Sunday, May 6, 2012

Reviewers

Last year I was on a panel with four people who write review columns.  It was a cordial panel but the contention was there, beneath the polite acknowledgements of each other's basic worth.  Reviewers are usually regarded by writers with the same wariness that timid children regard strange dogs: Will it bite me?  Like me?  Ignore me? Is it safe to approach?


Since I have had two books come out in the last two months, I have had a ton of reviews.  Most, I'm glad to say, have been favorable.  But reviews do more than label a book "good" or "bad."  They can also baffle, enlighten, or frustrate.


One that enlightened was Gary Wolfe's review in LOCUS of my collection FOUNTAIN OF AGE AND OTHER STORIES.  The review begins: "Nancy Kress likes domes."  It turns out that over half of the stories in the collection feature domes -- and I had never realized it.  I, the writer.  What made this particularly interesting is that I just turned in a story for SOLARIS 2 that is all about domes: their manufacture and uses and social consequences.  What would Freud make of this?


A review that baffled me came from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reviewing AFTER THE FALL, BEFORE THE FALL, DURING THE FALL.  In the novella, a woman named McAllister leads a very small band of desperate survivors who can briefly visit the past at unpredictable intervals to grab supplies and children, who otherwise are destined for mass destruction.  The reviewer refers to the kids as "juvenile delinquents" and asks: "Does the fact that she is saving mankind make McAllister any better than Charles Dickens's Fagin?"  My jaw dropped.  Well.... YES. 


Sometimes reviewers have opposite views that end up confusing the author.  Pete, a protagonist of AFTER THE FALL, was described at Tor.com as "one of the most tragic figures I've encountered in SF in a long time....Pete's story is simply heartbreaking and unforgettable."  LOCUS, on the other hand, found Pete to "at times partake too easily of what I've come to think of as the Hugh Hoyland prototype SF character from Heinlein's 'Universe' -- the rebellious young investigator in a rigidly contained society whose curiosity leads him to challenge received wisdom."


And one reviewer of FOUNTAIN OF AGE AND OTHER STORIES found the stories "not scary enough."  That scared me about his review.  Not one of the stories is meant to be horror.


So where does all this leave the writer?  Sometimes shrugging philosophically, sometimes trying to learn from reviews, sometimes just ready to go drown her mystification in a bottle of nice Chardonnay.

8 comments:

TheOFloinn said...

Sometimes they review the book they had wanted to read; sometimes they read the book into the Procrustean bed of their own categories. It's especially puzzling when two reviewers reach diametrically opposite conclusions: The same book has either vivid characters or flat, depending on who has read it, not on who has written it.

TheOFloinn said...

Here is a coincidental post on book reviews. Although specifically about books on the history of science, there are some broader points as well.

http://www.pachs.net/blogs/comments/musing_on_book_reviews/

KevinW said...

Nancy, while we're on the subject of critics...can you answer her question? :^)

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/05/whos-crazier-bloggers-or-authors/52167/

Jane said...

Reviews are, of course, only opinions, hopefully well informed and well written, but as we all know, that is not always the case either. I'm an actress and so have had my share of reviews as well and wish I didn't set so much store by them. I know actors who simply never read them and this I admire although I am unable to do that. What one actor who doesn't read reviews told me is, "If I believe the good ones, then I also have to believe the bad ones."

Jane said...

Reviews are, of course, only opinions, hopefully well informed and well written, but as we all know, that is not always the case either. I'm an actress and so have had my share of reviews as well and wish I didn't set so much store by them. I know actors who simply never read them and this I admire although I am unable to do that. What one actor who doesn't read reviews told me is, "If I believe the good ones, then I also have to believe the bad ones."

Nancy Kress said...

Kevin-- It's possible to be obsessive about ANYTHING, and/or dedicated to anything. When either career of writing or recreational blogging crosses the line is when it interferes with your relationships, other jobs, and basic sanitation.

Nancy Kress said...

Kevin-- It's possible to be obsessive about ANYTHING, and/or dedicated to anything. When either career of writing or recreational blogging crosses the line is when it interferes with your relationships, other jobs, and basic sanitation.

Doug Dandridge said...

Nancy: I am fairly new to the putting my stuff out there and letting people comment on it thing. I have read the reviews of other people's works, especially movies, and thought that they just didn't get it. I read a blog by Jim Butcher in which he shared a review that said he could not write stories for a kindergartner. Now Butcher has put out over twenty bestsellers, but he stated in his blog that it still hurt, and he thought for a moment about just giving it up. Only for a moment though. Another good example from the movies were the reviews of John Carter. One reviewer really blasted the movie and made all kinds of references about it stealing ideas from Avatar. Since the book was written in 1912 I think the reviewer was confused about who stole from who. Greg Bear did a blog review and loved the movie, as someone who grew up in the genre would. I trust reviews from Greg much more than Mr. Chicago Movie Critic. I have only gotten five reviews so far, four of them five star, and one three star that said the book was great but the formatting was horrible. I guess I will know I have arrived when I get the hate mail reviews like Jim Butcher.