And I need those HEAs to counteract all the not-so-HEAs of the real world. I don’t understand how people who watch network and cable news all the time are not all suicidal!

BTW – Nora does write short stories, as part of multi-author anthologies.

For him, this meant “a time waster.” It wasn’t the type of novel or genre of novel — it was reading fiction at all that he disapproved of.

Disclaimer: I’m not Gary, nor even a friend of his; we might have emailed each other once or twice a few years ago, but I don’t think so. I just “know” him via his blog and from his comments at Obsidian Wings.

In my generation, I see women reading while men play video games, but these days, video games have EPIC storylines that are almost like movies. (And they all read like Tolkien or Clancy, to boot!)

I’m told this makes their work, no matter how award-winning, no matter how well-written, no matter how thoughtful, no matter how smart, no matter how insightful, no matter the depth of the character and themes, no matter how enjoyable, no matter how powerful, nothing more than “novels [which] are not ‘books’, as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold.”

Works that people invest years of their life in creating are not to be allowed to be compared to Real Novels, but to “Hustler centerfolds.”

WOW. He’s SO right. Maybe instead of struggling to write conflicted characters, realistic settings, compelling plots and yet still find a happy ending — I should just paste an image of a naked man between a bookcover and call it a day!

Sad to see someone with a track record like hers go that way.

Of course not. Cats are furry, and sit on the bookshelves. Books are paper and sit on the floor.

Thank you for the reminder of the photo of one of my cats trying to be a bookend when he was a kitten. I’d forgotten all about that.

And I have to say, it’s been fascinating to follow this. It looks like the original discussion actually evolved into a fascinating thing rather than devolving horribly the way most internet discussions do. That’s an accomplishment.

I mean, seriously?

And I’d like to publicly apologize for calling Hilzoy an asshat. It was badly done and out of character. I can only blame my nicotine cravings. Or perhaps I’m cranky because it is tax season and I’m a CPA who’s too busy to ‘escape’ into the mindless porn drivel of a romance novel. If only Nora wrote short stories – I could get off in between 1040s.