Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

the only think I can gather about that is the futility of wishing. I guess he was saying that wishing we would not have to worry about the swine flu is as useless as wishing pigs had wings. If not that then I have no idea.

Slowly flushing them out over on Amazon.

I think "Prester Dilly" is probably a KJASF ARSE (Amazon Reviewer Shill Extraordinaire).

Along with Daniel MacCurdy Burnet, Brian Conway, Sean Smith, and Christie Johnson. So far.

So, what to do, Chig?

You can comment on each review, so should we be adding a stock reply to each of these shill reviews, stating that it was written by a special forces member?

(I think the original author can delete any comments to their reviews, tho, which may defeat the purpose).

HBJ

Baraka Bryan wrote:this entire forum is actually just a bunch of personalities in Chig's schitzophrenic mind

So we're all just a mote in chiggers eye..?

I'd figured out three of those just by looking at 'Pile of Dung' - its just too easy - talk about a lack of subtlety

It's pretty obvious when someone shows up out of nowhere and posts a glowing review of a McDune book or two (or 30 ) or goes on the attack on the discussion threads that they're a fanboy and have an agenda (not that having an agenda is necessarily bad, seeing as I have one ), but you can't accuse someone of being a shill on the basis of one review. Even membership in the KJASF doesn't guarantee the person is a shill ... they could be a genuine fan of KJA and his books who takes the review system over on Amazon quite seriously ... in which case all we can say is they have bad taste in books and/or are an idiot.

Anyway, I'm just saying we have to be careful about accusing people of shilling. It's enough just to indicate the possibility and let people decide on their own on the basis of the reviews written and comments made.

Well, like we did with the reviews of Paul and others, we should point out that most of the 1-star reviews posted more information about why we didn't like the book than all of the 5-star reviews put together. We've done well in stating that our mission is not against the people who honestly think that PoD deserved 5 stars, but against the people who obviously haven't read much of the book and are flooding it with 5 star reviews when the book is rife with errors and poor writing.

I still don't get how a clown like JKA can even have fan-boys. Where do these tools come from, and even if they think that its good writing at first, what keeps them from realizing as they mature into teens that it's shit?

I don't think they're really KJA fanboys, but franchise fanboys. Then they go buy a book about it by KJA because they want more. Now they think they're literate fanboys and if you try to tell them what they read is shit they're personally insulted.

Omphalos wrote:I still don't get how a clown like JKA can even have fan-boys. Where do these tools come from, and even if they think that its good writing at first, what keeps them from realizing as they mature into teens that it's shit?

I totally agree; it makes no sense at all.

I can think of only one explanation: KJA is easy to read (in terms of requiring his readers to think). His books all follow the same formula:

• Action scene
  Meaningless dialogue
  Action scene
  Meaningless dialogue

... and repeat, over and over, until he has filled up whatever number of pages or chapters that are enough to give him a diamond-cutter during the week he wrote the book.

Add to the formula the endless repetition of certain items, then subtract common elements from other writers such as plot, character development, and any sort of style or nuance, and there you go: an easy-to-read comic book without the pictures. Slap a big franchise like DUNE or STAR WARS on the cover and there's your instant fanboy gratification.

Some people just don't like to be challenged. TheKJA is a perfect author for them.

I think you underestimate the number of bored science fiction and fantasy fans who are unwilling to either experiment outside the genre or grow as individuals. I've encountered sci-fi and fantasy fans who are so inert and so dependent upon the genres, they will lay down money on the hope that a Uwe Boll film will be worth watching. I shit you not. Where normal people will enjoy a variety of media and consciously filter what they watch to mostly avoid repeating poor quality productions, there is a certain significant portion of consumers who will purchase and watch the most poor quality productions as long as they carry a sci-fi/fantasy label.

Right now, there is a guy on another message board I visit who is literally stuck in 1985. He regularly posts reviews for a sickeningly embarrassing assortment of b-grade horror, sci-fi and fantasy entertainment from the 1980s. He watches literally nothing else. Carnosaur, Robot Jox, Krull (yes, the one mentioned in the other thread), Wing Commander, et cetera. With perhaps 1 out of every 99 reviews he MIGHT hit upon something passably good, like Tremors. But this guy is a goldmine for awful genre entertainment. And he's not alone.

These are the kind of people who buy KJA novels. They digest the worst kind of schlock as long as it has a sci-fi/fantasy label. A rather sizable consumer market exists that can support entire industries of shit product. Then there will always be a portion of the mainstream consumer base that is willing to take chances on even the most ridiculous crap. Combine those two and there's apparently millions of dollars to be made. You wouldn't think these markets exist, but they do.

I have to agree with the label theory. Its the same thing that's happened in the gaming community, people will buy X because its from Series X and the community will split with each new X release. Its amazing the lengths people will go to to defend the new X regardless of it's superiority/ (and usually) inferiority. They want to be in on the new thing, and be recognized as a supporter. With KJA giving his hardcore fans his personal attention at the detriment of his detractors, and now rewards; actively letting them into the "war" on which side of the DUNE argument is "right" I think the shills and fanboys will come out of the woodwork, just to be "in" on the new thing. They are totally immune to the 'sanctity' of Canon DUNE and its related arguments.

A quick add:

I think think these two passages ...

TheDukester wrote:Some people just don't like to be challenged. TheKJA is a perfect author for them.

GamePlayer wrote:I think you underestimate the number of bored science fiction and fantasy fans who are unwilling to either experiment outside the genre or grow as individuals.

... are very similar. I think we're saying the same thing, but approaching it from different tracks.

GamePlayer wrote:I think you underestimate the number of bored science fiction and fantasy fans who are unwilling to either experiment outside the genre or grow as individuals. I've encountered sci-fi and fantasy fans who are so inert and so dependent upon the genres, they will lay down money on the hope that a Uwe Boll film will be worth watching. I shit you not. Where normal people will enjoy a variety of media and consciously filter what they watch to mostly avoid repeating poor quality productions, there is a certain significant portion of consumers who will purchase and watch the most poor quality productions as long as they carry a sci-fi/fantasy label.

Right now, there is a guy on another message board I visit who is literally stuck in 1985. He regularly posts reviews for a sickeningly embarrassing assortment of b-grade horror, sci-fi and fantasy entertainment from the 1980s. He watches literally nothing else. Carnosaur, Robot Jox, Krull (yes, the one mentioned in the other thread), Wing Commander, et cetera. With perhaps 1 out of every 99 reviews he MIGHT hit upon something passably good, like Tremors. But this guy is a goldmine for awful genre entertainment. And he's not alone.

These are the kind of people who buy KJA novels. They digest the worst kind of schlock as long as it has a sci-fi/fantasy label. A rather sizable consumer market exists that can support entire industries of shit product. Then there will always be a portion of the mainstream consumer base that is willing to take chances on even the most ridiculous crap. Combine those two and there's apparently millions of dollars to be made. You wouldn't think these markets exist, but they do.

Did I hear someone say KRULL? Fuckyeah - I loved that movie as a kid. Piece of junk, but in that magical way that only the 80s managed to bring to us.

Look at his color and posture, Brian seems to be...dead! perhaps that Weekend at Bernie's conspiracy theory is real!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1str-3iRSw

Ampoliros wrote:


WHICH IS WORSE KEVIN?

These are the kind of people who buy KJA novels. They digest the worst kind of schlock as long as it has a sci-fi/fantasy label. A rather sizable consumer market exists that can support entire industries of shit product. Then there will always be a portion of the mainstream consumer base that is willing to take chances on even the most ridiculous crap. Combine those two and there's apparently millions of dollars to be made. You wouldn't think these markets exist, but they do.

Are you saying that KJA is a sort of literary Ed Wood and that he has a following that loves crap ? Now that makes sense to me...

Rakis wrote:Are you saying that KJA is a sort of literary Ed Wood and that he has a following that loves crap ? Now that makes sense to me...

I think he gained a following in a genre where writing quality wasn't so important - the movie and tv tie-in genre.

I was an X-files fan in the nineties, and I read his X-files novels, and they were quite good. He got the basic idea of what kind of weirdness you need for an X-files episode, he got the basic interaction between Mulder and Scully right, and the writing was competent enough to keep the story going.

I suspect his motivation for writing them was the same as always - riding on the coattails of an established franchise. But I think he was probably an X-files fan, and he knew enough not to stray too far from the basic formula, and the result was acceptable for a tv tie-in novel.

Where he goes wrong is when he steps beyond that safe zone, and tries to add to *literary* series, or to "improve on" the existing framework of the franchise he's writing for. Hence the furor over his Star Wars novels, and Dune, of course. Because frankly, he doesn't have the writing chops to do the literary series justice, and he doesn't have the discipline or lack of ego to know when *not* to add extraneous crap to an existing universe.

But a lot of readers don't see the problem with him crossing that line - they just want more Dune, more Starcraft, more Star Wars, more of their favourite movie or TV thing. And in that context, a crappy star wars novel is not a big deal.

HBJ

Yet another perceptive analysis.

I think I've probably read a grand total of three, maybe four, novelizations of movies or TV shows in my life; they're just not my cup of tea. So naturally I'd never heard of Kevin J. Anderson before I read The Butlerian Jihad.

So ... you think they'll let him do the Berg movie book?

(One more time! )

It was not exactly my situation, when I was in High School I was reading Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, & Isaac Asimov (The club of mystery, my first Asimov book) and...buying every printed crap with the logo STAR WARS printed on the cover...Only recently (ten years ago, I bought my first Dune novel: Dune Messiah), I must have read at least three KJA SW novels I remember that one where the Hutts build a cylindrical Death Star, bad, a very bad read.

Sandchigger, without your permission (and an apology If It was wrong) I posted your post (from the Amazon group), slightly edited to a Star Wars group:
Kevin J. Anderson started up a special, membership-by-invitation-only
website called "KJA Special Forces" (http://www.kjasf.com). KJA fans who join
are expressly asked, among other activities, to "post reviews on
Amazon.com and other sites", in return for which they are promised
various "exclusive member benefits" and "rewards".

I can't see how this can be viewed as anything other than a deliberate
attempt to recruit shills to post overly favorable "reviews" of KJA's
books and unfairly manipulate the results of the customer review
system on Amazon. With the deletion of many unfavorable, honest
reviews of the newer Dune books, while single-or-few-line, five-star
"reviews" were left stand, many have suspected shill activity. Now we
have apparent proof of it.

One member of the KJASF site has already gone on a "review rampage" on
Amazon, posting 54 "reviews" (many consisting of just a few lines) of
KJA books over a three-day period at the end of April.

If you value the integrity of the customer review system at all,
please help watch for suspicious activity in the reviews.

Rakis wrote:

These are the kind of people who buy KJA novels. They digest the worst kind of schlock as long as it has a sci-fi/fantasy label. A rather sizable consumer market exists that can support entire industries of shit product. Then there will always be a portion of the mainstream consumer base that is willing to take chances on even the most ridiculous crap. Combine those two and there's apparently millions of dollars to be made. You wouldn't think these markets exist, but they do.

Are you saying that KJA is a sort of literary Ed Wood and that he has a following that loves crap ? Now that makes sense to me...

I guess that's OK.

In the sense that I suppose their activities will include all his books. I don't really care about the Batman meats Superman slash shit, or his SW or X Files or Nemo-fucks-a-mermaid etc etc whatever books, I'm just watching the Dune stuff. He can have his "original" (snicker) series and what-have-you. I just want the fucker away from Dune.

Kevin J. Anderson started up a special, membership-by-invitation-only
website called "KJA Special Forces" (http://www.kjasf.com). KJA fans who join
are expressly asked, among other activities, to "post reviews on
Amazon.com and other sites", in return for which they are promised
various "exclusive member benefits" and "rewards".

Now that's one thing people should be warned about.

I suggest we all rate their reviews (thumbs up/thumbs down). If a review gets enough thumbs down it will be removed.

SandChigger wrote: I don't really care about the Batman meats Superman slash shit, or his SW or X Files or Nemo-fucks-a-mermaid etc etc whatever books, I'm just watching the Dune stuff.

Was that deliberate?

SadisticCynic wrote:

SandChigger wrote: I don't really care about the Batman meats Superman slash shit, or his SW or X Files or Nemo-fucks-a-mermaid etc etc whatever books, I'm just watching the Dune stuff.

Was that deliberate?

It's funny you bring this up, I watched Chasing Amy last night, Holden was paying off Jay and Silent Bob for likeness rights to Bluntman and Chronic and Jay requested a female supervilian with big boobs that would be forced to have sex with his Chronic character.

I couldn't help but think of KJA.