Adam Curry interview with LKH

[dwg.livejournal.com]

This link popped up on Twitter a couple of days ago, I've only just now gotten around to watching it: Adam Curry interviews LKH (I've been trying to get an embed code, but no luck!)

It's 26mins of general chatter with some Hit List promo thrown in there, sadly none of it that you haven't heard before. So, get out your bingo cards, Lashers! I'm paraphrasing here, but these are the highlights:

• "I pioneered the genre!" (inb4 Buffy!)
• "Vampires are the new Prince Charming"
• "The people who hate the books are still buying them!" with an added "And the people hate the books read them more closely than those who say they love them." (Which I thought was a lovely way to flip off pretty much everyone)
• Claims she's one of the first to have created vampires that can have sex with an "I have a biology degree!" bonus
• No, there won't be any tv show/movie because she cannot understand how a full length novel can be "winnowed" down to 120-ish pages of a script. ("What do you take out?" It's like she doesn't understand that all the pages spent on description can easily be summed up with a couple of visuals)
• She does not watch the Vampire Diaries/True Blood or reads anything within her genre.
• Apparently she has the highest "rate" of male fans in her genre (with maybe an exception of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire books thanks to True Blood). I think she means percentage, but...uh, okay.

It's kinda nice that Adam Curry isn't a fanboy in this and asks questions without gushing too much. I really wish that LKH didn't just recycle the same answers she's been giving for at least the last five years for every interview/podcast that I've managed to get my hands on. I get that she's probably been asked a lot of these questions before, but that doesn't mean she has to give answers like predictive text.

But I sort of wish she'd do more interviews/podcasts, because she has got a lot more charisma in person than what gets across in blogs/social media. It's far more pleasant to listen to this than to read about it, even if I still wind up rolling my eyes and shaking my head in quiet despair.

Comments

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

She does seem to have more charisma in person. Her panel I saw at Archon a few years back was kind of silly in parts, but she was funny (even if a lot of her jokes were recycled), and when she signed my book she was really nice and took a picture with me. Too bad her blogs are just... dreadful and her books too.

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

Where exactly did LKH get this mythical Bio degree?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, she went to Marion but it's now called Indiana Wesleyan University.

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

"The people who hate the books are still buying them!" with an added "And the people hate the books read them more closely than those who say they love them." (Which I thought was a lovely way to flip off pretty much everyone)

While omitting that her sales have fallen over 50% she used to break the 200K mark now she barely hits 100K per book, can't wait to see what the Hit List sales are.

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

"The people who hate the books are still buying them!" with an added "And the people hate the books read them more closely than those who say they love them." (Which I thought was a lovely way to flip off pretty much everyone)

LOL, It's like she doesn't realize that calling (and treating) her fans like idiots isn't a good long running strategy. I wonder how long it will take the troos to realize the same.

As for the rest... It's pretty much wash, rinse, repeat. Also, she might want to get a chronology of "her genre" at some point.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

OH GOD SERIOUSLY, I was sitting there going, "no, Bram Stoker was not the first to sexify vampires back in the day." and just...I really hate how she brings up that oh she was writing Anita back in the 80s before the Buffy craze. She wasn't published until '93 and by then, other people had mixed genre books in the market. She's just not as special a snowflake as she tries to make it out to be.

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

In addition, I love how she glosses over the concept of parallel development with regards to the Buffy film. Or Forever Knight. Or any number of other things whose titles I've forgotten.

I'm just tired of the whole "speshul snowflake" business. :P

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

Oohhh, Forever Knight. I remember watching that. I think I have part of it on DVD.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Someone made a timeline of things that came before LKH, I keep it bookmarked for just these occasions: A Vampire Timeline (http://michelelee.net/2011/04/23/a-vampire-time-line/) And going by the list, a lot of it is mixed genre, too.

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

Actually... Most of that would appear to be mixed genre. So does this mean that she's an individual, unique snowflake in the middle of a blizzard? XD

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

"The people who hate the books are still buying them!" with an added "And the people hate the books read them more closely than those who say they love them."

...LKH, I don't think that means what you think it means.

She basically just admitted, in a bass ackwards fashion, that our (and others') criticisms are valid. She's pretty much said that those who love the books don't read them that closely and gloss over the problems in them, while those who hate the books are those who've given them a comprehensive, thorough read and recognized the flaws.

Or am I the only one picking up on that?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

No, that's exactly what I was getting out of it too. Or at least the people who do like the books maybe don't care enough to be so specific. Either way, it comes across as a really jerky thing to say to a fanbase. :\

[pith]

That's sort of what I was thinking. Basically, if the people who like the books actually read them closely, they may not be such fans anymore. I mean, I read Janet Evanovich, but it's light reading and I acknowledge that; I'm not like the rabid LKH fans who insist she's amazing. Read whatever you want, but don't pretend that fluff is groundbreaking literature.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

"Vampires are the New Prince Charming!"

Ummm... Kind of.

Aside from theoretically getting a male Sleeping Beauty counterpart, there's some scholarly research on the history of castration that indicates that men who can't have children are a woman's ideal lover. Vampires are castrated in so far as reproduction, so ummmm... yeah, Prince Charming with ancient courtly manners and the inability to produce squalling infants. It's right up there with the fad for castrati opera singers a few centuries ago.

[cousinmary.livejournal.com]

Now whenever I think of Jean-Claude and Asher I'm going to picture them having high, squeaky voices. Thanks for that! ;-)

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

No, there won't be any tv show/movie because she cannot understand how a full length novel can be "winnowed" down to 120-ish pages of a script. ("What do you take out?" It's like she doesn't understand that all the pages spent on description can easily be summed up with a couple of visuals)

I have this image of an Anita Blake TV show where new characters walk on screen, face the camera, and stop, and we get a voiceover of Anita describing their looks and outfits. Every time.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I always imagine all the characters standing about, checking their watches and scuffing their feet on the ground while Anita head-tilts with some internal monologue. Sometimes they order pizza and pass snacks around whiel they're waiting to continue with their scene.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

THIS OMG THIS.

[snarky-imp.livejournal.com]

...I would watch the hell out of that. I'm not saying I wouldn't have to be carted off to the hospital for laughing too hard, but dude. I'd watch.

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

LOL THIS.

[cheeky-duckie.livejournal.com]

That just became Scrubs in my head.

It hurts so wrong.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I hate the books.

I do not buy them.

I don't even get them from the library.

I donated most of them if I recall (or they are in the loft)

I have cleansed my soul with various herbs and cake and am now free.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

I am not still buying the books. I don't even pick them up when I see them on the library shelves anymore.

[starrysnafu.livejournal.com]

"The people who hate the books are still buying them!"

At least we have one author who doesn't think piracy is going to destroy! all the writers!

but then she doesn't even seem to understand the many legal ways to obtain the books without giving her any money...

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

She placates herself by saying that. Most of the people who hate the book either get it at the library or sit around Barnes & Noble reading it. I haven't bought an Anita book since Obsidian Butterfly.

[avalonnocturne.livejournal.com]

See, if she'd just say she was one of the early writers in the genre, that would be fine.

But then again, what would we do for entertainment without her towering ego?