This is my list of books-to-read for the next month or so. A very heavy fantasy focus, as you can see - I'm falling back in love with the genre. And have got over, to an extent, my "oh my god, people will think I'm stupid for enjoying sci-fi/fantasy" stage.
1. Broken - Kelley Armstrong
2. Foreigner - CJ Cherryh
3. The Bitch in the House
4. Confessions of a Pagan Nun - Kate Horsley
5. Poison Study - Maria V Snyder
6. A Student of Living Things - Susan Richards Shreve
7. The Embers of Heaven - Alma Alexander
8. Magic or Madness - Justine Larbalestier
9. Temeraire - Naomi Novik
10. What to Eat - Marion Nestle
I've been reading a lot of author blogs lately (as you can see from the links I'm giving to authors if I know where their blog is). The somewhat uncomfortable aspect of that is that now I feel I should put more effort into my reviews, because what if they follow the link back and see what I've written?
As an example, Diane Duane actually went and commented on a very lacklustre review I wrote last month of Wizards at War. Which was extremely embarrassing, because I loved some of the earlier Wizards book, and I wished that I'd written about one of those instead. And I really didn't expect famous published people to read the silly things I write about their books. Ahem. As it happens, Diane Duane is actually her real name. I have it from the horse's mouth.
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Re the lacklusterness-or-not of the review: I wouldn't get too worried about that. I suspect I can speak for a fair number of other writers when I say that we understand perfectly well that not every reader is going to like every book. It's something you get used to over time.
And honesty is to be valued. Sometimes it may sting, sure. But a responsible author is careful to look at a review and see if there's any truth in it. (Most valuable are the reviews that suggest that something's wrong and then take the time to suggest what might have been done about the problem to rectify it. Reviews that don't bother doing the second can sometimes leave the writer with a feeling like they've suddenly found themselves in a doctor's office, and the doctor says, "Well, you've got cancer. That'll be fifty dollars, please!" -- and then opens the door for you to leave, and tells the receptionist to send in the next patient.)
...But certainly the Net is not the relatively anonymous place it used to be, where you could express an opinion and feel safe that the person you're expressing it about would probably never hear it. With tools like Technorati around, each word you drop into the void now creates echoes that can be heard far away. Maybe not even by the author himself/herself, at first: but the Net is full of people who'll email you and say "Did you see what so-and-so wrote about you?" (This was how I found out the other day that Wizards at War had been nominated for a Mythopoeic Award.) So beware...and never say anything in a blog that you're not willing to see on the front page of Google News. ;)
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