I just read an online review of Princeps in which the reviewer declared that he was wrong about my motivations in writing the subseries in The Imager Portfolio that begins with Scholar. Apparently, the reviewer had originally thought I was fighting off stagnation with Rhennthyl, but didn’t want to abandon the series. The reviewer’s second thought was that I’d created such an enormous back-story that I just didn’t want to abandon all that work.
If this reviewer had just looked at any of my fantasy series, or even some of my science fiction, he or she might just have realized that I like to write a sweep of history… and that even in my stand-alone books, history plays a large part. But no… the reviewer has to imply that, if I “abandon” a subseries after three books, I must be fighting stagnation or dying to use all my back-story material. What about looking at where Rhennthyl is in his life? He’s surmounted all dramatic enemies, and now, for the remainder of his life he has to be essentially a high-level Imager bureaucrat [unless I chose to write totally unrealistic books] and a teacher, both of which are vital to the future of Solidar, but not generally the stuff of dramatic adventure. Or what about looking at what I’ve written or how… or even asking? As long-time readers know, the five books about Quaeryt and Vaelora are the sole exception to my never having written more than three books about a given set of characters.
All this points out the danger of ascribing motives to writers, and of not doing a certain amount of “homework” before writing a review. Such ignorant arrogance is also the mark of either laziness or incompetence… or total amateurism, if not all three. But it’s also symptomatic of all too much criticism and commentary that pervades the world-wide web, in that all too many “writers” or “critics” believe that all it takes to be either is a pedestrian command of language, a computer, and a little knowledge. And, after all, all opinions are equally valid.
But they’re not, except in the mind of the opinion-giver. Everyone has an equal right to an opinion, but that right has little to do with accuracy… or understanding.
Now… I’m certainly not the only writer to be “blessed” with this sort of condescending “analysis.” Almost any writer who has published for any length of time has received similar comments and reviews. While I often wince at so-called factual reviews, which suggest flaws in style or in content (often non-existent, in my opinion), those reviews at least deal with the words on the page… rather than gratuitously attempting to ascribe motives to the author. The same is true of critiques of style, pacing, etc., all of which deal with what has been written, rather than motivational analysis.
So… for all of you critics and would-be critics out there… stick to what we wrote. You can even suggest what we didn’t write and should have. Leave the psychoanalysis to our wives, husbands, partners, or shrinks. That way, you have better odds of being closer to accurate.