Really, how is one to respond to that? It isn't as though I could backpedal and claim that Mr. Savage had misunderstood my remarks regarding Blake House. In any event, he didn't seem unduly put out by my snarkiness, and electronic dialogue with strangers is something of a rare treat for me. So...

Mr. Savage,

You show me more kindness in your correspondence than I deserve, and more good humor than I have come to expect from the handful of people who read my humble log.

I'm afraid that I cannot find it in me to apologize for my response to Blake House... but I do offer up a rare, sincere apology for my presumption in presenting a public criticism of you as an author. One book can scarcely be taken to represent an author's entire repertoire, and I regret to say that Blake House is my only exposure to your work.

In any event, my criticism is tempered by the fact that you have achieved what I only aspire to: publication. Perhaps this was all brought about by a fit of jealousy on my part?

I regret to note that I do not remember what the "asdf" stood for in the entry you asked about. Nor do I, in fact, have a list of my top ten crappy horror novels of all time... That claim was simply a vehicle to move my point along. Lies. All lies. Mostly. Creating such a list would, in truth, be beyond both my abilities and my presumptuousness.

Still, were such a list to be made, Blake House would certainly make the cut... probably somewhere slightly above Raphael E. Duvall's The Creatures of the Night (a book so splendidly awful that it actually seems to transcend the normal limitations of human writing and move into some higher plane of literary wretchedness) and Derleth's The Trail of Cthulhu (which manages to somehow retroactively infect everything good in the Lovecraft canon, thereby poisoning that particular sub-genre for generations yet to come).

Ah. There I go, starting the list I claimed I couldn't make. It seems you've caught me in another lie; apparently there are no limits to my presumptuousness.

I stand abashed, Mr. Savage. You shame me, both with your clever e-mail, and with your gentlemanly conduct.

In appreciation and recognition of your good humor, I have taken you up on your suggestion and renamed my journal (albeit temporarily) "Unequivocally Up Yours". It seems to me that that is the very least I can do... And, anyway, it seems that it is quite pointless to try to fight you. You would simply brush aside my vitriol with a smile, reprocessing it as a compliment made all the sweeter by its being unconscious and unintentional.

I am pleased to afford you some small measure of publicity (a quick search on Google shows that my web site ranks number nine for "adrian savage + horror" and "adrian savage + novels," as well as an amazing number one for "adrian savage + pulp horror"). I agree wholeheartedly that it is better to be hated or loved than ignored, and I must admit that this e-mail exchange has already proven to be thought provoking and entertaining enough to justify the tedium of wading through Blake House.

I know that I am hardly in a position at this point to beg favors of you, but would you have any objection to me posting this correspondence on my journal?

With all due respect,

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