Wednesday evening just before I slipped off to bed, I got a Google alert of a new review of Vulcan’s Forge. Yes, I have an alert set up over at Google to keep me informed of when people post things about my debut novel. The review came from a person in the United Kingdom which makes sense as the publisher is a UK entity.

It was my first unqualified negative review.

I say ‘negative’ and not ‘bad’ because I do not want there to be the slightest suggestion that I imply that the review itself is poor. As I have said often in my writers group meetings no honest critique or review can be wrong. It is how that person reacted to that piece on that day. It is the underlying assumption upon which is build the critique phrase ‘Your mileage may vary.’ What is wonderful for one person is terrible to another.

How did I react to my first truly ‘I did not like this book’ review?

Shrug.

It is part of the gig. Now, I am not suggesting that anyone else is wrong is they feeling more strongly when that get a negative review. Authors are people and people differ wildly but for me I can accept that someone really did not like by work and not feel any real emotional distress. If fact I read the review and then went off to bed and slept quite well.

If it didn’t matter to me then why did I read the review? why seek them out?

Well, taking criticism is a skill and it requires practice. It’s good to get hit and learnt that you do survive it.

I’m also curious. It is fascinating to see the wildly different interpretations people have about the work. This applies to positive reviews as well as negative ones. Everyone bring their own lenses to their reading and so the exact same text will never be interpreted the same way by any two people. I love seeing the various internal codebooks through which this is deciphered. (Of course, I bring my own to the reading of these reviews and not matter how diligently I try I can never fully escape them, but still I do try.)

Perhaps for other it is very good advice to never read reviews but for me it is a fascinating glimpse into the inner working of another person’s mind.

The final stop on the blog tour for Vulcan’s Forge happened yesterday March 29^th with Jessica Belmont. She apologized for being a day late but hell, in these hectic, crazy, and frankly frightening times a date getting slipped is fully understandable. The pull quote from here review that I am using is:

Tension, intrigue, and action galore, Vulcan’s Forge was a compelling read

It has been very gratifying watching the response come in from the blog tour. The book has gathered responses from enjoyable to enthusiastic with none of the reviewers giving it bad marks or savaging the piece. That will come. It will eventually gain dreaded 1-star reviews at Amazon, Goodreads, and other places but that is how things should be. Nothing is a good fit for everyone.

This has been a long road to publication and it’s been surprising that it was my odd little SF-Noir that was the first novel to cross the finish line. This is an example of how you should not self-reject. I wrote this book for myself, first. It was what I wanted from a science-fiction noir but I wasn’t certain that others clamored for the same thing. I didn’t write this to the market and I think because of that it found its success.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the blog tour, to those who pre-ordered and have ordered the novel in these dark times you’ve given me a ray of warming sunlight.

The Blog Tour for Vulcan’s Forge continues at Scintilla. My pull quote from this review is:

Robert Mitchell Evans manages to create a world that is both a caricature and frighteningly believable. 

As they stream in it has been interesting to read the reviews of the novel. I know there is a great deal of advices suggesting that authors should not read reviews. After all reviews are for readers, to help them find the next book to add to their ‘to be read’ pile and not for feedback to the authors and there is a truth in that. Find reviewer whose taste matches closely with your own and use their information to help you find the next thing you’ll fall in love with. For author negative reviews can be emotionally crippling, or so I am told. Perhaps it is because I am coming to professional publication later in life but I find I can hold negative reviews and feedback at a personal distance. So far no one has hated the book but they will change it simply is the nature of the beast.

However, I am enjoying reading the reviews. It is fascinating to see all the various lens and interpretations that get applied to the text. In my writing group I am fond of saying that no honest critique can be wrong. It is how that person, on that day, reacted to that piece of work. Sometimes people see what is there more clearly than the author and other times what they see says much more about themselves and their worldview that it does about the words on the page. None of that is inherently right or wrong it is how people function. I can know my intention in writing a piece, or in a bit of world building but I too have lens and filters through which I interpret the world and that impacts on my world building in ways that may be invisible to me. So, some of these reviews might even open interpretation that I agree with but never considered because the very premises were obscured from me.

I hope that when the inevitable terrible review rolls in I will react the way I suspect I will. I have always been that sort of person for whom a professional rejection carries little emotional weight. The rejection slip doesn’t trigger imposter syndrome or send me spiraling into self-doubt and depression. My reaction to rejection slips has always been, ‘okay, not for them’ and sending the piece on to the next editor. We shall see if I feel the same way once the first 1-star reviews start appearing on Amazon.

It is now 6 days, less than a week, until Flametree Press publishes my first novel, Vulcan’s Forge.

First novel is such a strange term. Certainly, from the point of view of reviews and the public this is number one but from the point of view of the author it is far from my first, merely the first to survive until publication.

The very first novel I ever write was way way back in 1979 during my senior year of high school. Freeeholder was a post-apocalyptic adventure novel centered on a culture of liberal pacifist survivalists.

After my tour in the U.S. Navy there was a significant period of time when I did no writing whatsoever and even following that years long dry period what I attempted to write were screenplays.

It really wasn’t until the late 90s that I returned to prose writing and then it was short stories as I was quite fearful of the commitment required for a novel. During the 2000s I started writing novels again when a particular idea seized my and would not let go until had committed it to prose.

Several novels were then written over the years, some are destined to be re-written and some are going to be forever abandoned but all were learning experiences that extended my abilities as a writer.

Vulcan’s Forge started prior to 2015 when I first wrote it as a novella but that was far too brief for the world building required for this SF noir. The novel version was written and completed in 2017. At the time I had an agent and I turned the manuscript in to him and it sat on his desk unread for year until our association was dissolved.

2019 I submitted it to Flametree Press and they bought the book. My time with them has been fantastic. I couldn’t ask for better partners in traditional publishing.

The COVID-19 pandemic is terrible. I live in California and we are today 20 March 2020, under a stay at home order, though I work in an essential area of health care and will still be going to my day job. My signing and launch event were canceled, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one little debut author, but books are still being delivered and you can still order it from your local bookstores, so all is not bleak.

‘First’ novels are rarely the first ones written but just as with ‘overnight’ successes perception doesn’t match reality.