters. Some of those milestones are violent, some are sexual, and some are both, but that’s life, you know? So I was always intentionally writing to an adult market.
However, that said, I think it’s debatable whether sexual realities should be hidden/withheld from “young adults”. When my daughter is thirteen, I mean for her to be well aware that there are people in the world she needs to watch out for, and why. I think anyone mentally capable of tacking a 542 page novel probably already knows what goes where, and is ready to understand how it can affect people’s lives.