The Author/Reviewer Cold War

Let's talk about this madness for a moment.

To summarize: Someone on Goodreads posted an apparently less than favorable review of a particular book. Now, this happens all the time. Reviews come in all shades, from scathing to glowing, and with all levels of eloquence and professionalism. Now lately, there's been a cold war brewing between authors and reviewers based on less than favorable reviews.

Up to this point, said cold war has been confined to various levels of cyber-bullying, from classic CAPS LOCK RAGE posts to petty nonsense like getting all of a certain reviewer's posts pulled from Amazon. I don't know all the details.

What I do know is, with the story linked above, this whole thing has progressed beyond good-old-fashioned 'net warring and into a real-world threat being made against a real-life person, who was made to feel unsafe in her own home. All for the audacity of having an opinion and expressing it in a public forum.

Urban fantasy author Stacia Kane weighs in here, although that blog post was made before the harrassing phone calls started.

YA author Claudia Gray weighs in here, which is how I became aware of the current situation.

I'm not going to go into detail about the obvious here, because there's a lot of wrongness going down on both sides, and I think it's blindingly clear where it all is. It is unethical and way petty to name-call and nitpick whether you're writing a review or responding to one. It is unwise at best as an author to respond to any review, anywhere, ever, for a variety of reasons. It is nasty and vindictive to try to tear down amateur reviewers for not liking your book and saying so, no matter how they say it. And it is fucking CRAZY to go organize a vigilante website for the express purpose of threatening amateur reviewers, no matter what they said or how they said it.

GUYS.

I do not want to live in a world where authors and readers treat each other this way. When did we become enemies? I thought we were all on the same team--people who love books. We don't all like the same books, and we don't even like the same things in the books we do share an opinion on. But here's the thing--I thought that was okay. As a person who reads, writes amateur reviews on occasion, and hopes to one day be published, I do not want to choose sides. I don't want there to be sides.

This isn't so widespread that it's taken over the entire Internet. I doubt any of the authors I read actually check this blog, but I like the fact that I can contact Mira Grant to tell her how awesome her zombie trilogy is (which I've done); or Kelly Meding, to tell her how much I love what she's done with gremlins (which I've also done, repeatedly). If I have something negative to say, I'm less likely to seek out an author and tell them what I thought they did wrong. But that's because it's rude and unlikely to be of any use to them. It should NEVER be because I'm in fear of what might happen to me for not liking a book and saying so.

And social etiquette still doesn't prevent me from writing a review, if I'm moved to do so.

I don't know how to stop this, but it needs to stop. Now. I don't want a war. I just want to read, write, and blog.