The Thrill of Discovery

I don't look at reviews. Well, as of now, I don't have any, but I don't look at ANY book reviews. In this day and age, they're little more than ego-strokers and, having been in writing groups and poring through pages, most reviews are useless, solicited and even paid for. Very few of them even say anything that might be helpful to decide and, quite frankly...

I don't give a fuck.

There is not a single book I've read that was ever gotten on a recommendation or a review or some mainstream ass grab. Discovery has been VERY integral in finding the gems in my life.

Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy was a book that my friend Emily tossed at me that she got from who-knows-where. We were little kleptos back then so she probably lifted it from a bookstore.

Harry Potter? No clue what it was until I saw the first movie and fell in love. Even though I enjoyed the whole series in parts, nothing really beats the first two books and movies for me. The young bright eyed Harry is still my favorite. The initial whimsy beats out all the attempt at darkening the plot.

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Found Queen of the Damned in my dad's girlfriend's book collection when she moved in. 

Guy Gavriel Kay's The Summer Tree. In my parent's book collection although neither could say where they got it.

Rand and Robyn Miller (Myst/Riven). Yup, played the million disc PS1 version of Riven and had to find the books.

Dark Tower series? Stayed with my mom one summer and decided to rob one of the yard-sale books she used to prop up her wobbly bed frame. This one happened to contain the Sisters of Eluria short story.

I could probably go on and on, just sitting on my bed and squinting to look at my book collection on the other side of my room, but I believe you get the gist of it. Some of us discovery junkies still exist. We still troll libraries, close our eyes and play Pin the Tail on the Donkey in the bookstore, find some dusty book in a rummage sale. It's one of the main reasons I find it so hard to push the sale of my own books. I don't just want success or attention-- I truly want people to enjoy the thrill of discovery, to try my book on a whim.

All these summers where I could have played a video game or played outside and instead I found a world in a discovered book. I truly wish I could give that feeling to people. That they'd stop looking for guarantees, wander outside their damn niches from time to time, wander into uncharted territory and risk reading a bad book. Because yeah, there were some stinkers in there. It might not necessarily have been a bad book, could have even been popular or 'classic' but that's the beauty of literature-- it's a fickle moodlet, a place for introspection or boredom or demands or acceptance.  

So yeah, book reviews are something I will consistently ignore (although, I do crawl through ones of books I didn't enjoy because there's some sick pleasure in seeing those honest and creative bad reviews. People tend to be creative in their brutality sometimes). It's usually a tainted system no matter how much legitimate book reviewers still try to revive it.

Yes, please read my books. Constructive criticism, even more yes. But the less you know going in, the better. The less you can compare it to, the less guarantees, the better. I won't do that. It's a story and one I worked hard to write. I will write many more and they're not going to be like the others, sometimes even vastly different. I want to try new approaches, different perspectives, different moods. I want fill shelves with books that people love and hate, but still stay curious.