{"id":829,"date":"2007-02-28T21:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-28T21:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=829"},"modified":"2007-02-28T21:26:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T21:26:00","slug":"no-apostrophes-no-vampire-elves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=829","title":{"rendered":"No apostrophes, no vampire elves"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to reading the titles and cover blurbs of SF\/fantasy books, I am with Timothy Burke<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Other things that are likely to drive me off:<\/p>\n

1) \u201cBook One in the Dark Swords of Black Terror Trilogy\u201d.
2) Mostly, if the word \u201cvampire\u201d appears anywhere in the cover, title or blurb. It stops being \u201cmostly\u201d if \u201cvampire\u201d appears in the same blurb with \u201celf\u201d.
3) Titles or blurbs that contain the name of a fantasy kingdom that sounds more like a prescription medicine for depression or impotence.
4) Anything that contains three of the following four elements in the blurb: plucky but innocent young heroine, farmboy with a destiny, dark lord of evil, wise ancient wizard. \u201cHandsome voodoo priest<\/a>\u201d is a bonus demerit.
5) The word, \u201cDrizzt\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to reading the titles and cover blurbs of SF\/fantasy books, I am with Timothy Burke: Other things that are likely to drive me off: 1) \u201cBook One in the Dark Swords of Black Terror Trilogy\u201d.2) Mostly, if the word \u201cvampire\u201d appears anywhere in the cover, title or blurb. It stops being \u201cmostly\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-dn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5314,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5314","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":0},"title":"Hogwarts for Vampires","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe if I had a bookish teenage daughter I would know this, but the boarding-school-for-vampires (etc.) genre has exploded. Here is a typical cover blurb: Two years after a horrible incident made them run away, vampire princess Lissa and her guardian-in-training Rose are found and returned to St. Vladimir's Academy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1330,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1330","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":1},"title":"Witchcraft Medicine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants is a collaboration between three German anthropologists: Claudia M =\u00fcller-Ebeling, Christian R\u00e4tch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl. I ordered it because I'll read anything that R?tsch has written, and, unfortunately, not enough of his work has been translated from German to English. (The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=55","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":2},"title":"Witchcraft Medicine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants is a collaboration between three German anthropologists: Claudia M\u00fcller-Ebeling, Christian R\u00e4tsch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl. I ordered it because I'll read anything that R\u00e4tsch has written, and, unfortunately, not enough of his work has been translated from German to English. (The translator\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1345,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1345","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":3},"title":"Witchcraft Medicine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants is a collaboration between three German anthropologists: Claudia M =\u00fcller-Ebeling, Christian R\u00e4tch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl. I ordered it because I'll read anything that R?tsch has written, and, unfortunately, not enough of his work has been translated from German to English. (The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1360,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1360","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":4},"title":"Witchcraft Medicine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 29, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants is a collaboration between three German anthropologists: Claudia M =\u00fcller-Ebeling, Christian R\u00e4tch, and Wolf-Dieter Storl. I ordered it because I'll read anything that R?tsch has written, and, unfortunately, not enough of his work has been translated from German to English. (The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":847,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=847","url_meta":{"origin":829,"position":5},"title":"See, this is fame","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the postal mail and email:1. Two fat envelopes bearing mss. of how-to Witchcraft books from publishers who want my name on a cover blurb. Neither came from Woodbury, Minnesota, however. How quickly they forget, eager to move on to the hot new titles in astral sex.2. An email from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}