By the look of your GG may have been better calling it Big Balls Baggins no?

Way past my bedtime - hope I get some shut-eye with Albert's snoring. Tarra.

My new horsey is called Gandalf, and he clearly had a fight with a Balrog and fell down an abyss, but we'll get him better, me and his cousin Presto (pictured in avatar)

I'm going to bypass the quotes this time. I made a big mess out of the last one. Yes, I was teasing about the brother thing. The horse, Griffin, made a pretty good lower level dressage horse. He was not built quite as heavy as most Paints, hence the thoroubredy look. I'm willing to bet he had more thoroughbred in him than quarter horse.

Yah! Stop by any time. I really need to be a better blogger (say that fast ten times ) and put out more posts, but I get so busy. Shame, shame.

Ah, another misinterpretation by me then. My apologies. I should have realised that you were not entirely down on the genre when you said "sub-Tolkienesque".

Some are, and think it reasonable behaviour to mess the authors about on that basis. If anyone doesn't want to review any and all genres, all they have to do is go to their profile and amend the categories they are interested in. That way there won't be so many complaints about droppers and pontificators. Removing general fiction option should do the job.

All good novels need the qualities mentioned. There seems to be a school of thought that there are degrees of "suspending belief". There isn't. What is a leap for some is a casual amble for others, so all fiction demands the process.

Take for instance Kidnapped or Swallows And Amazons. How likely is it that a young lad could wander about an island alone without getting bitten by something poisonous? What sort of parents allow their children out alone in a boat, unsupervised?

For me it beggared belief when that young girl was permitted to sail around the world - I mean wtf? Did her Da not hear of modern day murdering pirates?

I have no idea or interest in Belgarion. Never heard of him. Which says something. And anyway, is Hamlet Hamlet, or Hrolf Kraki with a skull in his hand?

I also never said that charts indicated quality of any sort. I said chance or public acclaim. Who said public acclaim had anything to do with quality?

As to downscoring, how many times can you review a piece? Once. Do covens of members hit the new assignment buttons seeking out quality writing to destroy its chances? Hmmmm. I guess we all have our conspiracy theories.

Put it this way: the number of members you would need in your coven to sink a "quality" story would need to be substantial. In fact, of the order of the active membership of YWO. Otherwise, members not part of the conspiracy would be annoyingly voting up the quality story that the coven had worked so hard to destroy.

So no, it doesn't stack up. Between mathematics and paranoia I choose the former.

The cold, empty reality is that the world is full of idiots who don't recognize how well I write. They just don't get my subtlety, my refined references to poets past, to my search of other Gods and other sleeping Devils and no amount of yelling will ever change that.

So, have a healthy attitude: so what if someone gives you 1s, 2s and 3s. We all get them. It is just that some get more than others. Luck or popular acclaim? Bit of both probably.

The odd idiot will try to knock a story, and may even manage to knock it off the TT. So what? That is what 1 in 5 removals are there for. And if you get more than 1 in 5 idiots, well, tough. We all get them.

It doesn't mean there is a coven.

Now Perry, that is all I have to say, and I have two websites to finish and I am tendering for an intranet for a London institution, so the stage is all yours.

Do with it as you please.