Last month I mentioned the war between authors Jennifer Weiner and Curtis Sittenfeld. I was gorily fascinated: they spent more time reviewing each other’s personalities and genre definitions than each other’s books…

I won’t review Weiner’s review of Sittenfeld’s review of Bank’s book. That would be meta-meta-(meta?)-review, and Egging On Authors Behaving Badly besides. Instead I decided to read all three books…

I found it a little odd that of all the negative reviews Donati could have picked to provide an example of one, it was one on Gabaldon’s latest book. I haven’t seen the same sort of response from Gabaldon.

I don’t know all the history here, but IIRC, Donati took some flak for not rejecting Beth’s review when Beth put it out there. And I take some responsibility for putting more attention on the review, as I used it to continue a discussion I’ve been having with Donati regarding reviewing.

Basically, I think we’re all at our personal best when we’re helping other people not react when they feel attacked; otherwise, I think it’s difficult not to get defensive at one point or another along the way. Donati has been one of the few authors, in my experience, at least, who’s been willing to talk about some of these issues without getting huffy and dictatorial. And I think that’s no small thing, especially these days with everyone so touchy about “bad behavior,” on the part of both authors and readers.

Can you explain this situation? I don’t get it, but a quick trip through Google yielded stuff like Sara Donati and Gabaldon were rumored to be the same author at one point?

I’ve seen the same thing, but I don’t think they write the same way at all. I read Donati’s first book because someone recommended it on a Gabaldon site, but I wasn’t expecting the book to be like or one of Gabaldon’s, except that they were in roughly the same time period (never crossed my mind that they might be the same person). I wasn’t interested enough to read more of the series; I didn’t see the movie that I think it’s based on and didn’t pick up on the similarities to other characters, and I think even if I’d come across Donati first, I probably would feel the same way about her books – in my case, the only connection I knew of between the two authors was that one was recommended on the other’s site. They’re still recommended quite a bit on Gabaldon sites, so I’m not sure why a few people who dislike Donati’s series would upset her so much (or, rather, why she’d comment on it or lurk on Gabaldon’s site, even if it did upset her); I found it a little odd that of all the negative reviews Donati could have picked to provide an example of one, it was one on Gabaldon’s latest book. I haven’t seen the same sort of response from Gabaldon.

I’m gratified to see that Dear Janny’s 234 page book is going for the massive price of $0.33. Seems a little pricey to me. *g*

Regarding the Gabaldon – Donati issue:

Part of the issue is that Diana allowed Sara to have a cameo appearance of Jamie and Clare in the first book in the series. As soon as DG fans realise that many are either disappointed that the cameo is so small or just immediately dislike the book because it’s not DGs.

Wow; I wouldn’t have believed that such a thing could ripen into, well, anything, really, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. If we could only get people to have this much passion about, say, voting.

Seton – if you go to groups.yahoo.com and then search for Diana Gabaldon, I think it was the first group that showed up. It had over 1000 members.

I think. Jane?

Just a quick, eh, edit? Shouldn’t this be titled ABB # 5? I though Ms. Butler was #4. Not that I’m much of a nitpicker, usually.