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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m reading Sea of Tranquility. I’m not sure about it.

I loved Station Eleven. I’d say I liked Glass Hotel quite a bit. I’m roughly 1/3 into Sea of Tranquility and not disliking it…but I’m not taking to it in quite the same way. I can’t put a finger on why. I do like speculative fiction/sci fi/time travel stuff. Maybe it’ll improve, I’m not sure. [/quote]

I posted on a recent thread about Sea of Tranquility. For me, it did not improve. I mean I liked it ok, but I absolutely loved Station Eleven and this was much weaker IMO. Needed to be fleshed out much more. There’s also a specific plot point that I disliked but I won’t mention here as to not spoil it for you. [/quote]

Yes, I'm the PP above and just finished it. I ended up actively disliking it. I actually laughed aloud a few times towards the end at the absurdity. I think that the strength of my dislike for it is a testament to how good her other books are-- she can do better, so why publish this? Did no one edit it? I thought "Station Eleven" was a truly elegant twist on the dystopian novel, and so I was pretty excited to see what she did with sci-fi/speculative fiction. Not much, it appears.

Anyway, I'm on to reading "Prophet Song" now.[/quote]

Not the PP you were talking to about Station Eleven / Sea of Tranquility, but someone who agrees and worked in publishing. Two things often happen after a book is big hit, like Station Eleven was in 2020/ 2021. The first is that publishers ask writers for any older manuscripts they've not previously got off the ground, they dust them off and publish them as "new" work in order to cash in further. The other thing, is if they do present new work which isn't quite up to par, the editors are often afraid of getting their red pens out and alienating their new star author. The most obvious example of this is JK Rowling, whose books got longer and longer because the editors just let her do whatever she wanted after a certain level of fame / hits / income. [/quote]

Do you think the authors themselves start refusing edits? I've heard that about Dana Gabaldon...that she blows deadlines and refuses to edit, but her books sell amazingly well, so we get 900 pages of drivel?[/quote]

I can't speculate on her or the origin of the behaviors, or that particular author. One way of explaining it broadly, is that it's a kind of entitlement, but it is also about handling sensitive personalities. If you have an author who is crushed by a ton of editorial input on the book they've spent the last year sweating themselves to death by writing and then they go silent and sulk for 2 weeks after getting the feedback, they are more likely to be lost to a rival publisher / agent when they get the chance to leave (when the contract ends or is broken) than if you handle them with kid gloves. Most writers in my experience can be sensitive one way or another. Sometimes they also behave extremely badly and it's always been for those of us behind the scenes to manage it in the best ways possible. [/quote]

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