Now this is just SAD.

Christopher Pike has a new book out. You may remember him from such forgettable tripe of your teen years as... as... well, I forget.

Point is that the book is full of easily checked inaccuracies. For example, he placed a random desert in the heavily religious nation of Turkey, the capital of which is Istanbul. (At least it's not Constantinople, right?)

I would've put it down after Istanbul (the real capital, of course, is Ankara), but I'm strict about this.

This poor girl persevered until she was fed up enough to write a ranting review of it, prompting "one of Christopher Pike's editors" to come by and flame her. His own reviews are... effusive, to say the least.

Sadly, it turns out that Michael Brite is, in fact, Christopher Pike (omg i am so surprised)... or else a seriously pathological liar. And he admits to having multiple accounts, which explains some of the other glowing reviews out there. I was wondering who these folks were who kept popping up to claim that whichever Pike book it is is better than various classics of literature. Now we know.

It's pathetic enough for an author to do this once, under one assumed name, but repeatedly? I have no words to describe how unbelievably, unbearably sad that is.

Also, I had no idea this made it to Fandom_Wank.

In an amazing contrast....

A few weeks ago I reviewed Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power. I mostly liked the book, except that it had a lot of what I felt - and still feel! - was very clunky writing.

I should've just said that, but I was hopped up on a night of TVTropes and instead wrote a super duper long review. Which I was a little embarrassed over, but not enough to edit later. (It's not my best review ever.)

Now, when you write a critical review, even if it's just a little critical, you're likely to get replies from people who are personally offended that you might care what the capital of Turkey is, or that you think it'd be nice for there to be more than 0 black people in an alphabet book, that sort of thing. (And let me tell you, I am positively generous with points when I'm giving a critical review!)

So I was pleasantly surprised by the response by the author. What's this? No hissy fit? No temper tantrum? DUDE.

Admittedly, my surprise has a lot to do with the recent Christopher Pike fiasco. In the normal course of things I'd just smile a little, but now I'm making a post to say two things:

1. THIS is how you handle comments. You reply in a civil and polite manner, and you do so openly and honestly without hiding your identity in any way.

2. Aside from what I considered clunky writing, I liked the book. The premise (and the hidden premise behind it) was actually pretty interesting, and the plot moved along nicely. Would I suggest you pick it up as an adult who happens to read YA? Maybe not. Would I suggest you pick it up for your kid, classroom, or library? Definitely. It's not a must-have book, just a nice one, but I'll pass on any number of must-haves for an author who is also a good (or at least decent) role model. (And for that matter, not many books do fit my list of "must-haves", so it's no criticism to say this isn't one of them. That list is never longer than 10 or 15 books long... and I've got more books than that on my mantel! Eva's kindergarten teacher today said it's okay to re-read books for the book log because "you may not have 40 books at home" and I just quietly sighed to myself. NOT HAVE 40 BOOKS? Do they at least go to the library?)