09-17-2004, 07:48 PM
I regularly review books for the Historical Novel Society (www.historicalnovelsociety.org) Though I'm careful not to trample over an author's efforts, if a story (or a non-fiction book) doesn't work for me, I will indicate this. You can see some of my recent reviews at: www.tegula.freeserve.co.uk/hns.htm. The reviews have to be quite short so that all the reviews can fit into the limited space of the Historical Novel Review. None of my current reviews are of Roman themed books, but there's a Scarrow forthcoming<br>
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As far as I'm concerned, reviews are always the opinion of the person who wrote it; perhaps it's one of those things you assume if you're reviewer! So if I read a stinker of a review it doesn't necessarily mean I won't read the book. Some authors don't seem to realise this BUT: any publicity is good publicity - if even a bad review is published, it's still advertising for that book, even if it hurts the old ego a tad.<br>
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I'm an archaeologist, but I only get really irritated if the human behaviour seems wrong in some way (stilted, unrealistic, etc) and then the whole thing starts to unravel for me. Then I'll pick up on 'material culture' faults (eg. Samian doesn't have a glaze, it has a slip, etc ...) and the water just keeps getting deeper. This rarely happens, and even then there's normally a subtle-ish way to indicate that this book was not exactly my cuppa. <p></p><i></i>
<br>
As far as I'm concerned, reviews are always the opinion of the person who wrote it; perhaps it's one of those things you assume if you're reviewer! So if I read a stinker of a review it doesn't necessarily mean I won't read the book. Some authors don't seem to realise this BUT: any publicity is good publicity - if even a bad review is published, it's still advertising for that book, even if it hurts the old ego a tad.<br>
<br>
I'm an archaeologist, but I only get really irritated if the human behaviour seems wrong in some way (stilted, unrealistic, etc) and then the whole thing starts to unravel for me. Then I'll pick up on 'material culture' faults (eg. Samian doesn't have a glaze, it has a slip, etc ...) and the water just keeps getting deeper. This rarely happens, and even then there's normally a subtle-ish way to indicate that this book was not exactly my cuppa. <p></p><i></i>
