As for the rest of this article, as someone who’s keen to edit, it’s really interesting to read. Definitely food for thought.

And more respect in general would be a damn good thing.

In my day job, we submit multi-million dollar proposals all the time. Proposals that miss a single one of the call for proposal requirements are immediately rejected. They asked for 100 pages and you wrote 101? You had 0.5″ margin when they asked for 1.0″ margin? It doesn’t matter how brilliant your idea is, it’s rejected.

The justification is that they don’t want to waste their time working with people who cannot follow clear directions. I don’t see why that would be different for writing. I haven’t been an anthology editor, but I suspect I’d just send those all back with “rejected due to failure to follow the call for submission directions.”

Good reviews of Gaijin let the reader know it is a story that deals with the subject of non-consensuality, and that this is a very controversial issue within the genre of erotica. But it also deals with the issue of how cultures simplify each other. Then people can go on to say that the book spoke to them, or left them cold, or left them with unanswered questions. But at least NOW a reader knows a) is this a book I want to read and b) this is how I need to orient myself to get the most out of it.

There are a lot of things to talk about in any given book that are fairly free of personal subjectivity. And sure, it’s important to acknowledge one’s personal reaction to a book, because books are meant to incite a personal reaction. But it’s going to be different for every reader. Way before that, there’s the basic stuff.