A Book Reviewer Rants

Instead of “rants,” I was gonna use the *b* word, but didn’t want a parental warning slapped on Straight From Hel. Besides, what this book reviewer does is instructive.

Clay Kallam of the Mercury News goes off about how readers can’t judge a book by its cost and how publishers send ARCs to the wrong reviewers. The article is a rather fun read.

Here’s a bit about his complaint that some series books aren’t worth the price or the author’s advance:

This month's example is "The Dark Volume" (Bantam, $26, 508 pages), the next installment in Gordon Dahlquist's "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" series. But for that $26, readers don't get any sort of resolution, and in fact, in the grand tradition of Robert Jordan, at the end of the 508 turgid pages, not much has happened at all. Sure, some minor characters bit the dust, and Dahlquist delivered lots of sound and fury, but a reader who skipped this one entirely (after reading the first effort, which was one book in hardback and two in softcover) would be able to jump right into the next volume without need of a synopsis.

Even worse, there might not even be a next volume …

For this, Dahlquist got $2 million?

And here’s a taste of his complaints about the books he’s sent to review:

I'm not claiming that book reviewers have a huge impact on sales, but given the limited means by which publishers can reach readers, it would seem to me that spending a couple minutes making sure the right books went to the right reviewers would make sense. But instead, I get sent loads of books about vampires (despite informing publicists I have no interest in bloodsucking immortals) and lots of horror (which is not now and has never been science fiction or fantasy).

It’s an interesting article. Read it to find out exactly what Kallam thinks is wrong with both The Dark Volume and The Revolution Business.