Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: Counting Crows, "Round Here."

Do not want...but why not?

Recently, I picked up a book that looked interesting. It hit many of my "sweet spots" for plot, description, and cover blurbs from people I trust. The cover didn't do it any favors, featuring, as it did, a generic Urban Fantasy Hot Girl standing in a Playboy circa-1984 pose, but I've enjoyed books with way worse covers. I entered the text in good faith.

By page two, I was ready to fling the book across the room. Why? Because the author had chosen to scramble the spelling of a common-to-the-genre word in a way that made it look not only pretentious, but difficult to read. This is a personal bug-a-boo of mine, since I really do feel that spelling was standardized for a reason, and while I managed to soldier through, it colored my ability to sink into the text for several chapters.

(As an aside, seriously: not all words become more interesting and mysterious when spelled with a vestigial "y." The worst example I've ever seen was in a YA series full of "mermyds," and the fact that I made it through all three volumes is a testament to the power of raw stubborn.)

One reader of Rosemary and Rue posted a lengthy, positive review, more than half of which was taken up by complaints about the pronunciation guide. Specifically, I didn't write down the correct pronunciation of "Kitsune." It's a fair cop—if you pronounce the word as written in the pronunciation guide, you'll be saying it wrong—and it's been corrected for A Local Habitation, but it was, for this person, as bad as if I'd spelled Toby's name "Aughtcober" and then claimed it was pronounced just like the month. Bug-a-boos for all!

Kate recently delivered a long and eloquent diatribe on "back cover buzz-word bingo," which I really wish I'd had a video camera running for, because it was awesome. The summation is that she watches the back covers of books for certain "buzz-words," and, if the book works up to a magical bingo score, she doesn't read it. I do something similar with bad horror movies, since there are specific buzz-words that mean "soft core porn" and "gratuitous torture," and those really aren't what I'm watching the movie to see.

So what are your bug-a-boos? Terribly twisted spelling? Pronunciations that you don't agree with? Buzz-words oozing off the back cover and getting all over your shoes? How about heroines with ruby hair and emerald eyes who aren't appearing in an Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld fanfic epic? Inquiring blondes want to know!
Tags: contemplation, cranky blonde is cranky, don't be dumb, kate, oh the humanity, reading things
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  • 181 comments

fireriven

November 3 2009, 16:13:54 UTC 7 years ago

If there is a grammatical error on the back cover, it goes back on the shelf. It honestly doesn't matter what the story is about: for me, it would take an awful lot to get me to overcome that prejudice. (There's an edition of Jane Eyre that I would never buy because, beyond there being better editions out there, it has a gratuitous grammatical error in its description of the novel.)

I honestly can't get past cover art that is, in my opinion, ridiculously awful. I still haven't finished the Ghatti's Tale books by Gayle Greeno because I simply can't bring myself to purchase Exile's Return (the expression on the woman's face is appallingly off-putting on that cover). (To be fair, though, I bought many Wheel of Time books in spite of Darryl K. Sweet's awful covers because I was heavily invested in the story. I wasn't that invested in the Greeno books.)

Beyond that, I am wary of exclamation points (though this mostly applies to movie back-covers). If there are at least five exclamation points, you better put that down and edge away as if it were toxic waste. Unless you enjoy stupidity and hope that it falls into the so-bad-it's-awesome category.

seanan_mcguire

November 3 2009, 17:11:16 UTC 7 years ago

The back cover issues make me sort of sad, even though I share them, because I know from experience that the author has little to no input. (Doubly so in the case of Jane Eyre, what with the author being dead and everything.) Covers are a little more forgivable, since they're just designed to catch my eye, not to tell me what the story is about.

I try to use as few exclamation points as possible, unless I'm taking dictation for the mice.

fireriven

November 3 2009, 19:49:37 UTC 7 years ago

My philosophy regarding mistakes in the back cover copy is that the book is possibly edited poorly as well. This isn't a reflection on the author, but a reflection on the publisher. If I were to hear from a trusted source that no, really, the book was well done and just had unfortunate cover copy, I could possibly overcome this prejudice. Poorly edited books make me twitch and bitch pretty badly, so I try to avoid them. (I'm pretty reluctant to buy Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone, even though I enjoyed The Secret History of Moscow, because the text of Secret History was positively riddled with errors.)