Xombierama

I don't mind a bad review from a crackpot. My book Mad Skills has collected a few of these on Amazon, and they are a total validation of the necessity of my work. Crackpots hate all the best books. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a literary classic that has not offended lots of crackpots. The problem is when crackpots don't want to be seen as crackpots, and start disguising themselves as sane people.

Or even book reviewers.

I've recently gotten two negative reviews from an organization calling itself the San Francisco Book Review. San Francisco, really? Sounds like just the kind of progressive, intellectual journal I'd love to have review my work! So I was I bit surprised when their reviewer, Jamais Jochim, smeared Mad Skills.

What bothered me was not the one-star Amazon review, but the fact that the review attacked my book for being both genre trash and anti-mainstream. I'm sorry, what? Since Mad Skills is a satire of genre trash and a critique of popular culture, Mr. Jochim's "review" was a bit disingenuous. Still, I figured you can't please all the people all the time. Then he hit my book Xombies: Apocalypso with another self-contradictory review, saying that it was "not a bad book," yet slamming it with two stars and suggesting it was hollow, populist schlock.

Okay, something was weird here. For one thing, who hates a book and then immediately goes and reads another book by the same author? You'd have to be a masochist. Either that or have an agenda.

Out of curiosity, I Googled Jamais Jochim, and out popped an alternate name: Tregory Sullivan. I think Tregory must also be fake, but what really caught my attention was what "Jamais Jochim" had written on The Huffington Post. Not only was he making statements in favor of teaching Creationism in schools, he also argued that the Catholic Church was being treated unfairly in the wake of its pedophile priest scandals.

Well. No wonder the guy hates my books.

But that got me thinking, What the hell kind of an organization wants this guy reviewing books for them? San Francisco Book Review my ass!

And of course when I Googled that organization, I quickly discovered that they have little or no real connection to San Francisco, but are a satellite of The Sacramento Book Review, which in turn belongs to a company called 1776 Productions. If that doesn't sound like some kind of right-wing action organization, I don't know what does. The capper? The San Francisco Book Review appears to have been founded by a guy who did jail time for telemarketing fraud!

Unbelievable.

What's funny is that my books are about these kinds of crazy conspiracies. I just always thought I was writing fiction!

Source: http://xombierama.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-dont-mind-bad-review-from-crackpot.html

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