He honestly doesn't quit

I stand here amazed. I got my first really really really bad review from Neth in MARCH 2008. It's up at Neth Space.

I thought it was all over with. I mean... let it drop already. But honestly! What an annoyance! And it just kicks in the fibro whenever I see it pop up. He posted the link for the review in the comments of the post up at A Dribble of Ink. For no good reason, I think. But why? For spite? To show how wonderful he is? For his own ego? And then, the blogsphere being what it is, that made someone else take that ball and put it on wonderlands (again with the link to my post)...and then that caused a whole 'nother rumbling...and it's just one link to another to another. So my defense against this guy is now all over the white blogosphere, causing me a great deal of frickin' stress. I will have to just thank God for all this. I mean... I keep being told that one bad review often does more good than harm. So, let's see what happens.

Once again, I will defend myself. Although it only puts me on the same level of a guy who seems to be out to mention me on every forum he belongs to. Now, I haven't re-read his review so it's possible that he has removed those portions of his review that are applicable to my defense (thus making it look as if I'm totally off base) but I'll just mention my objections to the review as he wrote it in March.

1) He says Wind Follower was so bad he could only make it through the first 100 pages.
I don't know if he actually read the book at all though because he says

"Much of the first hundred pages are told in a first person narration."

But ALL of the first 100 pages are told in the first person. So am not sure what he means?

Then he says the book lacks subtly with religious things and says things are

"a bit on the conservative side for me."

But there isn't any kind of Christian religiosity in the first 100 pages. There is nothing religious at all. It's a tribal culture. And there's definitely no "conservative side" going on. I mean...WTF? Someone on a forum he and I belong to stated to Neth that the book was heavy-handed in some areas. Okay, putting aside that my muslim buddhist friends and my atheist friends didn't find it heavy-handed, I'll just say that any Christian elements appear in the last 100 pages of Wind Follower. Not the first 100 pages.

He says my main

female character goes from strong-willed to meek and subservient for no apparent reason

. Apparently, those three scenes where her mother tells her that if her father's debt isn't paid off he will be sold into slavery weren't reason enough. I've been told by an Arabian friend that my story shows how many women feel when they realize they might have married a man who might be a bully. Apparently Satha's fears and the moments when she does challenge her husband is deemed subservient.

Then, a poster Charlotte Byrd, posted that the book contained sections that were anti-Gnostics. This was weird cause she too admits that she didn't finish reading the book and even weirder cause I wasn't even thinking of the gnostics when I wrote Wind Follower. Heck, Christianity has tons of denominations that have added their own texts and prophets: Mary Baker Eddy's Health and Science, The Seventh Day Adventists and the Writings of Miss White, Joseph Smith's Writings. And if one considers that Mohammed was connected to the early Christians, one might even wish to add him into the mix of books influenced by the Jewish and Christian Bibles. So I was pretty much making fun of all Christian denominationalism, including my own.

Then, Neth answered that if I was picking on gnosticism then he definitely wouldn't read Wind Follower. Totally odd! What's that about? Gossip and assumptions build and build on top of false foundations. Now Neth's going to go around saying Wind Follower has an anti-Gnostics swipe.....all based on his not finishing the book and his believing the comment from someone else who didn't finish reading the book.

Well Wind Follower has gotten some great reviews. Publishers Weekly (September 07) gave it a good review and said,

her elegant, meticulous world-building shimmers with the ambience of an old-world folktale

Library Journal (October 07) recommended it as a book for Black History Month.
Other reviewers have also really liked it.
J Kaye's Book Blog, The long and short, John Ottinger's Grasping the Wind, Mir's Mind Flight and Karen McSpadden's Disturbing The Universe: Reviews And Rants

Then Carl Brandon Society chose me as one of their recommended books for Black History Month and Wind Follower was nominated for the Clive Staples Award and the Pluto Award

Well, this is what Danielle Steele says about critics

"It's very simple. I haven't read them in years," she says. "My feelings get very hurt when people say mean things about me. The trouble I find is that they don't just criticize the book -- they then get nasty personally. And so I stopped reading them."

And I think from now on I will heed what she says.

http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/reviews2008/reviews1108/


http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2008/10/everyones-critic.html