ain't NOBODY that good...

[anotheranon]

Ran across this at Metafilter yesterday - Anne Rice slams her critics, while suggesting she's too good for an editor (scroll down to "Blood Canticle", her latest).

Uhm, puhleese! Some further thoughts:

I've been an on-again, off-again Anne Rice fan since ninth grade. Like every good baby goth I cut my teeth (pun intended) on "Interview" and "Lestat" and read each repeatedly, obsessively. I also enjoyed the first couple of the "Witching" series. "The Mummy" was rather lackluster, but I rationalized that it was originally written as a tv movie script and was therefore sellably cheesy. I even read "Belinda", but found myself at the ripe old age of 16 rather put off by the underage sex. Last year I finally read part of the Beauty series, but am not interested enough to finish just yet. No problem - not even the most talented among us is 100% all of the time.

But I find it very, very hard to believe that there is a talented author writing who does not need extra pairs of eyes to bring their script to it's absolute best. If, as she says, she's not had an editor since "Queen" I can honestly say that IMHO her work has suffered - "Tale of the Body Thief" tended to ramble and the New Vampire Chronicles - frankly I figured she was writing them just to milk more $ out of the characters :P

Her rant is just... sad to read. For someone who claims to be able to ignore criticism, this just seems terrifically thin-skinned. Also, her high opinion of her own writing just screams of someone who has surrounded themselves by yes-men and is genuinely shocked - shocked, I tell you! - that she isn't as fabulous as she thinks she is! :P

For my own part, I'm not going out of my way to get her latest books; I started "Armand" and wasn't interested/fast enough to finish it in the one week the library gave me (an indication that enough people DO like her current writing enough for her to be on the 7-day/no renewals stack). I'll always love the first three, and be grateful that it opened my mind to vampire fiction by other authors.

And I'm sure not going to take her ventings personally - it's not like I know this person.

But yes, she should get an editor - can't hurt and if it can take her back to the quality of writing shown in "Lestat", it will emphatically help!

Comments

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I think it must be edited -- I know it was written somewhere in the 80s (give or take) because I bought it used around that time. It's all about castrati opera singers in Italy (I think around the 1600s but it might've been later. It's been a while).