Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: quixotic
  • Music: Glee, "Loser Like Me."

Blurb it! A game the whole family can play.

You know those little things on books that are like, "This book raised my IQ twenty points!" &mdashA. Famous Author, or "The Ikeamancer series just keeps getting better," —Ima Writer? Those are called "blurbs." They're supposed to encourage you to buy the book, since clearly, people other than the author (or the author's mom) think it's good enough to read, and are thus providing valuable perspective.

So let's play the blurb game! You've been asked to blurb an existing book in a way that is honest, accurate, and true to your feelings on the text. Most of these will probably not be used for publication, because when I'm being honest, accurate, and true, there's a lot of swearing.

I'll start:

"This book is like a cozy blanket for my soul. A cozy blanket full of evil clowns and profanity. IT is the most comforting thing I have ever read." —Stephen King's IT.

"Matthew Swift's London crackles with electric fire, neon heartbreak, and all the power and sideways logic of urban sorcery. Kate Griffin is at the top of her game, and she just keeps getting better." —Kate Griffin's Neon Court.

"FUCK YEAH, SEAKING." —Peter Clines's Ex-Heroes.

"It takes a truly great story, and a truly great writer, to make a book about rabbits more true to the human condition than most books about humanity." —Richard Adams's Watership Down.

"Lucy Snyder attacks the page with the raw, manic intensity of an early Sam Raimi. Jessie Shimmer is urban fantasy's answer to Ash from The Evil Dead: ballsy, profane, and too much fun to put down." —Lucy Snyder's Spellbent.

"Hey, look! It's a retelling of 'Tam Lin' that makes me root for Janet! That never happens!" —Pamela Dean's Tam Lin.

"You need to meet the people in this book. They have things to tell you." —Janet Kagan's Hellspark.

"The true power of fairy tale archetypes is the way they let us tell the stories that need to be told while framing them in a veil of the familiar. Jim Hines has created a Cinderella with a future, a Sleeping Beauty with a past, and a Snow White present in more than merely apples. These books are all the stronger for not being 'serious' fiction; by the time you realize that you're learning, it's too late. You've been taught." —Jim Hines's The Stepsister Scheme.

Now it's your turn! BLURB THE WORLD!
Tags: geekiness, party games, silliness
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  • 101 comments

newroticgirl

March 28 2011, 14:28:23 UTC 6 years ago

"I didn't like Dune, but I liked this."
-- Ken Scholes' Lamentation

That was my first semi-coherent reaction, after asdflkjasdlkfj blargle why did you send me all but the last 6 chapters of this I've been up all night reading it please send rest now k thx bai.

Strangely enough, it wasn't chosen for the cover! :D

seanan_mcguire

March 28 2011, 21:05:21 UTC 6 years ago

And yet it's so honest!

newroticgirl

March 28 2011, 21:56:12 UTC 6 years ago

Oh! And my future-blurb for the next Toby book -- I said this to Boyfriendguy as soon as I finished reading Late Eclipses:

"I can't wait for the hot seal on cat on changeling action!"

(His response: Uh, I think you've got the wrong author for that sort of thing...")

drcpunk

March 29 2011, 03:23:48 UTC 6 years ago

Um. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I've read these books, and my first thought was about hot wax seals, and I got really baffled.

I figured it out after a few seconds.

seanan_mcguire

March 29 2011, 22:42:50 UTC 6 years ago

See, that would just be flat-out fun to write.