Covered with mosquito bites
Aug. 18th, 2002 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrbut I've pulled out five huge Hefty bags of weeds from two of the gardens. Go me.
Thinking about the blurb I've promised to write. Thinking about blurbs in general. What about a blurb makes a book attractive to the targeted market? The identity of the author who is saying "it's good"? The only truism I can think of is that I've noticed that a real turn off for me when I read is a blurb is when the author says, "The best thing since Tolkien." (Somebody did this on the Pullman trilogy, btw.) First of all, just accept it: nobody's as good as Tolkien. And if they are good in their own way, they're going to be good in an entirely different way, and the comparison just seems nonsensical. When I read that on a book, it strikes me that the blurber is just lazy.
I remember reading in a review of the LOTR:FOTR movie and being very struck by a critic remarking that Tolkien to the field of fantasy is like Mount Fuji is to the craft of Japanese landscape painting: it's always there. You're either seeing something on the mountain slopes, or the mountain is there in the distance, or you don't see it at all because you're standing on it.
I think it's a combination of the identity of the person writing the blurb and what they say about it. I know that some writers "dilute" their value as a blurber by blurbing so many books, saying on all them "it's great!" until you just can't believe them any more. (I think that kind of happened with Steven King, although I'm not sure--I don't read any horror and so am not familiar with marketing in that field).
For those so inclined, send in the blurb on a wonderful book you found, where the blurb made you pick it up. What was it about the blurb that snagged your attention?
Cheers,
Peg
Thinking about the blurb I've promised to write. Thinking about blurbs in general. What about a blurb makes a book attractive to the targeted market? The identity of the author who is saying "it's good"? The only truism I can think of is that I've noticed that a real turn off for me when I read is a blurb is when the author says, "The best thing since Tolkien." (Somebody did this on the Pullman trilogy, btw.) First of all, just accept it: nobody's as good as Tolkien. And if they are good in their own way, they're going to be good in an entirely different way, and the comparison just seems nonsensical. When I read that on a book, it strikes me that the blurber is just lazy.
I remember reading in a review of the LOTR:FOTR movie and being very struck by a critic remarking that Tolkien to the field of fantasy is like Mount Fuji is to the craft of Japanese landscape painting: it's always there. You're either seeing something on the mountain slopes, or the mountain is there in the distance, or you don't see it at all because you're standing on it.
I think it's a combination of the identity of the person writing the blurb and what they say about it. I know that some writers "dilute" their value as a blurber by blurbing so many books, saying on all them "it's great!" until you just can't believe them any more. (I think that kind of happened with Steven King, although I'm not sure--I don't read any horror and so am not familiar with marketing in that field).
For those so inclined, send in the blurb on a wonderful book you found, where the blurb made you pick it up. What was it about the blurb that snagged your attention?
Cheers,
Peg
on the "Best thing since Tolkien"
Date: 2002-08-23 05:34 pm (UTC)I don't, as a rule, take the "Best thing since Tolkien" comments seriously, since they are so frequently applied and so rarely borne out. One exception, and probably the most memorable blurb I've read, was from Judith Tarr on Elizabeth Moon's "Deed of Paksenarrion" -- "This is the Fourth Age as it has to have been". I had never read anything by Tarr or Moon when I saw that blurb, and generally tend to steer away from the warrior-woman type books, but that was enough to catch my interest. The longer blurb, which has more explicit comments on both the roots and originality of the story and its specific strengths (solid base in military knowledge, e.g) is also very good.
I remember checking out the book on the strength of that blurb, basically, and starting to read it immediately even though I had book reports due for school. "Paksenarrion" remains one of my favorite fantasy series still -- all thanks to a one-sentence blurb, basically.
Just thought I'd chime in...
-- yavanna