Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Yo. Sorry I've been scarce for a little bit here... Been occupied in the last few weeks with a little debate with a top 500 reviewer on Amazon named lordhoot - pretty savvy fella, except for the 4-star review he had posted in 04 for House Harkonnen...

I've been lurking and circulating through the Dune, KJA and general SF/F communities there, as well as tossing out comments on McDune reviews pell-mell, when lo and behold someone deigned to respond! I was quite astonished, and started blah-blah-blahing with him through a few pretty interesting exchanges... just thought I'd share the link here, in case anyone wanted to comment:

http://www.amazon.com/review/ROP4ZEITOV ... hisHelpful" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I know my opinions on Brian's potential are not shared by many, but I tossed them out there, as well as the fact that even though Keith sucks, he does work hard producing his crap by the cartload LOL - I'd love to hear whatever y'all here think about this exchange.

Feel free to respond to the exchange up on Amazon too - I've noticed a dearth of OH'ers commenting on some of these reviews, but have noticed that the few comments made seem to garner a lot of unexpected support, and raises awareness (if you care about that kind of thing LOL)...

That was pretty f'n cool G. Well Done! How could you not feel good about that! You've definately earned the right to crow about this, mate! 'Atta Boy!

Thanks! I found it quite challenging to put all that down - knowing it's amazon kind of made me nervous - and the fact that he has 700+ reviews that were rated well by tons of people... yea - I put a bit of thought into my responses it was draining, but I do feel pretty alright... most of it was due to the fact that he'd listened openly though... props to him

grandmastercrafter wrote:... the fact that even though Keith sucks, he does work hard producing his crap by the cartload ...

Not true.

He does everything he can to get out of doing any real work. He talks into a recorder instead of sitting in front of an actual keyboard; he hands off those sound files to a typist rather than transcribing them himself; he watches TV and listens to the stereo instead of concentrating on editing. He's turned the writing process into a production line of pure crap, but that doesn't mean he's working. It just means he figured out: 1. how to beat the system, and, 2. most SF/F fanbois will buy anything.

Cops work hard; teachers work hard; guys on construction sites work hard. Kevin J. Anderhack is a lazy piece of shit who is fundamentally incapable of doing any real work.

Good job! You got him to stop being defensive and actually see reason.

Thanks Mandy! It was a fun ride - now I'm waiting to see if anyone else responds to my willy-nilly comments over there, on other reviews and my follow-ups to other OH comments/reviews... generally I'm the latecomer to the game though - there was one post with Conway and a whole bunch of OH'ers that made my head spin, but it ended like a year back or something I was sad about that.

Dukester: When you put it like that, you've definitely got a point: "He's turned the writing process into a production line of pure crap, but that doesn't mean he's working. It just means he figured out: 1. how to beat the system, and, 2. most SF/F fanbois will buy anything." ...but doesn't it take some hard work to pinch a loaf? and what about those poor strained vocal cords of his, eh? They probably need a good massage, you know?

And anyways - I think he works dam hard at pretending to work dam hard. That's hard work right there

Pshaw
edit; As a ruse, I can think of worse concessions to make. Defending it is silly. Given his track record of lies about every little incosequential thing, i'd be surprized if he actually does produce anything himself. There, I said it! I have doubts that he actually dictahikes anything himself!

Like I tell my kids... if you spent half as much time doing it as you do whining about it you'd already be done.

or they could whine twice as much

D Pope wrote:As a ruse, I can think of worse concessions to make. Defending it is silly. Given his track record of lies about every little incosequential thing, i'd be surprized if he actually does produce anything himself. There, I said it! I have doubts that he actually dictahikes anything himself!

Maybe he hires someone to dictahike for him?

KJA claims to have dictated a whole slew of nuDune - that's a ton of McDunifications... it can't be easy producing that much shit consistently over a decade, can it? (that's a real question - all the stuff he's done is not effortless, is it?) - not honest work, per se, but work of a kind... a lot of it. A decade-long dump, with all the strain that implies.

If only he'd strain hard enough to have a heart attack!

Mandy wrote:If only he'd strain hard enough to have a heart attack!

I read some of that .... I'll read it in detail later ...

at first, I was going to tell GMC that when he starts an online conversation like this,
he should post about it here or @T(A)U, so I could pile on ...

but in this case, that probably wouldn't've been helpful - GMC played an effective
Lundse-role here by being polite and expressing an opinion that apparently actually
enlightened this guy ....

I'd've just called him an asshat and pissed him off ...
fun & entertaining, but again, probably not helpful ...

also:
@SandChigger - I've been wondering about this for some time, but never got around to posting ...

what's your (professional) opinion on the habit I have of using double-contractions ?
it seems to make sense when trying to capture the sense of my spoken voice, and seems
to read alright, for me, anyway ...

any English-majors out there, too, how much of an offense to the Written Language is this ?

hey sandrider - what's a lundse-role? if it's good - thanks! I was lucky in this case, though, to get someone who reads alot of really top-notch books and reviews them regularly, and gets quite a few bumps from those who appreciate his views. I imagine most preeqs/preeq sympathizers aren't so amenable to the points I made, since I've used them before and become enmeshed in the perpetual circular argument... I'd recommend lordhoot's reviews to any of you who are interested in mil history - his writing (he admits himself) is not so hot, but he manages to get his points across nicely, and having knowledge on the subjects of some of the books he's read, I tend to agree with much of what he says about the subject matter...

...and yea - next time (and I'm sure there will be a next time) I'll post info up here before or right after starting something like this... I was just so caught up in trying to keep my responses relevant to lordhoot's points... didn't even think to call in big guns or backup, and wasn't considering y'all here until I got near the 'endpoint'. (I responded to your comment over there too, btw - nicely said!!)

...and my $0.02: I'd've said that there'dn't be an issue with double, or even triple contractions... if it's'n affront, it'd've been relatively minor in the big scheme of things. They're'll just unused, not wrong. (although that last one was totally wrong - - I just made that up just now, and don't think it'll've been included in any contraction listing. But if you use it enough, and others do too, then we'll've injected a new one into the language - a lonely, noble pursuit, using contractions...).

I'd've, it'll've, we'll've

I use those all the time when speaking.

right, I'm just wondering what the English-majors opinions are, in using them in the written language ...

sometimes, it almost seems perfectly correct and proper ...

but then you got your redneck contractions, which really become whole new words ...

Widja-didja - "Hey Bubba, you didn't bring your truck widja-didja ?"


@GMC - lundse is an OH who has repeatedly tried to sway opinions and correct mis-understandings
about Frank's Dune with polite, well-reasoned and very complete posts, and never falling into angry
"fuck you, you stupid shitheel" responses no matter how dense and stubborn the other person is ...

for this effort, I believe he was banned from the Official Corporate Dune Forum, but I'm not sure ...

I believe he's posted in the Amazon threads, but I'm not sure under what name (it may be a variation
of "lundse", I don't have time to go look right now ....)

Wimmy, widja, widim, widder, widuss, widdem...

You just added Semitic(or Celtic)-style "conjugated prepositions" to English.


IMHO things like I'd've, we'll've, etc., are fine for representing (or effecting the flavor of) spoken conversation.

SandRider wrote:... by being polite and expressing an opinion that apparently actually
enlightened this guy.

I don't know. Near the end he suddenly changed his opinion. Maybe he was more like "Always agree with the crazy person, pretend you're on his side, that will calm him down. Then quietly walk away."

SandRider wrote:right, I'm just wondering what the English-majors opinions are, in using them in the written language ...

SandChigger wrote:IMHO things like I'd've, we'll've, etc., are fine for representing (or effecting the flavor of) spoken conversation.

Speaking as another English major, I agree.

Nekhrun wrote:

SandRider wrote:right, I'm just wondering what the English-majors opinions are, in using them in the written language ...

SandChigger wrote:IMHO things like I'd've, we'll've, etc., are fine for representing (or effecting the flavor of) spoken conversation.

Speaking as another English major, I agree.

Speaking as a Film major, I think it's devolved.

merkin muffley wrote:Speaking as a Film major, I think it's devolved.

WAKE UP NEBBY! WAKE UP!

dunaddict wrote:

SandRider wrote:... by being polite and expressing an opinion that apparently actually
enlightened this guy.

I don't know. Near the end he suddenly changed his opinion. Maybe he was more like "Always agree with the crazy person, pretend you're on his side, that will calm him down. Then quietly walk away."

hehehe - well, I hope I didn't come across as a crazy guy... I thought through everything I wrote beforehand, and kept the tone level, but stuck to my guns, and kept it on-topic. He made another comment this morning/last night in that same thread, stating publicly that he agrees with our POV... and that he doesn't want to delete the review cause the whole comments list will be gone, and he doesn't want that.

I agree with his take on that too - the fact that a top-500 reviewer changed his opinion based on a discussion with an OH has to be relevant, at least to some small degree, no? I may not like the whole 4-star thing, but he's willing to say he was wrong publicly - however you look at it, that's got to influence people who read the whole shebang... and that takes integrity and courage, even if it is anon...

...and anyways - time will tell. I've added him to my friends list, so I'll be able to assess whether he's sincere given more time and data. We'll be talking about other things, though, I'm sure, but I'll keep you posted (if he doesn't join here first - I have asked him to check us out, so who knows if he'd join us or not).

Maybe check out his other reviews, those of you who have an interest in military history, or history of any kind... lordhoot didn't come across to me as a 'yes' man

SandRider wrote:right, I'm just wondering what the English-majors opinions are, in using them in the written language ...

Hehehe - well, I majored in linguistics, back in the day, but English is my first language, and I work on formal (English) documents regularly in RL, but don't worry about it in my experience you'd never use contractions like these in formal documents, but from all I know there's nothing wrong with using them to communicate in general... languages are subject to change anyways, and rules like these regarding contractions and/or other inconsequentials will be broken, given time. You may as well start now... this is casual written English we're talking about here... correct?

SandRider wrote:@GMC - lundse is an OH who has repeatedly tried to sway opinions and correct mis-understandings about Frank's Dune with polite, well-reasoned and very complete posts, and never falling into angry "fuck you, you stupid shitheel" responses no matter how dense and stubborn the other person is ...

for this effort, I believe he was banned from the Official Corporate Dune Forum, but I'm not sure ...

I believe he's posted in the Amazon threads, but I'm not sure under what name (it may be a variation of "lundse", I don't have time to go look right now ....)

Ok - I see - so did he have any success in changing anyone's opinion? Sounds like he should have been at least partially successful... I always like to start with 'nice' and then progress slowly to 'asshole', as needed.

wait a sec - Lundse's a member here too, eh? (just checked our members here) I wonder what he thinks of this exchange? Hope he'd have pointers for me... (btw - am always open to any suggestions on how to try to be more effective)

SandChigger wrote:

merkin muffley wrote:Speaking as a Film major, I think it's devolved.

WAKE UP NEBBY! WAKE UP!

Huh? What?

Nebiros wrote:

SandChigger wrote:

merkin muffley wrote:Speaking as a Film major, I think it's devolved.

WAKE UP NEBBY! WAKE UP!

Huh? What?

Oh, look. It worked.