A Dribble of Ink

Today’s Blogger Round-Up victim participant is one close to my heart transplant.  Aidan Moher of A Dribble of Ink is one of my favorite bloggers for several reasons.  Chief among them being that he tends to have his finger on the throbbing, sweaty jugular of the fantasy industry, with more interviews, reviews, articles, opinions and hate crimes to his name than nearly any other blogger I ever heard of.  Secondarily, but no less important, is his work with the South Korean girls’ pop group, Tainted Soul in Tainted Seoul, whom he is both a founder and premiere member of.

Without further ado, please cram this interview down your ravenous gullets and permit me to introduce…

So, let’s talk about your blog for a bit.  You’re pretty connected to the news of the fantasy world, able to get interviews with such greats as Blake Charlton and even deign to speak with such no-names like Joe Abercrombie, your reviews tend to be viewed as honest and affable and you’re a writer yourself.  You’re officially one of the big names in blogging.  Do you think your success is undeserved?  And if not, don’t you think you should?  What’s next for A Dribble of Ink?

Okay, first I should clear some things up about Abercrombie. He came to me. Both times, on hands and knees, no less. I don’t know why he was so desperate, his books are pretty popular, but he hounded me excessively, begging me to allow him on the blog.

One night, at three in the morning, I got a phone call. On the other end, through the static of the trans-atlantic phonelines, I could hear heavy breath, like the person was breathing only through their mouth, and the gentle scrape of a comb running through a well-tended neck-beard.

He uttered a single phrase, which I will not appear here, that sent a chill down my spine and haunting my dreamscapes with visions of Logen, Friendly and Ferro having unending threesomes. Ever since then, he’s been allowed to come on my blog and rant, in hopes that the dreams may one day cease.

As for the success of my blog, well, I work hard on it and pour a very substantial part of myself into it, so in that respect, yeah, I think the success is deserved. That said, my official answer is: ‘I’m nothing more than a humble guy just doin’ his thing. I didn’t even know people read my blog, I guess that’s kinda neat!’. There, now I don’t sound like an asshole.

What’s next? Onwards and upwards. This year I hope to cover more short fiction and conduct more interviews. Hopefully there’s good news on my own writing, also. Then I can turn A Dribble of Ink into a platform to shill my own material. That would be good, no?

You’re considered something of a Grinch to the publishing world’s Whoville, as pertains to cover art.  A lot of people are outspoken on the subject, but you seem to lead the way in both sniffing out and criticizing cover art.  How much does cover art really affect your enjoyment of a book?  What are some covers you’re looking forward to?  What do you hold up as the worst cover, bar none?

A grinch, really?

Okay, yeah, I can be hard on covers sometimes, but I also sing to the heavens when I come across a cover I love. In the grand scheme of things, they’re not of ultimate importance. I’ve enjoyed plenty of books with shit covers, and been bored by books with fabulous covers. For that matter, the ugly US edition of Joe Abercrombie’s <strong>Best Served Cold</strong> is just as good as the beautiful UK edition.

What really gets me up in arms isn’t so much poor cover art, but rather derivative cover art. Listen, I know that Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy sold well, but that doesn’t mean that every book falling into every remotely similar sub-genre also need to have a menacing J-Crew model in a hood. To use Weeks’ novels again as an example, the reason they were successful (ignoring all the marketing based around the entire trilogy being released in paperback over the span of two-months, which couldn’t possibly be the reason the sold so well), those covers were so striking and successful at the time because the trend hadn’t yet been set and the stood out on store shelves. Now they blend in.

What I’m really pushing for is for the art and marketing departments at publishing houses to really embrace the novels they are trying to sell and creatively represent them with bold, creative covers that make the story within appear interesting, not because it looks like some other book I read. A few covers I feel accomplish this: The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan, The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham, The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham. That said, none of these sold nearly as many copies as Brent Weeks’ The Black Prism will, so what do I know?

As for recent/upcoming cover art I like?  Vance Kovacs’ art on the re-issued Elric novels is great. Irene Gallo, and the artists she’s worked with) has been doing amazing things for the E-Book edition of The Wheel of Time. Similarly, N.K. Jemisin’s debut, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms first caught my attention because of its tremendous cover.

All great bloggers earn a reputation for fearlessness and it appears criticizing authors like Goodkind and Newcomb is no particular problem for you.  Do you ever privately fear pissing someone off and being mugged and beaten with a copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED in an alley?

I suppose it’s often a concern, but I’ve been surprised by the respectable behaviour in the comments section of my website. I’ve made fun of Goodkind a few times (but, really, who hasn’t?) and not a sniff from Mystar. I’ve even managed to avoid most of the vitriol from George R.R. Martin’s ‘fans’. I don’t know how I manage it.

Still, it is a tricky line to tread as a blogger. You want to entertain your readers with brutal honesty, but you don’t want to burn bridges. I did once get a rather tart email from a rather popular author (who I respected greatly) about one of my blog posts. Had my head spinning for a couple of days.

Please share with us your most outrageous reader reaction/hatemail/lunatic adventure in blogging.

Like I mentioned earlier, my readers are a rather civil bunch, and I don’t often see the out of line reactions and commentary that some other blogs have to deal with. That said, I’ve had a couple of reactions that sure made me chuckle.

Most recently, I wrote about finishing my first novel, Through Bended Grass, and one fellow by the enigmatic name of ‘Simon’ posted this: “Hahahaha @ you ever being accepted as a writer..fuck it im laughing my nuts off here. TALK ABOUT DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR.Just vomitted im laughing so much.Good luck is most certainly the order of the day. Oh pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

To which I had to shake my head and wonder. I suppose that’s at least one reader I won’t have, should my novel ever hit the shelves.

More interesting, and likely more important, was a sharp remark made by author Paul Kearney (The Ten Thousand) on my review of his novel, which I wrote after having finished only half the novel. My review admitted this and was an exploration of why I did not feel compelled to complete the novel. Kearney wrote: “If you don’t read a book to the end, you aren’t in a position to review it. Period.”

This sparked an interesting debate around the blogosphere about the nature of reviews, and negative reviews in particular.   And, for the record, Paul and I kissed and made up long ago.

But, well, that’s all rather tame, I expect, given the responses you were hoping for! Hell, even my articles in defense of George R.R. Martin stay more or less civil.

What can I say? My readers rock.

And there you have it!  It’s worth noting that some of you may wonder if this ‘Simon’ character has any relation to Simon Spanton, my glorious editor and erstwhile foe of Moher on all matters cover-art wise.  I can put all fears to rest by saying that Simon only vomits in disgust, never in joy, and while he has been known to occasionally rend peoples’ self-esteem to ribbons, he only does so when paid to.

Cheers, Aidan, for your visit!  I hope you’ll all check out more cover art discussions and terrifying glimpses into Moher’s mind at A Dribble of Ink.