Writers, you must always be wary of your readers. If you fuck something up, they will be all over you. Remember details of your work, or you'll be sorry later. The most famous example was pointed out by Stephen King in regards to ROBINSON CRUSOE. In one scene in that book, Crusoe strips naked and swims out to the wreck of his boat. He then proceeds to fill his pockets with items he thinks will help him survive. Except his pockets are on his pants, which are back on the beach, so . . .
Don't make that kind of fuck up. Be vigilant in the facts of your work, or you'll end up like Graham Masterton.
I just read THE MANITOU, and then I started MANITOU BLOOD. I was not aware that there were a few books in the series between these two, and I don't have them. Not to worry, though. It doesn't seem necessary to have read the others to enjoy this one.
Except . . . well, in THE MANITOU Masterton (spoiler alert for a book older than I am) kills off the character of Amelia Crusoe (no relation?). Yet in MANITOU BLOOD, she's alive and well and as helpful as ever. Wait, what? How does that happen? Did I miss something in the other books I didn't read?
I scoured the internet, driving myself crazy trying to figure out this mystery. I read synopses of the other books, looking for any clue. Did Masterton bring her back to life with some kind of occult ritual?
And then I found the answer in an interview he did years ago. The solution is so much more basic than I ever thought it would be. He admits to fucking up pretty badly on this one. When writing the first sequel, he completely forgot that he killed Amelia. (Which I guess is understandable since he killed her "off-screen." I think maybe that's why all the books after the first aren't strictly told from first person POV.) It didn't occur to him until much later. (I wonder if a reader busted him. That's probably what happened.) (I gotta stop it with these parenthetical statements. It looks ugly, and I shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Sorry.) He gave no reason for her resurrection, but according to the interview, he came up with this lame excuse: that her body was so charred it was easy to misidentify her corpse. Huh.
Let that be a lesson to you all. Thus endeth this edition of HEY, FUCKERS.
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