Wow, NY Times, that's quite a pile of FAIL there.

[barbarienne]

I was off the internet all day and thus may be a little late to the party. Apparently the latest electricity through the geek grapevine is this review of Game of Thrones in the NY Times.

Here is the email I sent to the author of the piece:

Let me first make this disclaimer: I have neither read GRRM's Game of Thrones, nor do I expect to watch the

Comments

[kateelliott]

[barbarienne]

swimtech just pointed me to the post on Orbit's blog which links to the Slate review which is even more direct and open in its "I'm reviewing a genre I hate and will never understand" attitude.

I don't get this. I just don't. Why would any respectable venue set a reporter to review something that they would never, ever, ever, ever in a million years like?

I'm allergic to capsaicin. I would never review a Mexican or Indian restaurant, because it would pretty much be, "Ow ow ow how can anyone eat this?" Both of those reviews are exactly equivalent.

[kateelliott]

[barbarienne]

LOL!

Indeed. I think half the reason people have such contempt for reviewers is because even good reviewers have difficulty separating their personal preferences from their professional standards.

[barbarienne]

They had to shut off the comment section (and then apparently deleted it). I couldn't find the "contact this author" link five minutes after I sent my letter, so I wonder if that's gone, too.

Once again the geekverse demonstrates that we own the internet.

[mastadge]

Does the NY Times even still have a comments section since they started their subscription model? I haven't seen a comments section on anything I've read there in the last little while. . .

Also, remember that Quantum Thief review a few weeks ago in which, at the end of a terrible review, the reviewer admitted that the problem was a "reader fail" rather than the book's failure? This is turning into quite the year for ridiculous unreviews.

[barbarienne]

"Unreviews" is an excellent term!

"I don't like this thing, which is an example of a category of thing that I don't like."

[dr_phil_physics]

I've run across a number of these. My favorite was the Time magazine review for one of the Star Trek movies, it might have even been the first one, by a reviewer who started off by saying he'd never seen an episode of Star Trek. Besides the idiocy of wearing that as a badge of excellence and courage on such a review, which they somehow don't think is a problem, is it any wonder that he didn't understand who these characters were? It'd be like a review of a Civil War film which questioned who are these Lincoln, Grant and Lee characters?

"You are not the reader/viewer intended here."

Glad you called them on it. And ditto on the poo flinging monkeys.

Dr. Phil

[la_marquise_de_]

That's an excellent letter. I hope they print it.