A Writer's Tale

My fellow writers! Maybe I went overboard in the above, but it was lots of fun.

Why should mean-spirited reviewers be allowed to attack us without any fear of retribution?

Most of us, most of the time, tend to laugh off vicious reviews. And many such reviews are funny, because they’re so idiotic. But the reviews do hurt. You know they do. We read them and we get a sick little feeling in the pits of our stomachs even when we know the review is trash and the reviewer is a dumb puke.

They make us feel rotten, but we say, “Even a bad review is better than no review at all. Publicity is publicity.”

Maybe so.

But a lot of people out there haven’t yet discovered our books, and they are being turned against us when they read reviews that make our work look like crud.

Suppose a potential fan hasn’t yet read any of your books.

Suppose, before he or she gets the chance, along comes a piece of misleading garbage written about it by someone with a grudge. This person, who might’ve absolutely fallen in love with your stuff, never gives you a try.

Thanks to someone who hates your guts and has a forum.

Thanks to your tribe of enemies.

My tribe includes David Kuehls, Linda Marotta, Ellen Datlow and Stefan Dziemianowicz.

Their reviews aren’t reviews at all, but personal assaults committed on someone they don’t even know and had no reasonable cause to hate.

These are ruthless, gleeful muggings.

I want everyone who reads this article to know that their reviews of my work are based on their own little secret grudges and agendas and have little to do with the piece of fiction that they are purporting to review.

I also want everyone to know that I consider the publication of such reviews to be a personal attack on me by the publisher who provides a forum to these muggers.

Furthermore… !

Hey, my friends, let’s hear from you. Who is out there nailing you? Time to name names and kick butt. The creeps have been mucking with us, unscathed.

Time for us to do some scathing of our own!

Write in!

If nothing else, you’ll have a good time, you’ll be giving moral support to their victims, you’ll be letting a rather significant corner of our horror community know who is out to get you, and you’ll really piss off the reviewers who already despise you. Need anyone ask for more?

That’s my article. Unaltered, unexpurgated, unimproved.

Mike Baker was happy to publish it exactly as I’d written it.

I felt as if I’d tossed a hand grenade into a crowded room full of enemies.

I wasn’t exactly present to observe the results, but I know for a fact that all four of my targets got hit. I heard about it from people who knew them.

And I grinned.

Vengeance is wonderful.

Not only did I strike out at my four reviewers, but I attacked on behalf of every writer who’d been ambushed by such people.

From what I hear, the article caused a stir. Not only were copies of Afraid being snatched up, but photocopies of “The Lizzie Borden Syndrome” were making the rounds.

Apparently, it was the talk of the “horror community.”

Shortly after the article appeared, I received letters and phone calls from several writers who applauded my counterattack.

Their names would be familiar to you, but they might not wish to be publicly associated with this matter, so I’ll keep their identities to myself.

I even got a call from Richard Chizmar, publisher of Cemetery Dance, the magazine which had printed the Dziemianowicz review. Rich expressed concern that I might be angry with him for allowing the review to be printed. He’d noticed my statement, “I consider the publication of such reviews to be a personal attack on me by the publisher who provides a forum to these muggers.” We had a nice talk. He seemed like a fine gentleman and a really nice guy, so naturally I felt guilty about upsetting him. I assured him that I didn’t hold anything against him. We would later work together on numerous occasions and Rich has recently brought out the first and only hardbound edition of The Cellar.

In recent years, Stefan Dziemianowicz has been the editor (along with the wonderful Martin Greenberg) of several anthologies. As such, he has purchased some of my short stories.

I no longer bear any hard feelings toward him, and rather regret the nasty things I wrote about him in “The Lizzie Borden Syndrome.”

I also regret using the phrase “mean-spirited.” I have grown to hate those words because of certain unsavory political connotations. I couldn’t change them, however, without compromising the integrity of the article.

So I apologize to Stefan and I apologize for using such garbage language as “mean-spirited.”

I never received any sort of apology or explanation from Fangoria. Not that I expected anything of the sort. But I’d been a major fan of Fangoria (and own some extremely valuable back issues). Before the reviewer incidents took place, I’d had very good feelings about the magazine.

1. Fangoria had published a feature article about me, prepared by Stanley Wiater.