Love, Hate, Security, and the Writer

August 28, 2015 10:18 AM

"This was also the tour that I was jumped by a disgruntled fan in the ladies room. A rather tall woman, she may have not been over six feet tall, but only seemed that tall after she slammed me up against the wall, and forced me in a corner (people often seem taller when they’re threatening you). She was angry about the new book, angry about Anita having sex with someone that wasn’t Richard, and angry with me for adding new men to her life, and basically not happy with the way my series had turned in book ten, Narcissus in Chains." Laurell K. Hamilton on book tour woes.
posted by Shmuel510 (24 comments total)

I remember one local detective when we went to him with some threats people had been so incautious as to leave up where we could get a print out of them:
“Did you write about their families?”
“No.”
“You wrote something religious they didn’t agree with?”
“No.”
“Political?”
“I write about vampires, zombies and werewolves, oh my, which is about as fictional as you can get.”
“And they want to kill you because of it?”
“Apparently,” I said.
He looked at me, shook his head, and said, “That’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard.”

I’ve since learned that you never want to be on a police officer’s list of, craziest, or worst thing, they’ve ever seen, heard, smelled, walked in, or experienced.

This is completely insane. I can't imagine anyone outside of a Stephen King book having to deal with this, except possibly for King himself—and whatever threats King deals with are in no way loaded with the sexual politics that Hamilton enumerates.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:37 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is completely insane. I can't imagine anyone outside of a Stephen King book having to deal with this, except possibly for King himself—and whatever threats King deals with are in no way loaded with the sexual politics that Hamilton enumerates.

Brianna Wu wrote extensively on it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:44 AM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

People, people. Just do what I do to wreak havoc on Laurell K. Hamilton -- pick up a book off the pile next to her latest book, examine it, and then accidentally put it back on the wrong pile.

(I also greatly enjoyed them when they were Urban Fantasy, less so when they turned into Paranormal Romance.)
posted by Etrigan at 10:48 AM on August 28, 2015

I used to work at a big book store that did high-profile signings and I would believe ANYTHING.
posted by thelonius at 10:53 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Pope Guilty, I appreciate the threats that Wu, Quinn, and many of MeFi's Own receive online. Hamilton was physically assaulted in a ladies' room by an angry fan. She gets fans at signings—women who've enjoyed her novels and want her signature!—informing her to her face that she and her characters are sluts and whores while waiting patiently for her to finish the N in Hamilton.

I thought I understood the ramifications of rape culture pretty well, but these anecdotes show I have a lot more work to do.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:01 AM on August 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

Didn't Harlan Ellison give a speech at WorldCon (or some high profile convention) about the awful way that some fans treat writers? I know I read a photocopy of the later-published speech that co-worker owned, but I've never been able to find it again.
posted by magstheaxe at 11:01 AM on August 28, 2015

This is the sort of thing that Harlan Ellison's infamous Xenogenesis essay covered in excruciating detail: thefts by fans, cups of vomit thrown in a writer's face, stalkings, harassment, and in some ways worst of all, all the things fans do to writers that they think they're being nice in doing. In brief, he sent out a letter to dozens of sci-fi and fantasy writers asking for crazy and horrible stories they had based on their interactions with fans: Robert Bloch, Alan Dean Foster, James Tiptree/Alice Sheldon, Gene Wolf, L. Sprague de Camp, etc etc.

I highly recommend anyone interested in what poor Laurell Hamilton describes to read it.
posted by Palindromedary at 11:01 AM on August 28, 2015 [10 favorites]

I have read series where the ending is, to put it mildly, massively unsatisfying (I'm looking at you, Jean Auel) - but my solution isn't to threaten the writer, it's to grumble to fellow fans and write fanfic.

Author not finishing the series quickly or at all? Fanfic. Unsatisfying ending? Fanfic. A pairing you don't like? Fanfic. And, best of all, no-one gets hurt!
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 11:05 AM on August 28, 2015 [10 favorites]

@Palindromedary: That's the essay I read! Thanks!
posted by magstheaxe at 11:11 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Alan Moore quit doing conventions back in the 80s because fans were going so nuts they were following him into the bathroom.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:19 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think LKH's early writing was promising but it quickly devolved into awfulness, but that awfulness pales in comparison to the people I've known who were fans of the Anita Blake books after the first couple. And this is largely of people who were in fandom and therefore should have had reasonable outlets for their frustrations.

I'm not against paranormal romance categorically, mind, it just did not fit what I would have called good paranormal romance, whereas it had started out as quite a nice mix of paranormal and mystery/crime fiction. But I'm not going to get up in her face about that. I'm just going to sigh wistfully about what might have been.
posted by Sequence at 11:26 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

I remember thinking LKH's blog seemed a little defensive. Now I understand why.
posted by bq at 11:36 AM on August 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think Mercedes Lackey gave up writing the Diana Tregard books (featuring an early take on the urban fantasy heroine) because she had someone or several someones stalk and threaten her over them.

LKH has been off my radar for a long time since the books turned into stories I wasn't interested in, and she gets made fun of a great deal by people who think she's literally writing her fantasies as well as aspects of her real life into the books, but my response to that was, you know, not reading the books anymore. Attacking her in a bathroom is just beyond belief, although sadly I can believe it.
posted by PussKillian at 11:39 AM on August 28, 2015

Jeeeeezus I didn't like when the series shifted into heavy paranormal erotica either but I just QUIT READING.

LKH rubs me the wrong way a lot, but this, damn. I have a lot of sympathy and concern for her over this.
posted by angeline at 11:40 AM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think Mercedes Lackey gave up writing the Diana Tregard books (featuring an early take on the urban fantasy heroine) because she had someone or several someones stalk and threaten her over them.

She did. I knew someone tangentially related to the whole thing; they (the threateners, not my acquaintance) claimed that what she wrote about in those books was accurate, she was a member, and she was publishing their secrets and so threatened to kill her. She ended up hiding in the back hallways of a convention center with (if I'm remembering correctly) her partner trying to act as a bodyguard. It sounds horrifying.

Other authors have had people threaten to kill or rape pets, children, family members, etc... over plotlines they didn't like. I an deeply disturbed by how often these threats are treated as not serious; I wish police would spend more time tracking down and tracking this sort of behavior - I suspect that, like rape, this sort of engaged threatening behavior is perpetrated by a small subset of people who could be stopped. They way it gets dismissed is disheartening and a testament to the tolerance US society (at least) has for people being violent and threatening.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:12 PM on August 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

LKH is articulating and giving form to some of the more extreme stuff out there in the ether right now

She writes fairly mainstream paranormal romance with an in-world justification for her main character having a lot of sex. From what I understand (I stopped around the time of the three-some that wasn't; maybe book six or seven?) it's all heterosexual, there isn't any BDSM, and the vampires were always fairly anodyne - blood on lip and tooth, and now and then hinting at mysterious "dark sides" that never quite seem to pan out.

It's no male/male, cross-species dinosaur pr0n, is what I'm saying. I think you're sense of what is "extreme" might be a little off.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:17 PM on August 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

I read that a troubled teen once sent Jhonen Vasquez a dead squirrel. Vasquez is said to hate his fans and draws nasty things about them, but I cannot blame him.

Misery is a fine movie and I remembered enjoying the book, but I can't get near it again after reading that the King family had a home invasion from a crazed fan that wanted to write a sequel to it. (I cannot find a news story about this, and I'd be happy to learn that I'm wrong and it never happened.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:38 PM on August 28, 2015

I have an unnatural affection for the writers I love. I sit here with the last Pratchett book on my doorstep and know I am not ready. The heartbreak I felt when I found out Orson Scott Card was an asshole was epic. I still haven't read past the first Game of Thrones book because I can't bear falling in love with characters to only have them tortured and killed. I've thrown books, sobbed out loud, and even turned to fanfiction to find a way to fix the broken books that wrecked me.

That said, it has never once occurred to me that I would let the author know about my pain. At most, I might roll my eyes at Card. Maybe a harsh glare at Martin. But to physically assault an author? That's beyond my realm. And seriously? LKH? I can't even.
posted by teleri025 at 2:10 PM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

How do people grow up thinking it is okay to threaten people that don't do what they want? It's insane. Maybe online interaction helps it bloom, but you have to have the seed planted in the first place, methinks.

nitpick: "see the elephant" does not mean that you gave up:

SEEING THE ELEPHANT
Published: March 1, 1861


-- We have all our little troubles in this life, and for those who are not too proud, to use a popular phrase, it may be added that we have all our elephants to see. It is narrated of a certain farmer that his life's desire was to behold this largest of quadrupeds, until the yearning became well nigh a mania. He finally met one of the largest size traveling in the van of a menagerie. His horse was frightened, his wagon smashed, his eggs and poultry ruined. But he rose from the wreck radiant and in triumph. "A fig for the damage," quoth he, "for I have seen the elephant!"
posted by oneirodynia at 2:39 PM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

It was worse than one crazy fan for Mercedes Lackey. She had a situation a long while back when she took in a woman and her kid. The woman had escaped an abusive husband, he found out where she'd holed up, and Lackey started receiving death threats. Strangers with guns on her property. Photos of her and Larry on their property, taken without them aware. Scary stuff.

And I wish this story had a happy ending, but no, it doesn't. The father still had custody and visiting rights, and you probably know now where this is going. On one of those visits, he killed his 2-year-old daughter and himself. I guarantee he would have killed the ex-wife if he could have. Most of it is documented in an addendum here from an old rant Misty wrote back in '96 or '97 for her fanclub regarding some of the crazier fans.

She stopped doing conventions at one point in 1997 because constaff didn't take her seriously about her safety. I was at the con where they ignored her security requests. She had bodyguards then, she probably still has one or two now.

The world is a shitty place, and if your favorite celebrity is standoffish about you getting into their personal space, it's entirely possible there's a really damn good reason why.
posted by offalark at 2:39 PM on August 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

That's an awful story, offalark. Lackey and I have a mutual friend here in Houston who went to visit with her at the local con in the spring; I assume her no-con policy got readjusted at some point in the last 20 years, but I also assume most cons are now savvy enough to treat security concerns more seriously.
posted by uberchet at 4:04 PM on August 28, 2015

Yeah, she and Larry started going again sometime in the 2000s. I remember being inordinately excited when I saw she was at a local con a few years back, because it meant I got to see her again. In a non-creepy, non-stalkery sort of way.
posted by offalark at 10:14 PM on August 28, 2015

Story goes that when Tim Pigott-Smith was playing the loathsome Merrick in the TV version of the Jewel in the Crown, a woman approached him on the street to inform him that if he ever opened a restaurant, she would not eat there.

Never heard if he had a comeback to this.

Or if he ever opened a restaurant.
posted by BWA at 12:02 PM on August 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

This just in: most readers are just fine.

Nevertheless, yes: I have had to turn on my heel and bark, "dude, this is not cool!" on more than one occasion when somebody tried to follow me into the toilet. And I'm a bald/bearded middle aged guy who mostly wears black—not presenting as femme/female, i.e. an "easy target". And I don't sell anything like as many books as LKH, either.

All it takes is one in a thousand contributing a teeny-tiny piece of shit to the sandwich you're eating whenever you appear in public to put you off your appetite.
posted by cstross at 12:03 PM on August 29, 2015 [8 favorites]