On the Nature and Usefulness of Opinion and Context and Overly Long Subject Lines
Context
deadcities_icon has been recently posting a fair amount about the structure of current reviews/literary criticisms, mostly in a SF/F context. He's now tentatively planning on setting up and curating a website for such things. He posted ( http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/100653.html) asking whether or not others would be interested in such a thing. I responded and promptly went off on a tangent whose results I actually find somewhat interesting.
Yes, I love me some qualifiers. Anyways....
What are my needs for a review?
It must not ruin the book for me, should I choose to read it. Among other, more intangible notions, that means no spoilers. It also implies a certain level of required non-specificity.
It must provide insight into where the plot, characters, setting, and writing level/style (more than merely "good" or "bad") are situated in comparison to standard literary/sf tropes and other books/authors. Comparing the style in which The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is written to A.S. Byatt's early work [that's what I've thought of it so far, among other things that I will write up eventually] is much more useful than merely calling it "elaborate and slightly old-fashioned."
It must entertain, and it must be concise. In other words, well-written.
It does not need to even mention whether the reviewer found the publication in question to be enjoyable or not. That's not required, though it's not a disqualification either.
And it gets bonus points for a pretty picture, a summary of the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the plot, and a fair-use excerpt from the beginning with a link to a longer excerpt if available elsewhere online. Because I am fickle and flighty, like most folk browsing on the internet.
Keys: information indexing, tag clouds, and objective categorization of two of the most subjective things around--taste and style. Two sides of the same coin.
Why do I care? At all?
I'm very interested in the propagation and categorization of useful information. The marketplace of ideas and experiences. Cross-linking. To me, these are the things that good reviews/literary criticisms concern themselves with.
It's about the shiny, and the useful, and the relevant.
I also read a fair number of book reviews and summaries. I read widely and voraciously. ...and one of the things I've been planning on doing is writing up more book/movie/restaurant/experience reviews. Signal-to-noise ratio, and all that jazz.
Hmm. Someday, I'll find a way to use that last line as a title.
deadcities_icon has been recently posting a fair amount about the structure of current reviews/literary criticisms, mostly in a SF/F context. He's now tentatively planning on setting up and curating a website for such things. He posted ( http://deadcities-icon.livejournal.com/100653.html) asking whether or not others would be interested in such a thing. I responded and promptly went off on a tangent whose results I actually find somewhat interesting.
Yes, I love me some qualifiers. Anyways....
What are my needs for a review?
It must not ruin the book for me, should I choose to read it. Among other, more intangible notions, that means no spoilers. It also implies a certain level of required non-specificity.
It must provide insight into where the plot, characters, setting, and writing level/style (more than merely "good" or "bad") are situated in comparison to standard literary/sf tropes and other books/authors. Comparing the style in which The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is written to A.S. Byatt's early work [that's what I've thought of it so far, among other things that I will write up eventually] is much more useful than merely calling it "elaborate and slightly old-fashioned."
It must entertain, and it must be concise. In other words, well-written.
It does not need to even mention whether the reviewer found the publication in question to be enjoyable or not. That's not required, though it's not a disqualification either.
And it gets bonus points for a pretty picture, a summary of the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the plot, and a fair-use excerpt from the beginning with a link to a longer excerpt if available elsewhere online. Because I am fickle and flighty, like most folk browsing on the internet.
Keys: information indexing, tag clouds, and objective categorization of two of the most subjective things around--taste and style. Two sides of the same coin.
Why do I care? At all?
I'm very interested in the propagation and categorization of useful information. The marketplace of ideas and experiences. Cross-linking. To me, these are the things that good reviews/literary criticisms concern themselves with.
It's about the shiny, and the useful, and the relevant.
I also read a fair number of book reviews and summaries. I read widely and voraciously. ...and one of the things I've been planning on doing is writing up more book/movie/restaurant/experience reviews. Signal-to-noise ratio, and all that jazz.
Hmm. Someday, I'll find a way to use that last line as a title.