So, I’m going to ignore more recent, much smaller instances of surprise to talk about The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer., which ran me the fuck over with surprise in 2022-ish.
This book is marketed as gay YA romance. The cover, the blurb, everything makes it look like a light romance novel set in space, with maybe some space plot to go with the romance.
IT IS NOT THAT.
It’s a mindfucky, philosophical, emotionally wringing rollercoaster of a scifi horror/thriller. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey or Interstellar. It’s got that same sort of “small humans isolated in the sheer, terrifying vastness of space” vibe. But more horror, more tragedy, and sometimes incredibly upsetting.
There is gay romance there too, and it’s an important part of the book (in the way that romance can be important in any literature without that making it romance genre per se), but advertising this book as straightforwardly gay romance is like advertising Interstellar as a family man movie while just ignoring all the epic space shots and the dramatic score and so on. It just boggles the mind that they did this.
Anyway, this book does have some flaws I can nitpick on a technical level in retrospect, but the thing is: I just don’t care about them. This book wrung me out and haunted me for weeks after reading it (like, it kept popping into my head in the middle of doing completely unrelated things), yet it also left me feeling hopeful and more at peace with the inevitability of death.
I thought it was just gonna be a fun romance to escape into for a bit, and instead it’s one of the few novels that has genuinely changed the way I see real life in a noticeable way. I still think about it sometimes, now over a year later. It’s one of the best scifi books I’ve read in recent memory, along with the likes of the Murderbot books by Martha Wells and Exhalation by Ted Chiang (though these three are all very different than one another, and they are among my favorites for different reasons).
Going on like this about a book of course runs the risk that anyone who takes this recommendation and doesn’t like it as much as I did might feel disappointed and over-hyped, but a) I can at least promise I mean all of this earnestly and b) it seems hard to get anyone to read a book advertised as gay YA romance unless they are already people who would be down for reading some gay YA romance.
The thought that this book may eventually end up lost to time because of its marketing pains me. Although I guess I can imagine why they did it, even though it’s inaccurate for the contents; the queer YA romance readership is huge and this book seems to have done well with them, even though the goodreads reviews are as a result amusingly chock full of accounts like mine here.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a maverick Democrat who has often bucked party leadership, told a radio station in his home state of West Virginia on Thursday that he is “thinking seriously” about leaving the party....
tl;dr Books, most likely generated by an LLM, were being sold on Amazon under Jane Friedman’s name. The same books were added to her Goodreads profile. Amazon initially refused to remove the books. If it’s happening to her, it’s definitely happening to other authors.
Their contract terms for new authors are set in stone, atrocious even for the publishing industry, and unavoidable for most because they have a stranglehold on the ebookmarket.
Honestly one could go on and on and on about the shit they’ve pulled/tried to pull at various times.
Anyway… Why would the hypothetical e-publisher need to be on the fediverse?
To be honest right now that just seems like a recipe for getting no publicity and no sales, which no author who wants to actually have an income would do just to promote fediverse. There’d have to be an advantage beyond already existing platforms.
The fact that this actually acknowledges that room and board and textbooks has to be included for it to be truly free and accessible to the recipients is incredible. Wonderful news!
I love the show and Witcher 3, but absolutely cannot stand the books, so perhaps yes? Maybe it’ll be the other way around for you, if it can be this way 'round for me.
What was the last book that surprised you?
Something you thought you would love that turned out to be awful, or vice versa? A great plot twist that blew your mind?...
Spend money replacing? No, DIY! ( discuss.tchncs.de )
Yes, now it looks like frankenshelf. Adds character. What do you think?
US Senator Joe Manchin says 'thinking seriously' about leaving Democratic Party ( www.reuters.com )
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a maverick Democrat who has often bucked party leadership, told a radio station in his home state of West Virginia on Thursday that he is “thinking seriously” about leaving the party....
I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires) | Jane Friedman ( janefriedman.com )
tl;dr Books, most likely generated by an LLM, were being sold on Amazon under Jane Friedman’s name. The same books were added to her Goodreads profile. Amazon initially refused to remove the books. If it’s happening to her, it’s definitely happening to other authors.
All Foster Kids in California Can Now Attend Any State College for Free ( themessenger.com )
America’s Perpetual—and Preventable—Cancer Drug Shortage: "Currently, around 14 different chemotherapy drugs are in shortage." ( slate.com )
I thought the ADHD meds shortage was more than awful enough on its own, but holy crap this is horrifying....
is anyone reading the Witcher novels right now? or lately? ( beehaw.org )
My second read-through now and I’m loving them even more this time!...