Reviewing Genres & Subgenres - "NO"
Submitted by Damon on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 21:09
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I find the question itself somewhat alarming. Different criteria for different parts of the genre? To me that implies a contest rather than a review. As though we are judging sponge cakes at a county fair: the thickest icing, the most yellow flesh, the moistest crumb.
Books are not sponge cakes. And books considered for review are not entrants in a county fair. A review is a personal assessment based on the knowledge of the reviewer in question, as well as his life experiences and the reading he's done in the past. You don't read a review -- you should not read a review -- to find out if a book is good or bad or if it meets some set of mysterious criteria. You read a review to find out what *this* particular reviewer thought of the book and how it fit into their worldview.
Nor is a book review a book report. The distinction is huge and important. A book report is meant to test the comprehension of the writer -- usually a student -- doing the report. The plot is reiterated, the major characters mentioned, probably in order of appearance. No assessment is invited or required and if one is offered, it's generally qualified: "I thought this was a good book because..."
A book review, on the other hand, is all about assessment. In a review, we're expecting to experience the book through the eyes of this reviewer. We might learn a thing or two about plot, we might hear about some of the characters, but this isn't the point of the book review. The point is for the reader to experience the book through the lens of the person writing the review. In a book review, I don't want to see the reviewer ticking off criteria. I want one thing only: to see a piece
of his heart.
Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of Death Was the Other Woman (St. Martin's Minotaur/Thomas Dunne).
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"No, absolutely not. The problem with "genre" fiction is that people tend to impose some sort preconceived caricature of what a book in that particular genre should be like on any novel that is market in that genre. I refuse to go along with that. I read books for fun, therefore a book should entertain me. Whether it does so by introducing elves, aliens of captain peacock in the library with a dagger is not all that interesting. Being marketed as a particular genre is not a proper context for a book review in my opinion. Much more relevant is how it relates to other works by an author or previous books in a series, what an author's influences are or even your personal associations with a book. I try to limit my self on that last item. We're aiming for a large audience here, most of whom don't know me personally. My personal associations are usually too obscure for anyone who doesn't know me very well.
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"I don't generally distinguish between genres except that I try to never give away the endings or key plot points. I read for enjoyment although obvious stupidity will sometimes throw me.i.e. a New York City homicide detective accepting that a person allergic to peanuts would voluntarily consume them in Mitch Silver's IN SECRET SERVICE. In general, I am willing to suspend belief as needed so long as the story is well written."
"I don't necessarily think one should apply different criteria when reviewing books. Rather when one sits down to review a book of any genre, he/she should first try to understand what the author wished to do. A book should be judged on its own merits and its own intentions. In some instance of a thriller novel, a realistic protagonist might "work" if it was the intention of the author to portray him as such or the intention was to investigate certain themes that could only impact if the novel was brutally realistic. Having a superman wouldn't do the novel any good.. When you would apply basic criteria of the thriller genre here, you could fault the author for portraying a character in that manner -- but it is in fact you, the reviewer who is at fault. You're blaming him for not achieving what he did not attempt. It's also misleading for the reader of your review, who is wrongly saddled with the reviewers own misconceptions.
Books are made of immaterial called stuff ideas. Essentially authors say to themselves, "Okay, I want to write a book with this setting as a backdrop and these themes. Themes I think important enough to 'rework' them into a novel. Above I want to tell a good story." They're not saying to themselves, "I want to write a book that (perfectly) fits the (fill in the blank with any given genre) genre." So once again, it's a matter of intentions. When reviewing the aforementioned book, the reviewer should judge the book on how well the author wove the themes through the narrative or how well he investigated the particular theme. Not on how well it fits the genre bill.
The thing is, genres are usually very hard to define. Where does one genre begin, where does it end? Usually there are more than numerous exceptions to any definition one can come up with. The definition with the least amount of exceptions, is the one that will be the one universally accepted. As a result the universal definition is a very broad, unspecific one (as detailed ones would only increase the amount of exception). This not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be pointed out that these type of definitions encompass too many varying works to base certain typical criteria on. That's just one genre, what about cross-genre writers like Michael Chabon? Trying to apply certain genre related criteria on cross-genre effort would be nonsense, everybody can see that. Trying to would probably result in conflicting criteria, a conflicting review and it would be conflicting crap. So it's better to stick to Chabon's intentions and judge the novel based on that."
-- Lawrence reviews for Fantasy Bookspot and his blog.
I find the question itself somewhat alarming. Different criteria for different parts of the genre? To me that implies a contest rather than a review. As though we are judging sponge cakes at a county fair: the thickest icing, the most yellow flesh, the moistest crumb.
Books are not sponge cakes. And books considered for review are not entrants in a county fair. A review is a personal assessment based on the knowledge of the reviewer in question, as well as his life experiences and the reading he's done in the past. You don't read a review -- you should not read a review -- to find out if a book is good or bad or if it meets some set of mysterious criteria. You read a review to find out what *this* particular reviewer thought of the book and how it fit into their worldview.
Nor is a book review a book report. The distinction is huge and important. A book report is meant to test the comprehension of the writer -- usually a student -- doing the report. The plot is reiterated, the major characters mentioned, probably in order of appearance. No assessment is invited or required and if one is offered, it's generally qualified: "I thought this was a good book because..."
A book review, on the other hand, is all about assessment. In a review, we're expecting to experience the book through the eyes of this reviewer. We might learn a thing or two about plot, we might hear about some of the characters, but this isn't the point of the book review. The point is for the reader to experience the book through the lens of the person writing the review. In a book review, I don't want to see the reviewer ticking off criteria. I want one thing only: to see a piece
of his heart.
Linda L. Richards is the editor of January Magazine and the author of Death Was the Other Woman (St. Martin's Minotaur/Thomas Dunne).
"No, absolutely not. The problem with "genre" fiction is that people tend to impose some sort preconceived caricature of what a book in that particular genre should be like on any novel that is market in that genre. I refuse to go along with that. I read books for fun, therefore a book should entertain me. Whether it does so by introducing elves, aliens of captain peacock in the library with a dagger is not all that interesting. Being marketed as a particular genre is not a proper context for a book review in my opinion. Much more relevant is how it relates to other works by an author or previous books in a series, what an author's influences are or even your personal associations with a book. I try to limit my self on that last item. We're aiming for a large audience here, most of whom don't know me personally. My personal associations are usually too obscure for anyone who doesn't know me very well.
"It's hard enough to define a genre, subgenres are even more impossible if you ask me. I find very little use for them. Fantasy, SF, Horror, those are general labels that can be useful. Whether something is high fantasy, epic fantasy or dark fantasy? I really don't care. Debate about such things is usually pointless.
"More in general on reviewing. I do have a format, if you can call it such, for reviews. It is more of a way to order my thoughts on a novel and a way to restrict the length of the review than a fixed set of rules but maybe you will find it useful.
"I try to aim for 600-800 word reviews. There's couple of reasons for that, first of all, the longer the review is, the more unlikely it becomes that your average surfing visitor will read it all. Attention spans are measured in seconds, scrolling is you enemy. I also try to restrict the length of a review because I don't want to give away too much.
"When I write a review I assume the reader has not read the book, perhaps not even any other work by the author. I usually open a review with a general comment on the author(s), the book or publication. Where does it fit in their career or a series, what else FBS has on them, or if it is a classic, some historical context.
"Then I move on to a description of the setting. For historical novels that includes the time frame of course. For SF and fantasy usually a description of the world/universe. After that I launch into a short synopsis of the book. I try not to give away anything past the first 1/3 of the book.
"After that there's usually a bit about the main characters or anything in particular that struck me about the book (and I can mention without spoiling it). This is the most flexible bit of my format, you can pretty much put in anything here.
"I then conclude with my opinion, although usually not too outspoken. As you probably will have guessed by now I feel a reader should make up their own mind about a book. Sure, if it is a hazard to your eyes I will mention it but it is not my job to tell people what they should or should not read. I try to stay away from being too analytic, that is only interesting to people who have read the book, so not my assumed audience. That doesn't mean anything deeper than what I describe about doesn't have a place on FBS, I just feel that an article is a more fitting medium for such things.
"I have yet to find a work of fiction that doesn't fit in the format I described above so I only deviate from it when I think of something that would make the review better or more interesting, not because of the supposed genre of a book."
Valashain, reviewer for Fantasy Bookspot
“I can't see much logic in having different review criteria when considering books from different sub-genres of crime fiction. Apart from anything else, the boundaries between those different sub-genres are surely too loose and ill-defined for this to make a lot of sense. And it may suggest that one branch of the genre is somehow 'worthier' than another, which seems inherently dubious. We'd all agree that there are some very good thrillers and some very bad literary novels. After all, crime writers already suffer in some quarters from being regarded as less 'important' than mainstream novelists. Why make matters worse?
“From the perspective of a reader of reviews, it helps to get an idea, over a period of time, of where a reviewer is coming from, his or her likes and dislikes and idiosyncrasies. It's then easier to get a clear picture of a book by comparing the different takes of different reviewers whose views can be trusted - even if, from time to time, are open to strong disagreement.
“The source of the review also makes a difference. When I'm writing for a reference book that may be around in libraries for many years, I'm likely to take a more detailed approach than when I'm posting a few comments on my blog (www.doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/) or someone else's. There's nothing wrong with this, I think. Blogs require immediacy, the content of reference books need to be considered, measured. Reviews for magazines or my website often fall somewhere between the two. Sometimes the style of the review needs to be tailored to the publication, and the editor's preferences. Why complicate matters further by discriminating between different sub-genres? A review is simply one person's subjective opinion; there are enough variables already, we don't need any more.”
Martin Edwards is the author of WATERLOO SUNSET (Poisoned Pen Press, US, Allison & Busby, UK) to be published in April. WATERLOO SUNSET is the eighth Harry Devlin mystery, set in the European Capital of Culture 2008.
"I don't generally distinguish between genres except that I try to never give away the endings or key plot points. I read for enjoyment although obvious stupidity will sometimes throw me.i.e. a New York City homicide detective accepting that a person allergic to peanuts would voluntarily consume them in Mitch Silver's IN SECRET SERVICE. In general, I am willing to suspend belief as needed so long as the story is well written."
-- Jack Quick, reviewer for Bookbitch