Someone sent me twelve chapters of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun (the story of Bella and Edward told from Edward’s POV) a few days ago. There was a bit of speculation as to whether this was an authentic Meyer voice or whether it was fan ficced. I leaned toward the latter. But apparently the chapters circulating on the internet are authentic and Meyer has acknowledged that it is.
Whether she will “punish” the fans and the leaker by not finishing remains to be seen, but if you want to read chapters 1-12 of the Edward/Bella saga from Edward’s POV, it is online.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Misc, Publishing News. Tagged: Stephenie-Meyer, Twilight Saga. You can feed this entry.
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Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's
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Something about the way her post is worded provokes a weird suspicion that it might have been done intentionally because she didn’t really want to finish, or basically rehash, a story she’s already told.
Maybe it’s just that, if it were a story I really wanted to write, I don’t believe chapter leakage or anything else would prevent me from writing it.
Or maybe it was leaked to see if she could get any feedback to encourage her to finish it.
It just seems very strange that if she handed the chapters over only to people she really trusted, how this could have happened? And that bit about no malicious intent. Hmm.
The draft posted just looks like more Mary Bella Sue stuff. Blech.
MD - I think you are right about the leak being intentional. Jia had the very same thought.
I also agree with the leakage. I honestly think this story will never be published, unless Meyer does an electronic project where you pay to read each chapter or something of that sort. I honestly think after Breaking Dawn, readers wouldn’t be so inclined to read Edward’s. POV, What could he really say of interest that hasn’t been shown in the book? How horny he is for Bella or how much he wants her blood?
Nope. How much he wants to kill her. And then stalk her. But it’s okay, because he loves her.
I think it’ll get published eventually; there’s still a great deal of fandom in love with Edward (and maybe books 1-3).
I think it was also done to try to distract people from some of the backlash from Breaking Dawn. Haven’t read it yet but it has been taking quite a beating.
You have a point there Handyhunter! LMAO
Or how Edward enjoys having Bella ride on his back.
If this was an unintentional leak, then I feel bad for Meyer. I’ve sent pre-edited versions of my books to friends for feedback, and if somehow those ended up available for public viewing on the internet, I’d be horrified.
As for how it could have happened, if Meyer only sent those chapters to people she trusted…well, one of those trusted people could have forwarded it to a friend - sworn to secrecy, of course - who then forwarded it to another friend - sworn to secrecy, etc. - and then it ends up available everywhere when someone eventually sends it to a person who isn’t very ethical. It’s an author’s worst nightmare, really. Epiracy probably starts with someone legally downloading a book, then sending it to a trusted friend to “share”, like with a paperback, and then maybe that friend sends it to someone, and then somewhere down the line, the book ends up on those illegal mass-distribution sites where anyone can get it for free.
Meyer is lucky that she’s such a big name, a leak like this won’t ruin her career. If something like this happened to a new or smaller author, it could kill a future book, not to mention really harm a career.
I can’t speak to the leak, but I do know that was my reaction the first time my WIP was read before I was ready for it to go out. And, sure, that was my sister and I was only 17 … but the sense of violation was so great I simply couldn’t finish the work (and I tried). And I still have a hard time showing anyone my work before it’s ready.
So her reaction does ring true to me.
I don’t know. It sounds like a very clever marketing ploy. She’s got four books coming out next year. Color me totally unsurprised if this is one of them. Her movie is coming out in a few months. She’s had some definite backlash including the very public statements by the actor playing Edward that he basically hates Edward as written and thinks he’s a total psycho.
What I find strange about the whole thing is how long it took her to claim the work as her own. I’ve been watching this since it started, something like a week ago or so. I know that a lot of people e-mailed her, her brother, possibly even her agent and her publisher to inform her, yet it still took this long for something to be said by her.
Why? As a writer, if it was my work, I’d be on this so fast it would make your head spin. I can’t see any reason, outside of a possible intentional leak, to leave it that long. And I really can’t believe that it took her that long to find out. People were e-mailing from day one. I’m not sure I can buy that no one in the Meyer’s camp got the message.
Jane,
Meyer has 4 books coming out next year?!?! OMG. 2009 the year of the Meyer! How is she doing that?
I bet you the leak came from someone involved with the movie. Some people think it’s Robert Pattinson but I don’t think he’s that stupid or malicious. If there was a copy on the set, any number of people could have found it and made a copy for someone they knew would want to read it and things probably escalated from there.
I do think there’s merit in the idea that the leak was intentional. The Twilight Guide comes out in December and there’s no reason to buy it if it’s going to be out of date within a year which would happen with MS’s publication.
If she’s been thinking about writing this book for a long time, how could she just put it on hold indefinitely? Perhaps this is a leaked version and she’s actually still working on the real thing? I don’t know, but it seems to me those within her trusted circle should be interrogated for ruining something she so honestly wanted to be published. If hadn’t been for them, no one else would have seen this draft. If this is a genuine leak and not a ploy, then that does suck for her.
From Ms Meyer’s website: “I’d rather my fans not read this version of Midnight Sun…I’ve decided to make the draft available here.”
Colour me confused.
Oh, I think what’s meant by that statement is that the leaked draft was earlier and rougher, so she’s releasing her current version of those twelve chapters instead — because of the errors and messy writing she refers to in her statement. Which doesn’t affect the possibility of an intentional leak, of course.
Wow…I posted this on another blog:
And was soundly slapped down because I was being nasty toward the author and presuming to tell the author what to do.
I will watch these comments with great interest. :)
And thank you all for not making me feel quite alone.
The first 14 chapters of Breaking Dawn was leaked just before its released which caused a lot of uproar, because of the events in the book. And Midnight Sun is the second time that has happened so I am not sure whether to think this is intentional or by accident but Meyer needs to tighten her security and where she sends her WIP especially with the following that she has.
*Slaps Theo Soundlessly with a borrowed trout from her friend Ma Titwonky who uses them as a regular weapon…….
Sorry I just had too. LMAO
Jennifer,
I’ll take that kind of a slapdown any day! LMAO2!!!
Honestly, I was making speculative comments but evidently, I’m not supposed to. *sigh* Do they really sound that bad? Maybe I don’t realize that they do.
Theo,
I’ve seen the exact same speculation in at least four other websites. I don’t think it’s that bad but I had the exact same thought.
CHH, I did find it hard to believe that other places hadn’t considered that as a possibility. Perhaps it’s just me that’s unliked which doesn’t bother me in the least since I don’t post there much anyway. But if that’s the case, good gravy be honest and tell me that.
HAS, interesting that this is the second time this has happened, the chapters being leaked to the net. Makes me wonder if someone isn’t setting a precedent here and will be doing this every time she has a new book. Because if she only sends to a select few, and she knows which copies she sent to who, she should have known the first time it happened to not do it again. Or is that too presumptuous of me?
Clearly I’ve been out of the Twilight loop for too long:
What are these four books coming out next year? And where did Robert Pattison discuss the deeply disturbing neurosis of Edward??
Robert Pattison:
When you read the book,” says Pattison, looking appropriately pallid and interesting even without makeup, “it’s like, ‘Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.’ I mean, every line is like that. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn’t do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin so he’s obviously got some issues there.”
Can’t find the link to the interview about the four books planned for pub in 2009. Maybe 1 was the Twilight Guide and the other was Midnight Sun and another adult one. Can’t recall.
The leak of the BD chapters were scanned pages from a published copy someone acquired at a non-bookstore. It wasn’t the same kind of leak. When you have that many copies out there and you’re giving copies to non-booksellers who may not understand that some books can only be sold after a given date, leaks are going to happen especially if a book is as anticipated as BD was. The BD leak wasn’t from Meyer’s camp and she came down hard on the fandom with C&D letters being sent to people who were just talking about the spoilers. Going after people for talking about the spoilers didn’t win her any fans, BTW, nor did the spoilers themselves.
As for the four books next year thing, I think Meyer was planning on writing four books or maybe five. I realize that every author has her own writing process but that seems really excessive to me. Maybe she wouldn’t have as many internal mistakes and WTF moments if she’d slow down.
Thanks Jane! That was kind of fabulous. I think I love Robert Pattison, and I can’t wait to see his self-loathing Edward.
CHH, I totally agree about her slowing down. And maybe taking the time to edit as well. Just because you have over 700 pages of stuff to say about an angsty teen love, doesn’t mean that all of it adds something to story. Editing is fun!
Well, that’s only a little bit different than her reaction to this leak. /sarcasm
Wait a minute though…hasn’t Meyer herself given spoilers of her work, though?
You know, I originally thought that Rob as Edward was just silly but now I kinda love him a little.
The sequel to The Host should be out next year it will be called The Soul.
Thanks, CHH. :) That does put a bit of a different spin on things. I didn’t know any of that. Still makes me wonder why she’d take the chance though, handing out ’several copies’ from what I understand. I’d worry if it happened once, it would happen again, regardless of how.
Burn me once, shame on you, type of thing.
But then, what do I know?
She revealed that Edward and Bella were going to get married which was the most ridiculous spoiler ever. I saw that coming and I’ve only read the first ten chapters of Twilight. Everyone knew that was going to happen. It’s like me telling you that the ship was going to sink in Titanic. You can yell at me for spoiling a big event for you, but who didn’t know that was going to happen?
Haven’t had a chance to read all the comments, but is the leak intentional to draw attention away from Breaking Dawn and the overwhelming negative reactions?
Jane, what’s the source for this one?
Okay, ignore the last comment. I see the link.
Okay, the quote from Pattison cracked me up. Now there’s an interesting way to approach portraying a character. On the other hand … that’s a really strange way to market a movie he’s going to be in.
Pattison’s thinly veiled anti-Twilight comments have won him a lot of fans who hate the book but have come to love him and want to see the movie to support his career. Well, they’re torn between wanting to see the movie to support him and wanting the movie to bomb so he can move on to better movies.
Meljean,
That was rather my thought to. I mean, as an actor, you want to portray the character people ‘love to hate’ which is generally the villain, but in this case, judging from that quote, Pattison simply hated the character. Period. So, if he felt that strongly, why take on the role? For the money?
Doesn’t quite make sense to me.
CHH,
Sounds like a poor career choice to me. What if it backfires and you play the part so well, you end up typecast? Though in this case, maybe he won’t give it his best effort, in which case, he doesn’t show his best potential and still ends up in a position less likely to move forward into the big time.
Odd…
Who knows if he agreed to it before or after reading the book and the script, though? I mean, someone suggesting he try for the role (or asking him to take the role) wasn’t going to say “Well, you’d be playing Edward, who’s the creepy stalkerish control-freak virgin vampire with some major issues”. I dunno, maybe he agreed before he knew.
Pattinson’s biggest role to date has been as Cedric Diggory in GoF. A starring role in a movie with franchise potential isn’t a bad career move on paper. It all depends on the franchise though and I don’t think Twilight, if more than one movie gets made, is ever going to be a prestige franchise the same way Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Spiderman are.
Even if Pattinson took the role for the money, I don’t blame him when he’s in a profession where the majority of those practicing it are unemployed. These comments are coming after his exposure to some of the crazier elements of fandom and I think those encounters are souring the movie for him.
Actors in Pattinson’s position not infrequently take on roles thay may not be that fond of or for films with scripts they may think stink for the exposure and for getting the “starring” credit. It’s not THAT uncommon for an actor to subtly badmouth a character and/or film with which he’s involved … it’s just expected to be done subtly. Pattinson isn’t subtle, and needs to learn to be. Although I think some of this is an effect of being interviewed multiple times with essentially the same questions and he’s just trying to avoid repeating the exact same words over and over. The result is that his reported analysis of Edward has got more and more negative. The way he initially described him, I thought it pretty clear he believed the fellow had “issues” as he puts it, but it didn’t have quite the “nasty” edge some of the later interviews have. I think the nuttiness of the fandom is also getting to him. (I should also add that his co-star, Kristen Stewart, has been rather similarly negative about Bella, and from the teaser trailers, it almost looks like she phoned in her performance.)
All that said, I doubt he has time to have scanned all those images, or that he’d be stupid enough to do it. If he’s culpable, it’s probably only in leaving out the manuscript where somebody else could get a hold of it. But I HAVE to think he had to sign some sort of confidentiality contract to see it, and no director would want to hire him after a breach like that. He couldn’t be trusted.
The second I found out about the leak (and this was as early as August 20th) I thought it reeked of marketing ploy.
1. It takes attention off Breaking Dawn.
2. It creates new buzz.
3. It gives the author a self-confidence boost (the fans are rabid and telling each other to “refrain” from getting the chapters because of Meyer’s post in her website yadda yadda).
4. Author wrote a sub par product and this gives her the perfect excuse (plus additional time) to work on it and then release whenever she thinks it’s ready (I don’t believe for a second that it will never be released).
5. Gives author and publisher a chance to see if regurgitating the story will actually “fly” and people will buy the book with regurgitated story.
6. Keeps things moving pre-movie release.
I am pretty jaded and there are many holes in this (as many others have already pointed out in this thread).
On a side note, I don’t care about the movie, but from the moment I saw the trailers a few months ago, I thought that if I watch it, it would be for Pattison. I liked what I saw. And more to add: Pattison has received a LOT of hate mail from Twilight fans that think he’s not beautiful enough to play the part. I guess he doesn’t care anymore about stating what he really thinks about the character. The fans already told him they hate him.
That’s upsetting to hear! Poor Pattison! If it’s anyone’s fault, the stylists should be shot (especially whoever did the Entertainment Weekly cover because GOOD LORD, that was Fugly).
Anyway, I was excited to see the movie because I wanted to see how in the hell they were going to translate the crazy of the book into something that will sell on the screen. I’m doubly excited now because of Pattison’s comments (and what I’ve seen of him so far in trailers).
I don’t know if Midnight Sun will ever get published, but the last two paragraphs of Meyer’s screed make me think not. She basically says outright that she has other projects she’s focused on right now. Which is really all she had to say in the beginning if she didn’t want to finish writing Midnight Sun.
Considering the fact that some members of that fandom have actually groped him, I’m not sure I blame him. They’re not exactly giving him a good impression.
Okay, math isn’t my strength, but if Edward died in 1918 (as he and Carlisle insist in Twilight), wouldn’t that make him 90 in 2008 and 87 in 2005 when the book was published? Why does Pattison keep saying he’s 108?
As for whether Pattison hates Edward, I think he has some interesting insights into his character and Bella’s here. I always wondered how Edward would come across to an actual guy, because it was so clear to me that his portrayal in Twilight was doubly interpreted — by Bella, who sees Edward as an object of worship (Pattison has a great riff on how Edward has this strong urge to kill Bella, but she doesn’t care because she lurvs him), and by Meyer, who is a woman writing an idealized male character. Also, I wonder how much of Pattison’s view of Edward was shaped by the first section of Midnight Sun he read.
He was 17? when he died. You have to add that on.
I bet you a lot of it was shaped by MS. Pattinson has said that he didn’t know how to emote “beautiful” and didn’t know how to play Edward until Meyer gave him the MS manuscript.
At the Comic-Con Twilight panel, someone asked him what kind of underwear he wore or if he went commando. If that’s not the very definition of an inapropriate question, I don’t know what is. And this wasn’t a giggly teen, it was someone who was old enough to know better.
Ok - firstly, Rob has to deal with the fanatic fans who took one look at him and said NO WAY. He is not Edward (but then who CAN be that unnaturally beautiful?)
Then his name pops up again - this time as an explanation by Meyer regarding the fan reaction to Breaking Dawn. She called it the “Rob Effect”. Apparently, fans who didn’t like him at first love him now, and fans who hate BD will love it after a few weeks. You know, because fans are fickle. *rolls eyes* I’m not surprised the guy has issue with Edward.
Sorry, but Meyer should really keep her mouth shut about the BD backlash. She digs herself deeper with every “explanation” she gives.
CHH said:
*sigh* All I can say is, ya gotta remember…
You can’t fix stupid…
Oh, yeah, duh. But that still makes him only 104 in 2005 when the book was released. It’s not exactly like he continues to age at the same rate time proceeds outside the novels.
Thinking about edward as 100+ year old with a teen kind of skeeves me out. Stop. You are ruining the first book for me. I might not be able to go back and re-read the book.
Although I probably won’t anyway because of the debacle the series has become. I actually bought Twilight in hardcover and was going to save it for my daughter but now, after reading the entirety of the series, I’m going to tote it to half price bookstore. I’m sure there will be another skeevy, devaluing of woman, potato chip like series to read when she comes of age.
I told the women in my office that the Twilight saga promotes, among other things, pedophilia and necrophilia and got a lot of narrowed-eyed looks aimed at me.
ROFL, Ann! I wonder why! I’m sorry, that just struck me as funny, even though you’re right. It really does in it’s literal form…
Oh, I understand that vampires sparkle in Meyer’s world. Are they like walking disco balls?
Why did I just have a picture of John Travolta in a white suit flash before my eyes?
Jane — I bought Angel and Spike with Buffy despite the “age” differences. I guess it depends on how it’s played in the book or on screen. But then, neither Angel nor Spike pretended to be eternal high school students.
BASED ON STEPHENIE’S RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT MIDNIGHT SUN & THE LEAK, WE @ TWILIGHTERSANONYMOUS.COM ARE ACTUALLY TAKING ACTION AND SHOWING STEPHENIE OUR SUPPORT W/ HER DECISION.
IF YOU AGREE WITH US, PLS CONTINUE READING…
SUBMIT YOUR LETTERS TO STEPHENIE! SHOW HER YOUR SUPPORT!
STEPHENIE BREAKS HER SILENCE ABOUT MIDNIGHT SUN:
http://twilightersanonymous.com//index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=&p=180
WHAT TWILIGHTERSANONYMOUS.COM IS DOING ABOUT IT
TA in return are gathering letters of support for Stephenie which we’ll later send directly to her once we’ve accumulated enough.
FOR THE FULL DETAILS, CLICK HERE:
http://forum.twilightersanonymous.com/index.php/topic,1606.msg56005.html#msg56005
We here @ TA are looking forward to receiving your letters.
But act fast so that we can send these in an appropriate & timely manner.
Theo — I won’t be able to watch SNF anymore.
Jody — The Scooby Gang, including Cordelia, came off as a lot more mature than Bella. They’re not emoteens or insanely obsessive. Joss Whedon created strong, multi-layered characters and I can’t imagine comparing them with Meyers’. (Of course, please keep in mind I only read three chapters of Twilight last week, regretted it, and will be returning the book to the library.)
Ann, I truly hope I didn’t ruin a special thing for you ;)
Okay, throw your rocks now because, although I was a Scooby afficianado, I have never seen an episode of Buffy…however, that said, if Scooby was more mature, I’m glad, so very glad, I didn’t get past the excerpts!!
I’ve been watching this also. I first ran into it on Amazon’s discussion boards. I rechecked the first post and it was dated 8/21. They’ve also been passing around copies of what is supposed to be the movie scripts.
Does this mean she wasn’t under contract to write MS?
A leak of the movie script has been available online for several weeks now. Since at least the week before Breaking Dawn was released. I seem to recall the leak of Breaking Dawn and the leak of the movie script coming out within a couple days of each other.
I could be wrong though. The various wanks surrounding this series have started blurring together in my mind, there are so many.
The first Twilight script leak came out around July 26. The Breaking Dawn leaks were three or four days later.
If the leak wasn’t intentionally done to get the heat off of Breaking Dawn, then I feel really bad for Meyer.
To be fair, I think the same can be said about the Buffy/Angel relationship.
I haven’t read the series yet and probably won’t for awhile. I’m number 468 at my library for a copy of Twilight, but from what I’ve heard it isn’t too bad. I know Breaking Dawn got a lot of criticism, but Twilight was mostly loved by everyone.
But that was meant to be creepy (reinforced by the Angelus storyline at the end of season 2, in which he exhibits some Edward-like behavior that I don’t think it supposed to be found romantic), which is why it ultimately didn’t work out.
E/B, on the other hand, gets presented as something that is good and whatever because. . .well, I don’t know why. Stalking, breaking Bella’s car so she can’t visit her friends, kidnapping her and telling her what to do is seen as okay - romantic even - because he loves her (and won’t have premarital sex).
(SM could probably write great horror if she left out the sparkling and HEA and Loch Ness Monsters.)
I loved Breaking Dawn, but not, I think, in the way Meyer intended. It’s horrific/cracktastic in ways no one could have predicted.
Heh. The Scooby Gang is what Buffy and her friends were called because they solved supernatural mysteries; there was a reference in one of the episodes to Scooby Doo, and I guess it stuck. And Scooby was probably more mature — or at least had a personality that did not equal Mary Sue.
Did Breaking Dawn’s birthing scene remind you of Alien too?
EWWWWWWW! Yuck! Blech! that’s…just wrong!
Need I warn for BD spoilers?
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I haven’t seen Alien (I really don’t like horror, despite my love of Whedon shows (and, uh, Supernatural*)), but that scene in BD was one of the goriest things I’ve ever read. OMG. Must fade to black during the (pillow-biting) sex scenes, but it’s okay to show spine-snapping, fountains of gushing blood and a c-section by vampire teeth in detail. I guess this goes along with the whole “In an attempt to keep the books clean and not make young girls think about things that they don’t need to think about, no other book mentioned anything about reproductive systems.” o.O
*Boys! Pretty, pretty boys! and lovely boy!angst. Plot? What plot?
Well as some people from a notorious online community put it:
Ms Meyer would actually got some sympathy for the leak if she hadn’t basically reacted with what is basically an author’s flounce
“You’re mean to me. I’m taking my toys and going home”
which is why they are also speculating it MAY have been an intended leak to the fallout of BD. Fandom are kind of used to this strategy taken by wannabe BNF. They also said that she’s still at the stage where her books are her children and any attack on it is personal as she doesn’t really have a filter where her books and herself is separate
What is funny though, when she said she doesn’t want anyone to read THAT version and then post an official version of the same draft, still full of the unedited mistakes.
Someone also pointed out Midnight Sun might have been interesting if it is set as a prequel to Twilight, instead of just a rehash. But then it would need research (gasp what’s that) which is something Ms Meyer is not really known to be strong at.
Handyhunter:
Whenever someone lists Edward’s behaviors I start seeing flashbacks of women in jeopardy movies. The guy who is too good to be true, but is just a little off at first, and finally turns out to be a serial killer.
Also the idea of him sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of her room watching her sleep is just an awesomely creepy image.
Wouldn’t it make for a great horror movie?
It’s almost like SM wrote a parody of the vampire/horror genre. . .but not, because there’s no hint of irony/awareness to any of the writing (except maybe the Jacob Black chapter titles, but I think that was unintentional).
I thought the Jacob Black chapter titles were the best part of the book myself.
handyhunter, it’s things like that, that make me slightly scared to read Twilight. I’ve heard about what Edward does and he does sound slightly creepy, but I simply assumed that if when I finally read it, it might sound differently. Almost in a..um..romantic protective way?
Actually it doesn’t. :(
According to Meyer, yes, that’s EXACTLY what it is. He knows what’s best for her! He lays out the boundaries for their relationship! etc, etc. Even in context of him being a vampire and her being just a helpless little girl — well, no…actually, that makes it more creepy, and the power imbalance between them even more disturbing.
(Which might be something interesting to explore, but of course Meyer does not. It probably couldn’t result in a HEA anyway, without the Mary Sue-ing, dues ex machinas and sparkling.)
There’s a huge disconnect between the story Meyer intends to tell (Edward as the most dashing romantic hero that ever heroed) and what ends up on the page; part of the problem, I think, is that she does a lot of telling - outside the books, too (if your stories need that much clarification, perhaps something is wrong with the writing), which is how Midnight Sun was born (no one was ‘getting’ Edward properly (it’s not just R.Pattz!)) - and figures everything should be taken on the surface level (or you’re reading the books wrong): Edward says he loves Bella and won’t ever hurt her, so that’s the way it is, never mind his odd habits, to put it mildly. …Not that it takes much scrutiny to see the ick factor in B/E’s relationship.
And for all of Meyer’s protests that the series is “anti-human, not anti-female”. . . there is a lot of evidence to the contrary, and not just because of Bella.
The Sparkledammerung goes on and on and on….
Okay, call me really stupid, but I thought that TA Admin post was a joke…
*sigh*
Yeah, I had to fish it out of the spam folder and I paused, but figured, everything that is not spam has to go through.
Twilight means never having to say you’re kidding. (™ someone over at f_w, I think.)
I didn’t much care for that statement by Meyer’s brother the first time I read it. I care for it even less now.
Seriously. If I were a ten-year-old girl reading this book, I probably would have been traumatized by the birth scene.
I think if I were a ten-year-old girl reading this book, I probably would NEVER let a boy touch me as long as I live!! What kind of scene is that to put in a book for young adults?
Honestly, even ‘adult’ romance has younger readers, you can’t get away from that, but you write for the adults who read you. In this case, she’s aimed at a specific, young-adult market and that just has to be one of the worst things I think any young girl can read. Call me old fashioned but even when I was that age, it would have made me gross out!
GAH!
Now That’s funny!!! I had to investigate so I clicked on that site. Lucky I got out with my mind in tact!!!
Watching fan reaction started with Breaking Dawn has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You know it’s horrible. You know it’s only going to get nastier. You know you want to look away . . . but you can’t. The upcoming movie promos are only gonna make the craziness escalate, and the Midnight Sun leak only ramps it up.
Who leaked the book and why is almost made irrelevant to be because of S. Meyers reaction. She pulled the classic whining, flouncing author move of holding the rest of her book ransom now unless the fans kiss her feet for it, all implied of course. Leaking the 12 chapter is just dangling the carrot to the fans then telling them they’re not getting the whole things is just to get them to gush her with support and a false sense of security that’s she’s still, like, the best author ever. Self-important fanfiction authors do this all the time, holding stories ransom until they feel enough people have reviewed it.
If she cared about the world she made and the characters, she’d finished the book already (and use a stronger editor who would make her fix her writing problems already). This move is clearly about herself to me, not doing right by fans, or else she would have just acknowledged the leaks, her personal feelings, and left it at that.
Oh, and theo, f_w is Fandom Wank, which last time I checked wasn’t too mind bending . . . much, except for the boobie trains maybe. What exactly did you stumble upon? O.o
Mouse, I don’t know if you saw this earlier post from TAAdmin, but they included this link:
http://forum.twilightersanonymous.com/index.php/topic,1606.msg56005.html#msg56005
I unfortunately clicked on that link and now need to scrub the experience from my mind if that’s possible…
And not having thought much about it, I have to agree with your comment about SM holding her book almost as ransom to drive the fans into a ‘YOU-MUST-PUBLISH-THIS-WE-CAN’T-LIVE-WITHOUT-IT’ frenzy.
*sigh*
Question: to those of you who feel the books are “creepy,” would the series come across to you that way if it were aimed at adults rather than YA? I am still in Eclipse, but am feeling that Twilight, at least, was an extremely conventional Romance, even more conservative than most paranormal Romance.
Yes.
But why? Is it the age issue? What if Bella were a few years older, or Edward hadn’t died at seventeen? I’m trying to understand, I guess, how so many adult readers have glommed the series, but with the last book there seemed to be a rising chorus of objections to having the series aimed at younger readers. How is this series any different than the Romance featuring the self-loathing, needs to be emotionally healed alpha hero and the innocent and devoted, doesn’t recognize her own allure heroine?