A book flog and Sunny...again

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Several months ago Watersheerie bravely flogged Sunny's short story "Mona Lisa Betwining." Well I raise you a full length Mona Lisa novel.

Experience the horror of Mona Lisa Awakening.

Sunny really loves LHK and Anne Bishop and her writing contains the worst of both.

Excuse me. I need a hot cleansing shower after wadding through that cesspool.

Comments

[shalanar.livejournal.com]

O.O

Buh...

Just wow. I actually really like the Black Jewels Trilogy (though I agree that the main character is a mary sue)...and this Mona Lisa book screams Black Jewels mixes with bits of Merry Gentry.

You are a brave soul for having suffered through it so others don't have to.

*hands you brain bleach and a cookie*

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

I actually adore the BJT even with the Sue but, dude, *shudders*

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Janelle is the most awesome Sue, ever. And I consider her a decent Sue, because her powers and amazingness are actually the basis for the storyline. It's not like she's just there to be fawned over; she has all those powers and stuff for a reason.
So, she's a good type of Sue. Maybe borderline, even.

That being said, I want to burn all of Sunny's books and hope Bishop sues her for plagiarism.

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

I dunno how to explain it, but Jaenelle has the trappings of a
Sue but isn't one wholly. Probably because she does have a few flaws and faults (she's so powerful she can't do a lot of things most normal people do, for instance) and because the story's focus isn't really on her, but on the three main male characters around her. It makes her tolerable.

Anita, though, well... er.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

You're right. I didn't peg Janelle as a Sue at first because she actually seemed flawed and human. I'm convinced she is a Borderline Sue, really.

The problem with strong female characters in SF/F stories is that some readers will almost always say, "Oh, she's a Mary Sue!" no matter how well the author writes the character. I've resigned myself to the idea that anyone can be a Sue or Stu; it's just how much of one the character actually is.

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Borderline, but tolerable, and the fact that the focus isn't, in a way, Completely On Her keeps her from becoming a complete Sue. And Jaenelle makes mistakes, and she does pay a certain price for her ungodly power, including isolation and not being able to do things other people take for granted.

And yeah, the strong female character worry is a problem, and I've always worried about crossing the border into Suehood in my own writing. But you get any halfway competent character you'll have people whinging about them being a Sue. Of course, the only alternative is making them completely forgettable, which, well, doesn't draw you in. At all. You just can't make everybody happy with your character, even if you try.

I think one of the definers of a Sue is if they never make mistakes and are worshipped and unquestioningly loved by all (except for the antagonists, who are automatically puppy-raping monsters for not seeing their glory). You can have people on the side of right and still not love or even like the main character.

Or short form: if they make your trigger finger itch on top of every other indicator when you read, they're a Sue. ;)

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

That definer is the one I go by.
My heroine is not worshipped and unquestioningly loved, she makes many mistakes, she's not a genius, she's not heartstoppingly beautiful.
In my world, psychic powers are normal and my main characters all have very strong powers beyond most other people. But that still doesn't make them special snowflakes, it makes them the protagonists of a story that focuses on very strong psychic powers. They still have limits and they still have problems.

[syntheticka.livejournal.com]

I believe I'll have to pick up the BJT out of proxy, just for the read and the comparison. I've read all three of Sunny's books... and believe you me, they just get more painful from here on out (just like another author we know and love... -shudder-).

But I must say, your flog was AMAZING and oh so true. xD

[ichini-sanshigo.livejournal.com]

I actually read a Sunny story in a collection of novellas (I got the book for the Wyndam Werewolf story). It did strike me immediately as an LKH knockoff, but I was able to find it much more amusing and entertaining than LKH's dreck. The Sue stuff was stupid and unrealistic, but... I dunno. There's an edge of something else in LKH that makes her work a bit.. well, much more offensive. Sunny was light, stupid, derivative fun. LKH is brain-bleach material.

[librarista.livejournal.com]

I've read all of Sunny's books and I agree. It took me months to finally read the first one because the "moon people" thing is just silly and there are elements that make me cringe so hard it hurts, but there's something about them. It helps that they start off as erotica. The last one was more melodramatic than I can handle, though. If the next one is like that then I'll give up on her.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Isn't she the one who used the words "crammingly so" in relation to a giant penis?

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

THESE PEOPLE (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0425211606/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending). D:

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Completely OT, but my ex-sister-in-law named her son Damon after Daemon.

I kinda hope the little guy doesn't find out he was named after a manwhore.

[easol.livejournal.com]

That's even worse than "Trinity."

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

I know, right? When she told me that I just kind of... facepalm'd. But then again, I wasn't particularly fond of Daemon (i loved the books but the only characters I really wanted to read about wer Surreal and Saetan.). The baby is cute though.

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I looooooooooooved Saetan :D

Lucivar was also a favorite :)

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

Lucivar was a giant smartass. This is a good thing, mind you. XD

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I loved that about him :)

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

I will admit though I wasn't quite as fond of him as Lucivar, I liked Daemon. He was an interesting bundle of contradictions, what with being absolutely vicious one minute and compassionate the next, goofy at times despite the Playgirl centerfold looks, and well... "virginal manwhore" says it all right there. XD

[zombiexbunny.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy Daemon when he was being nasty...

Sueish they may be, I absolutely loved those books.

[bookgroper]

I admit to loving me a good trashy romance novel, but seriously? I read a couple of pages of those sample chapters and my god, her writing style... *shudders* I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS. Awful. People read the entire book? Willingly??

[http://users.livejournal.com/_argustar/]

I got partway through the flog and just couldn't go on. I could literally feel my braincells dying.

That being said, I have to wonder why it is that these women with the magic Coochies of Joy and Joyness only seem to attract the hot, hot sexy men. Why do none of them ever attract the unwashed, skeevy types or even the "average" guys?

. . . of course, there's always the chance that in the magic lands of Coochies of Joy and Joyness, there are no such things as average guys or skeevy, unwashed ones, but surely they're out there somewhere!

[easol.livejournal.com]

Presumably the hot sexy bishonen kill off all the average guys, so the worthy alone will frolic in the Magic Coochies of Joy and Joyness. Which they are all happy to share, incidentally.

[knowthyself.livejournal.com]

Oh god. That summary sounds...just...just AWFUL. Then I read part of the chapter that's online and....gah! Also awful!

And in another brilliant showcase of her stupidity, she refers to that character Gryphon by his real name before the reader or protagonist know that's his real name. Brilliant, my dear, just brilliant. *eye roll*

That seriously sounds like the worst book and biggest joke ever.

[spittingfish.livejournal.com]

“Come on now, boys. Just admit you are gay and stop using her as a Freudian vessel through which you express your man-love!”

WIN.

Absolute WIN.

[easol.livejournal.com]

And that is the sound of Asher and JC hooting and waving big foam hands...

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

This is kinda random, but I looked at a little more of Sunny's site, and found this under the "Harlequin Spice" publisher info:

"Spice Books is looking to acquire bold, sexually explicit editorial
that pushes the envelope for its new eBook erotica program, Spice
Briefs. These are highly erotic short stories; although brief, these
novellas should still establish context . . ."

Is it just me, or is there something a little disturbing about a publisher that doesn't seem to know the difference between a short story and a novella? o_O

[easol.livejournal.com]

Little disturbing? No, not that. BIG BIG BIG disturbing. Ye gods, that must be a truly wretched imprint.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Harlequin amuses me. They publish some of the most godawful dreck. They publish like, over a hundred books a month. Seriously. I wonder how hard it really is to get published through them?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Novella is a subcategory of the short story genre, actually.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

I've tended to see novellas and short stories separated out fairly distinctively -- the SFWA definitions are:

http://www.sfwa.org/awards/faq.htm#6

But I also understand one's MMV quite a bit on those defs, too.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think that that's a difference in usage within genres. In the romance and mystery publishing industries, novellas are generally considered a special kind of short story, rather than a shorter kind of novel.

It's not something I would write myself, because I agree with you that they're different forms, but it's not really an error in that Harlequin Spice copy, just a usage choice that reflects the industry jargon.

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

Boy, did your flog get me in trouble. I was reading it while I was supposed to be doing research for my paper on serial killers. Laughing was not normal. Though, thanks for the break. I needed that bit of glee in my day.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

your icon made me lol which scared my cat.

Good work. XDDD

Also, serial killers interest me.

[easol.livejournal.com]

I think my brain just liquefied from all the badness, much like Gillian Key's poor panties.

[entropyastaroth.livejournal.com]

Anyone has the link to Watersheerie's flog? I don't think I read it. Now I'm off reading this one :)

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Watersheerie's flog can be found here. Short but painful.

http://community.livejournal.com/lkh_lashouts/369878.html

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

By the way, according to my library, the infamous Sunny, Karen Chance, Eileen Wilks and Patricia Briggs are all the same person.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I really enjoy Wilks and Chance and they seem to be in a class far above Miss "I Only Need One Name" Sunny...

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think your library was confused somehow by the fact that there was an anthology featuring novelettes by those four authors.

Karen Chance and Patricia Briggs are certainly two different people.

[christraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, you poor thing. How could you do that to yourself? And you have books two and three to get through?

I hope you've stocked up on brain bleach and Jack Daniel's.