Dave 'Ansible' Langford's book reviews
P.D. TILLMAN
I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
These are short reviews he writes for Amazon UK, and there
are a bunch of them. Have a look.
I presume that the links that lead to review-free pages are
those deemed by Amazon too unflattering to put up - an
interpretation supported by muttered comments appended to some
of such titles (eg 'my God!')
And Ansible itself is always worth a look -- one of the
longest-running, and most-honored, SF fanzines:
http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Cheers -- Pete Tillman, who doesn't even know DL, but likes his stuff...
Book Reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
--
Arwel Parry
<til...@aztec.asu.edu> writes
I was in Andromeda Bookshop last weekend and came across one book with a
Langford quote on the back which went something like "If H.G. Wells
could read this book, he'd be alive today" :-)
--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
fia...@cpcug.org
P.D. TILLMAN <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>
>I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
>review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>
>These are short reviews he writes for Amazon UK, and there
>are a bunch of them. Have a look.
>
>I presume that the links that lead to review-free pages are
>those deemed by Amazon too unflattering to put up - an
>interpretation supported by muttered comments appended to some
>of such titles (eg 'my God!')
>
>And Ansible itself is always worth a look -- one of the
>longest-running, and most-honored, SF fanzines:
> http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/
Dave has a new agent? <g>
Rich
====
MIMOSA web site: http://www.jophan.org/mimosa
NOTE NEW URL!
David Langford
wrote:
>I was in Andromeda Bookshop last weekend and came across one book with a
>Langford quote on the back which went something like "If H.G. Wells
>could read this book, he'd be alive today" :-)
That would have been David Garnett's =Bikini Planet=. He asked more or less
everyone in British sf to provide a cover quote, without any of us actually
seeing the book. As a result, there are three pages of strange
commendations inside, cautiously headed "What the author's friends say
about =Bikini Planet=. (Richard Cowper: "I look forward eagerly to the
appearance of his last work.") My own contribution was, in full, "If
science fiction's founding father H.G. Wells were able to read this
astonishing book, he would be alive today."
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.co.uk/
Francis Muir
Fascinating. Now, tell me, is this Garnett the Last of the Line of
Garnetts which produced those semi-precious literary marvels, the
Richards, Davids, Constances, &c., &c.? I want the complete provenance
of the current scifi Garnett.
RDClark
"P.D. TILLMAN" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
news:89mpg1$bbm$1...@news.asu.edu...
>
> I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>
> These are short reviews he writes for Amazon UK, and there
> are a bunch of them. Have a look.
Are there any negative reviews in this bunch? Spot-checking, I found that
he recommended every title I looked at, even John Barnes' _Finity_ (which,
IMO, simply reeks). Seeing that, I stopped looking.
One wonders if someone speaking with the "voice of Amazon" is in a position
to say "don't buy this, it stinks."
I welcome a new source of reviews, and I enjoy reviewers whose opinions I
disagree with. But it's hard to take the measure of a reviewer who likes
everything.
This doesn't synch with what I understand of Langford's reputation. Did I
just happen to pick the wrong samples?
RichC
Elaine Y. Fisher
>
> Are there any negative reviews in this bunch? Spot-checking, I found that
> he recommended every title I looked at, even John Barnes' _Finity_ (which,
> IMO, simply reeks). Seeing that, I stopped looking.
[snip]
> This doesn't synch with what I understand of Langford's reputation. Did I
> just happen to pick the wrong samples?
I followed a couple of links myself, and found some lukewarm reviews as
well as recommendations to buy. (Being contrary, I was randomly picking
from near the BOTTOM of the list.)
But the intriguing thing is that some of the links offered me the
dubious honor of being the first to review the book. I wonder if those
were negative reviews of Mr. Langford's that got censored.
Elaine
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
>
> I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
Is this gentleman any relation to Ursula K. "Ansible" LeGuin?
--
___ O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/
/ / - ~ -~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
/__// \ (_) (_) / | \
| | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
\ / Bitnet: Sic transit gloria mundi
- - Internet: HIG...@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
~ SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
mike weber
<ela...@airmail.net> typed
>But the intriguing thing is that some of the links offered me the
>dubious honor of being the first to review the book. I wonder if those
>were negative reviews of Mr. Langford's that got censored.
>
Likely -- i have 28 reviews up on Amazon.com, but they've rejected
about ten, and i have no idea why -- none of them, as it happened,
were negative, but they have printed some reviews i wrote that were
like one or two stars and praising with faint damns...
I suspect that any phrasing such as "don't buy this one, buy that one
over there" gets you 86ed, and i still can't figure out why they
didn't post a couple others...
--
"If you take in a starving dog from the street and feed him
and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the
principal difference between a dog and a man." Mark Twain
<mike weber> kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
David Langford
>
>"P.D. TILLMAN" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
>news:89mpg1$bbm$1...@news.asu.edu...
>>
>> I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
>> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>>
>> These are short reviews he writes for Amazon UK, and there
>> are a bunch of them. Have a look.
>
>Are there any negative reviews in this bunch? Spot-checking, I found that
>he recommended every title I looked at, even John Barnes' _Finity_ (which,
>IMO, simply reeks). Seeing that, I stopped looking.
>
>One wonders if someone speaking with the "voice of Amazon" is in a position
>to say "don't buy this, it stinks."
Maybe this helps: Amazon.co.uk house style allows no room to say "I hated
this, but ..." First-person crit is not allowed. If I hate it, I very
probably don't review it. (If I'm sure I'm going to hate it, I don't even
read it. Sorry there, Piers Anthony fans!) If I don't actively like it, I
try to indicate appropriate Lukewarmness in the general tone. These things
are market guides more than personal reviews: anyone who knows me might
perhaps gather a certain subtext in remarks like "OK as commercial fantasy"
or "Ideal reading for people who love 3,200-page epics that promise more,
much more, to come!"
But I actually liked =Finity=, so obviously your entire critical sense
reeks. He said, impersonally.
David J. Loftus
: On Fri, 03 Mar 2000 10:33:48 -0600, "Elaine Y. Fisher"
: <ela...@airmail.net> typed
:>But the intriguing thing is that some of the links offered me the
:>dubious honor of being the first to review the book. I wonder if those
:>were negative reviews of Mr. Langford's that got censored.
:>
: Likely -- i have 28 reviews up on Amazon.com, but they've rejected
: about ten, and i have no idea why -- none of them, as it happened,
: were negative, but they have printed some reviews i wrote that were
: like one or two stars and praising with faint damns...
: I suspect that any phrasing such as "don't buy this one, buy that one
: over there" gets you 86ed, and i still can't figure out why they
: didn't post a couple others...
I have 40 reviews up on Amazon, and maybe half that number have been lost
in the ether, but some of them were five-star raves. Recalling David
Reisman's dictum -- "It is easier to believe in villainy than in muddle"
-- I suspect Amazon is simply overwhelmed with the traffic and may lose a
fair number of reviews in the shuffle. It wouldn't surprise me if they
might have to invest in another warehouse simply to maintain sufficient
computer memory for all the data they're sucking up.
Some of my "two-star tepids" got activated pretty quickly, whereas I had
to resubmit a couple five-star cheers. Hint: keep a copy of everything
you write for Amazon (it's easy to mark and copy all the text on the
"Preview Your Review" page) at least until you see it make the live web
site. Another hint: I never say "don't buy this one"; I try to make my
reviews sufficiently interesting to be worth reading, and sufficiently
detailed to enable a reader to make up her own mind about whether
something's worth buying.
David Loftus
Avedon Carol
>"P.D. TILLMAN" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
>news:89mpg1$bbm$1...@news.asu.edu...
>>
>> I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
>> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>>
>> These are short reviews he writes for Amazon UK, and there
>> are a bunch of them. Have a look.
>
>Are there any negative reviews in this bunch? Spot-checking, I found that
>he recommended every title I looked at, even John Barnes' _Finity_ (which,
>IMO, simply reeks). Seeing that, I stopped looking.
Huhn. I thought it was fun. Not one of his better books, but fun.
>One wonders if someone speaking with the "voice of Amazon" is in a position
>to say "don't buy this, it stinks."
Possibly not. The Dave Langford I know certainly doesn't just
randomly like everything he reads.
>I welcome a new source of reviews, and I enjoy reviewers whose opinions I
>disagree with. But it's hard to take the measure of a reviewer who likes
>everything.
Nope, that's not him.
>This doesn't synch with what I understand of Langford's reputation. Did I
>just happen to pick the wrong samples?
Er, Langford is kinda famous for doing some pretty deft eviscerations.
What you're reading is basically the "Recommended Reading" list, not
the whole repertoire.
--
Avedon
Jason Stokes
Avedon Carol wrote in message ...
>>This doesn't synch with what I understand of Langford's reputation. Did I
>>just happen to pick the wrong samples?
>
>Er, Langford is kinda famous for doing some pretty deft eviscerations.
>What you're reading is basically the "Recommended Reading" list, not
>the whole repertoire.
Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him for
that?
Del Cotter
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
wrote:
>> I noticed Dave 'Ansible' Langford has put up a book
>> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>
>Is this gentleman any relation to Ursula K. "Ansible" LeGuin?
Or Basil "Ansible" Fawlty?
--
Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk
"Choose the Dark Side... now why would I do a thing like that?"
--Obi-Wan Renton
Alison Hopkins
Jason Stokes wrote in message ...
>Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
>associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
>following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
>concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him for
>that?
>
>
Am I alone in finding this a rather unpleasant comment, or have I merely
misinterpreted its intent. I hope that the latter is the truth of it.
Ali
Jason Stokes
Alison Hopkins wrote in message <89qulo$21c$1...@lure.pipex.net>...
Well, I certainly had no intention of making a nasty comment. If that is
prone to misinterpretation, I apologise.
Rachael Lininger
>>Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
>>associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
>>following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
>>concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him for
>>that?
>
>Am I alone in finding this a rather unpleasant comment, or have I merely
>misinterpreted its intent. I hope that the latter is the truth of it.
I dunno. I think it's unpleasant. He's made enough similar ones that
misinterpretation seems unlikely, though.
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "Ah, why should anyone be anxious for walls and a roof
rachael@ | When you have such hospitable pigeon-holes?"
dd-b.net | --Thomas Mendip
Rob Hansen
wrote:
>But I actually liked =Finity=, so obviously your entire critical sense
>reeks. He said, impersonally.
Interesting ideas but the exposition-load was greater than a book its
size could successfully carry. It read to me like an unsuccesful first
draft and I thought he should have had another go at it. There's a
good John Barnes novel in those ideas, but unfortunately FINITY isn't
it.
--
Rob Hansen
================================================
My Home Page: http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/
Feminists Against Censorship:
http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/
Nancy Lebovitz
Rob Hansen <r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Mar 2000 20:56:22 +0000, David Langford <ans...@cix.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>But I actually liked =Finity=, so obviously your entire critical sense
>>reeks. He said, impersonally.
>
>Interesting ideas but the exposition-load was greater than a book its
>size could successfully carry. It read to me like an unsuccesful first
>draft and I thought he should have had another go at it. There's a
>good John Barnes novel in those ideas, but unfortunately FINITY isn't
>it.
Definitely a case of mileage varying. I enjoyed the exposition, and
thought that weird little idyll was one of the eeriest things to cross
my path in quite a while.
I could do without the "man-is-comprehensively-sexually-abused-but-the-
woman-says-she'll-never-do-it-again-so-it's-all-ok" bit, though.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
The calligraphic button website is up!
James Nicoll
Rob Hansen <r...@fiawol.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Mar 2000 20:56:22 +0000, David Langford <ans...@cix.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>But I actually liked =Finity=, so obviously your entire critical sense
>>reeks. He said, impersonally.
>
>Interesting ideas but the exposition-load was greater than a book its
>size could successfully carry. It read to me like an unsuccesful first
>draft and I thought he should have had another go at it. There's a
>good John Barnes novel in those ideas, but unfortunately FINITY isn't
>it.
Huh. _Candle_ has some odd exposition as well: the story is
SPOILERS
Two men meet, one hunting the other [to begin with]. They tell each
other their life stories. A crisis occurs and is resolved.
The odd thing is, they include details about their world both
men would know, so why the characters include those details I am not
sure.
--
Imperiums to Order's 16th Anniversary Sale will be March 11, 2000.
Appearances by Julie Czerneda and James Alan Gardner.
Loren MacGregor
>
> Jason Stokes wrote in message ...
>
> >Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
> >associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
> >following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
> >concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him
> >for that?
>
> Am I alone in finding this a rather unpleasant comment, or have I
> merely misinterpreted its intent. I hope that the latter is the
> truth of it.
I didn't find it an unpleasant comment; I thought it edged from
value-neutral into the positive side. And, as people may recall, I
have disagreed sometimes strongly with some of Jason's comments in
the past. I provide this as a data point only. (Saying nothing
about Jason's posts but rather how I have from time to time
interpreted them, I'd say I'd be slightly more willing to interpret
his comments as negative than I might some of the other people on
the group. This says more about me than about Jason, and I'll say
that since I've been medicated Jason seems much more reasonable.
Er, 8-; )
-- LJM
Avedon Carol
<joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>>Jason Stokes wrote in message ...
>>>Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
>>>associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
>>>following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
>>>concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him for
>>>that?
>
>"Alison Hopkins" <fn...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>>Am I alone in finding this a rather unpleasant comment, or have I merely
>>misinterpreted its intent. I hope that the latter is the truth of it.
>
>I don't think it's good form for suggesting that people are acting
>from pecuniary motives. A better reason for suggesting that Dave
>review books he likes is that there are a huge number of SF titles;
>why *not* review ones he likes? I mean, it's not 1950, you can hardly
>expect people to cover the entire genre.
Actually, if I were doing reviews, I think I'd rather give publicity
to the books and authors I think are really good and deserve it.
The truth is, bad reviews are sometimes more fun to write, and often
considerably easier, but it takes talent to write an interesting
review of a book you have no real complaints about, and if you really
like it it's sometimes hard to keep from being either too academic or
too gushy.
It's a temptation to go to town on bad books - and Dave has a lot of
fun doing it, to the delight of most of his readers, when he does -
but I, for one, am pretty interested in knowing about what he _does_
like. My experience is that he has good taste, and while I don't
always love the books he loves, his recommendations are worth a lot to
me.
Joe Slater
>>Since David Langford states on his web page that he's an Amazon.com
>>associate and he gets a very small comission on purchases made through
>>following his link to the book, presumably he has some interest in
>>concentrating on reviewing the books he likes. And who can blame him for
>>that?
"Alison Hopkins" <fn...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>Am I alone in finding this a rather unpleasant comment, or have I merely
>misinterpreted its intent. I hope that the latter is the truth of it.
I don't think it's good form for suggesting that people are acting
from pecuniary motives. A better reason for suggesting that Dave
review books he likes is that there are a huge number of SF titles;
why *not* review ones he likes? I mean, it's not 1950, you can hardly
expect people to cover the entire genre.
jds
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
>On Fri, 03 Mar 2000 10:33:48 -0600, "Elaine Y. Fisher"
><ela...@airmail.net> typed
>
>>But the intriguing thing is that some of the links offered me the
>>dubious honor of being the first to review the book. I wonder if
>>those were negative reviews of Mr. Langford's that got censored.
>>
>Likely -- i have 28 reviews up on Amazon.com, but they've rejected
>about ten, and i have no idea why -- none of them, as it happened,
>were negative, but they have printed some reviews i wrote that were
>like one or two stars and praising with faint damns...
I think you two are conflating two different senses of the word
"review." Dave is being paid by Amazon to write precis of particular
books.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Rich Clark
"Patrick Nielsen Hayden" <p...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:8EEDCFD...@166.84.0.240...
> I think you two are conflating two different senses of the word
> "review." Dave is being paid by Amazon to write precis of particular
> books.
And thus my original question. In light of the further commentary in
this thread, I'll recast it:
Are the "particular books" only those that Langford likes? How does
Amazon know which books those are? Or does Langford decline to write
about books he doesn't like?
As a "consumer" of book reviews, how am I to evaluate the worth of these
pieces? My first instinct is to devalue them as being promotional text,
given the vendor. But now we find a website that makes them available
directly from the author, and that casts them in a different light.
There is no disclaimer (that I saw) indicating that all titles will be
recommended, varying only in the strength of the recommendation. That's
left to the reader to infer, which is what I did, and why I asked about
it originally.
Again, I don't expect to agree with every reviewer, or for every
reviewer to agree with me. It would *help* me to know that Langford
liked _Finity_, given how much I personally loathed it, because it would
help me to benchmark his opinions against mind for future reference.
But not if he only writes about books he likes. After all, how can I
then tell the difference between a book he didn't like and a book he
didn't read?
RichC
Ray Radlein
>
> Actually, if I were doing reviews, I think I'd rather give
> publicity to the books and authors I think are really good and
> deserve it.
Exactly. For many a year now, various friends of mine have looked to
me in varying degrees as someone who is always plowing new musical
ground; as such, I am always more interested in letting them in on
pleasant secrets than on unpleasant ones. It's much more fun to tell
them about how good Neutral Milk Hotel or The Geraldine Fibbers or bis
are than it is to excoriate some poor bunch of yahoos for the sin of
not being good enough to bother with.
Similarly, I'd much rather spend my effort getting my wife, or my
friends, to read "A Deepness in the Sky" than warning them not to read
the latest Xanth "novel."
- Ray R.
--
**********************************************************************
"And today's theme ingredient is... HYDROGEN!"
- Chairman Kaga, "Ion Chefs"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
**********************************************************************
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>On Sun, 05 Mar 2000 00:21:54 +1100, Joe Slater
><joeDEL...@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>
>Actually, if I were doing reviews, I think I'd rather give publicity
>to the books and authors I think are really good and deserve it.
Personally, I don't trust reviewers who never give bad reviews.It makes
for a skewed perception of what the reviewers tastes and standards are.
Not to mention that most of the time people who only write positive
reviews are doing so for commercial purposes. Don't upset the nice
people buying adverts.
Martin Wisse
--
"She's dead. Now can i keep the job?"
"She's not dead."
"Might as well be. She tripped over my goat."
Taylor, Quantum and Woody, Q&W 13
Ashland S Henderson
David Langford wrote in message ...
>On Fri, 3 Mar 2000 11:07:10 -0500, "RDClark" <m...@here.now> wrote:
>
>>
>>"P.D. TILLMAN" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
>>news:89mpg1$bbm$1...@news.asu.edu...
>>>
>>> review page: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/amazon.html
>>>
>>> are a bunch of them. Have a look.
>>
>>Are there any negative reviews in this bunch? Spot-checking, I found that
>>he recommended every title I looked at, even John Barnes' _Finity_ (which,
>>IMO, simply reeks). Seeing that, I stopped looking.
>>
position
>>to say "don't buy this, it stinks."
>
>this, but ..." First-person crit is not allowed. If I hate it, I very
>probably don't review it. (If I'm sure I'm going to hate it, I don't even
>read it. Sorry there, Piers Anthony fans!) If I don't actively like it, I
>try to indicate appropriate Lukewarmness in the general tone. These things
>are market guides more than personal reviews: anyone who knows me might
>perhaps gather a certain subtext in remarks like "OK as commercial fantasy"
>or "Ideal reading for people who love 3,200-page epics that promise more,
>much more, to come!"
>
>reeks. He said, impersonally.
Good god, man. Have you no shame?
Kip Williams
> Personally, I don't trust reviewers who never give bad reviews.It makes
> for a skewed perception of what the reviewers tastes and standards are.
I still kick myself sometimes for not writing a more honest review
of Eugenia Zuckerman when she came to Georgia Southern College. I
don't know what I was thinking, but I decided for some reason to
dwell on the positive and not mention how poor her tone was, for
instance. Shot my credibility all to hell, it seemed to me at the
time.
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Avedon Carol
<rdclar...@TRAPhome.com> wrote:
>Again, I don't expect to agree with every reviewer, or for every
>reviewer to agree with me. It would *help* me to know that Langford
>liked _Finity_, given how much I personally loathed it, because it would
>help me to benchmark his opinions against mind for future reference.
>
>But not if he only writes about books he likes. After all, how can I
>then tell the difference between a book he didn't like and a book he
>didn't read?
You could always try reading his reviews of books by H*ubb*rd....
Marilee J. Layman
(Avedon Carol) wrote:
Heh. In chat last week, I said that Eddings' books were a waste of
trees and someone left the room in a huff and vowed not to come back.
(I gave her the directions to the Fantasy forum, turns out she was in
the wrong place to start with.) It's a good thing she didn't hear
*all* of my opinions.
--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
hoste...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: OWC
Fiona Webster
> Maybe this helps: Amazon.co.uk house style allows no room to say "I hated
> this, but ..." First-person crit is not allowed. If I hate it, I very
> probably don't review it. (If I'm sure I'm going to hate it, I don't even
> read it. Sorry there, Piers Anthony fans!) If I don't actively like it, I
> try to indicate appropriate Lukewarmness in the general tone. These things
> are market guides more than personal reviews: anyone who knows me might
> perhaps gather a certain subtext in remarks like "OK as commercial fantasy"
> or "Ideal reading for people who love 3,200-page epics that promise more,
> much more, to come!"
I haven't read your reviews, David, but I reviewed for Amazon.com
for 3 years, and all my reviews were genuine personal reviews--
not "market guides," perish the thought. I occasionally used
expressions like "for this reader" to get around the no-first-
person thing, but I always gave personal reasons for why I
liked a book, and what I didn't like about it. I didn't review
any books I didn't "actively like" (to use your expression),
but that's always been my book-reviewing policy, anyway.
--harrumphing a wee bit, <grin>
Fiona
Jay E. Morris
He comes here doesn't he?
--
Jay E. Morris' <*> Web Sites Design
Epsilon 3 Productions <*> and hosting
http://www.epsilon3.com <*> mor...@epsion3.com
[Exoticon II in New Orleans, LA]
[don't forget to remove the crap]
Vicki Rosenzweig
22:39:40 GMT:
>Personally, I don't trust reviewers who never give bad reviews.It makes
>for a skewed perception of what the reviewers tastes and standards are.
>
>
>Not to mention that most of the time people who only write positive
>reviews are doing so for commercial purposes. Don't upset the nice
>people buying adverts.
>
Not this person.
I have a "book pick of the fortnight" section on my Web site (which
is not updated nearly that often): it's things I've read and enjoyed
enough to want to tell other people about. Other than that, the only
rule is that I don't recommend more than one work by the same person.
On the other hand, if you want to check out my writing at epinions.com
(where I'm hiding under the transparent alias of "Vicki"), you will
find both positive and negative reviews.
For five points, which of these two sites do I get paid for contributing
to?
For another five, which one has advertisers?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig | v...@redbird.org
r.a.sf.f faq at http://www.redbird.org/rassef-faq.html
Sue Mason for TAFF!
Mike Kozlowski
Martin Wisse <mwi...@ad-astra.demon.nl> wrote:
>
>Personally, I don't trust reviewers who never give bad reviews.It makes
>for a skewed perception of what the reviewers tastes and standards are.
That's as may be, but...
>Not to mention that most of the time people who only write positive
>reviews are doing so for commercial purposes. Don't upset the nice
>people buying adverts.
... I'm more skeptical of this. I have a Web page (you can get to it from
my .sig) where I have short mini-reviews of books. When I first started
the page, it was my intention to review all my books. But that proved to
be both a daunting task, and, I thought, a pointless one -- who wants to
read through a few hundred reviews saying, "It was okay, but nothing
great"? So I decided to just review the books that I actually liked.
And I don't make any money off my Web site. People can have lots of
motives, and profit is just one of them.
--
Mike Kozlowski
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mkozlows/
mike weber
typed
:
Right. If i'm not being paid to do it, i'm not going to spend my free
time writing reviews of bad books (unless they are *so* bad that
eviscerating them is not only *fun* but an actual Public Service); why
should i work to find ways to say "It stinks, don't bother", when i
could spend my time cluing people in on the ones i really liked?
OTOH, if you *pay* me and you want me to read and review books i
normally wouldn't touch with a nine-foot Hungarian, then, hey -- the
man with the gold makes the rules!
--
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong -- but that's the way to bet." -- Ring Lardner
<mike weber> <kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
Martin Wisse
wrote:
>Quoth mwi...@ad-astra.demon.nl (Martin Wisse) on Sun, 05 Mar 2000
>22:39:40 GMT:
>
>>Personally, I don't trust reviewers who never give bad reviews.It makes
>>for a skewed perception of what the reviewers tastes and standards are.
>>
>>
>>Not to mention that most of the time people who only write positive
>>reviews are doing so for commercial purposes. Don't upset the nice
>>people buying adverts.
>>
>Not this person.
>
>I have a "book pick of the fortnight" section on my Web site (which
>is not updated nearly that often): it's things I've read and enjoyed
>enough to want to tell other people about. Other than that, the only
>rule is that I don't recommend more than one work by the same person.
Sure, I can understand this, especially when you're doing it for fun,
not as a paying gig.
But when a reviewer does get pays for it, I find a complete lack of
negative reviews, even when she only reviews books she likes, to be a
bit suspicious and unhelpful. Nobody likes all the books they read.
An example of what I'm talking about are the reviews in Comics Book
News, a weekly free adrag for comics shops. These are always positive,
the worst grade a book can recieve being average, which is defended by
the reviewers by stating they only review the books they like.
Fair 'nuff, but that doesn't give me a lock on the reviewer's likes and
dislikes, his tastes in comics, which makes his reviews less useful to
me. How do I know that book is as good as he claims it is when I don't
know what would make for a bad book by his standards?
A reviewer who finds both _A Deepness in the Sky_ and _Mammoth_[1] good
books is worse then useless.
>On the other hand, if you want to check out my writing at epinions.com
>(where I'm hiding under the transparent alias of "Vicki"), you will
>find both positive and negative reviews.
>
>For five points, which of these two sites do I get paid for contributing
>to?
>
>For another five, which one has advertisers?
I'll answer Epinions for both, Alex...
[1] Maybe better known as _Silverhair_ in North America.
Martin Wisse
--
--
http://www.ad-astra.demon.nl/ Me
http://www.ad-astra.demon.nl/comix/comix.html Comix
http://www.ad-astra.demon.nl/astro/astro.html Astro City
Kate Nepveu
> Right. If i'm not being paid to do it, i'm not going to spend my free
> time writing reviews of bad books (unless they are *so* bad that
> eviscerating them is not only *fun* but an actual Public Service); why
> should i work to find ways to say "It stinks, don't bother", when i
> could spend my time cluing people in on the ones i really liked?
I don't review many books, and only two of my reviews are of books I
thought badly of. I have no real method for choosing the books I
review; sometimes I just feel like I want to talk about them, and once
or twice that meant explaining why I thought they weren't very good.
Kate
--
http://lynx.neu.edu/k/knepveu/ -- The Paired Reading Page; Reviews
/* Updated March 2: Many new pairs; Pratchett, McKinley Reviews */
"The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the
urge to throw a snowball." --Doug Larson