By popular request ...

[coalescent]

Chance asked:

Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?

The second "you" refers to sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is

Comments

[grahamsleight]

I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks"

Almost all of Delany's fiction is in print in those cool Vintage editions. Plus, there's his On Writing...

[coalescent]

I should note that I consider suggestions from existing reviewers tantamount to volunteering. [g]

[rosefox]

And now it becomes clear what you meant by:

Although equally, if you don't have time and just want to send me the titles of books you think SH should cover, that would be fine too.

I shall keep this in mind.

[peake]

If you plan a Delany week I certainly volunteer. I shhould mention that I picked up a new novel by Delany while I was at Wiscon, not sf I think but still of interest. I haven't had a chance to read it yet (it's currently in a box somewhere because of all the building work at the moment), but if you needed a review ...

[jamiam]

Can I have a pony?

[grahamsleight]

Me too! Or a cinnamon whirl.

[rosefox]

Ew, cinnamon.

[pigeonhed]

Cinnamon whirls are easier to look after than ponies but which is more fun?

[rosefox]

It's not one of the Important Minorities, but since I'm now reviewing SF for Lambda, I'd be happy to review queer books for SH. It'd save me some time to be able to cover the same book twice. *)

(Actually, rewriting my SH review of the Slattery--almost finished, landing in your inbox any day now--for Lambda is giving me a bit of a headache, but that's mostly because the Slattery is not what I would call a queer book, so the review for Lambda ends up in great part about "Does just having queer characters who pay zero attention to the politics and societal wossname of their queerness make something a queer book? Should it?" while the SH review is mostly about all the different ways the book made me want to cry.)

[coalescent]

But surely, if you can write two reviews of the same book it means that neither of them is a complete and accurate presentation of your view of the book? :-p

More seriously, of course that would be great. Although equally, if you don't have time and just want to send me the titles of books you think SH should cover, that would be fine too.

[rosefox]

Touché! But I refuse to respond to your criticism of my reviewing style. So there.

[ninebelow]

while the SH review is mostly about all the different ways the book made me want to cry.

Hurry up! :)

[pigeonhed]

Maybe this is just a perception failure on my part, but I see a lot of interesting women sf writers around who certainly merit SH's attention but haven't yet amassed a significant body of book-length work to justify a week devoted to them. I'm thinking Kelly Link, M.Rickert, Nalo Hopkinson, Elizabeth Bear, Margo Lanagan etc.

The in print aspect is another part of the problem, have you consider a 'forgotten gems' type section where the likes of Leigh kennedy, Josephine Saxton, Patricia Geary, might get covered? None of their work seems to be in print but copies are widely available on Amazon etc.

[coalescent]

Well, we've reviewed all the writers you've listed at some point or other. Though we've had trouble keeping up with Bear, I admit ...

The problem with "forgotten gems" is that either SH or the reviewer has to pony up to get the book. Neither approach is ideal. This isn't to say it couldn't be done (probably should be done at some point), but I don't think it could be a regular feature.

[coalescent]

(Also, the last time we ran a review that described a writer as "forgotten" just because she was out of print, the reviewer got in no end of trouble. [g])

[pigeonhed]

Neglected? Missing In Action?

Funny people these writers aren't they. *g*

[peake]

As a reviewer it's nice to be asked what we want to review, but it does tend to confirm prejudices. It might be an idea once in a while to send a book we haven't asked for, something we might not otherwise have read. It will generate some very negative reviews, but also some new discoveries.

[coalescent]

You're right. As you may have noticed, I haven't sent a "which of these would you like to review?" email for a while now; I've been seeing whether I can keep up and commission enough reviews by emailing people one-on-one. I can, so I'm going to keep doing it, and will try to mix things up a bit more.