What’s in a Review?
I found a rather interesting article on reviews today, and it struck me as a useful tool for any reviewer out there. Check out this link for details. I’d like to know people’s thoughts on this, personally. What criteria do you use to judge a work? Do you consider yourself a critic? What kind of reviews do you like? I personally like funny reviews from time to time. Oh, sure, I want to know if it’s good or not, but I also don’t want to read a dry treatise on a novel/film/whatever. I’m a fan of the Popbitch/Pop Justice school of comment, and that means I like you to take the piss every now and again. If something’s rubbish, say so. If something is so trashy you love it, say that too. Then again, there’s having fun and being cruel. Critics don’t have to be objective, because any critic who pretends to be is lying, but that doesn’t mean a critic should forget a creative work has been made by an individual. Vitriol just tarnishes the reviewer rather than the reviewed. Anyway, thought on the matter are appreciated . . .
Website Found: PhD Comics
I keep stumbling upon this site and think it is worth mentioning here. What is it?PhD stands for Piled Higher and Deeper and is essentially a great source of post-graduate ridicule. The humor found there is pretty much focused on the stereotypes of post-graduate research and humorously crushing the dreams of graduate hopefuls everywhere–like me. Why is it cool?PhD has a lot of great features for graduates with an MA or PhD., for one, which is completely useless to me at this point (but will be useful some day). Their comic section features a huge archive of comics, some of which are downright hilarious. I particularly like how they make humor with graphs.Additionally the site features book versions of the comic, “Grad Gear” (t-shirts and the like), and a job section where folks with MAs or PhDs can potentially find work. There is also a forum. So check it out. It’s a neat little site and the comic is pretty funny! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Jason Sanford, Interzone, and a Contest
Recently Jason Sanford has opened up a contest to celebrate the publication of one his stories in Interzone. Basically: help spread the word about his story and Interzone and you could win a free one year subscription to the magazine. Sweet deal, right? Well, that’s what I’m doing. If you want to participate, go here and read the “rules”. One of the things that is cool about this contest is that you get a free copy of Sanford’s new story–“The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain”. While I haven’t gotten a chance to read it just yet, I’m looking forward to it. I spent a week in England in March of this year and one of the things I had hoped to find while there was an issue of Interzone and some other British magazines. I came back home empty handed, unfortunately, but I still want to read Interzone. The problem has always been that in comparison to magazines printed in the states, Interzone is extremely expensive–for obvious reasons. I still want to get a subscription to it, but it’s a little pricey for me, unfortunately–I’ve asked for it as a Christmas gift though. If you want to know more about Interzone’s history, check their about page. They’ve published a lot of amazing authors like Elizabeth Bear, Brian Aldiss, and Iain M. Banks. The about page has a whole list of great authors they’ve published. Interzone is to England what Analog, F&SF, and Asimov’s are to the United States. So you can see why I jumped on this opportunity. I’ll read Mr. Sanford’s story pretty soon and post again when I’m finished with a review. But this is it for now. Good luck to anyone else who decides to enter! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
eReaders: Suggestions?
I have probably been a tad bit critical of eReaders in the past, and with good reason, but I’ve been warming up to them somewhat as of late. The reason is that there are a lot of online magazines and magazines that release in PDF format that I would like to read more of, but I can’t because reading online for extended periods of time actually gives me a headache or bores the hell out of me.But recently I’ve decided to accept some eBooks for review, only because the publisher is a itsy bitsy in size and while I would love to have hard copies I thought it would be beneficial to this small publisher if I just bit the bullet and read a few books in eBook format. I’m not, at this point, going to do this for every publisher, or every author, but special cases will be made because I can stand to read the occasional eBook, just not eBook after eBook.Things are changing in the book market, though, and particularly in the short fiction market where online publishing seems the more “common” route than traditional publishing. I think this has pros and cons, but I think, all in all, this is possibly a better model for some publishers and probably something the big three are going to have to embrace to stay alive. Currently there are several online magazines that I read on and off, and I would like to read them more regularly, but there’s that “reading from the computer” thing and I’d rather spend my computer reading time editing my work or writing.All this in mind, I thought I’d talk to all of you about eReaders and get your opinions on the matter. I’m thinking of trying an eReader–possibly asking for one for Christmas–so I can start reading online magazines more regularly and news stuff. If I find the eReading experience good enough to extent that to eBooks I might change my entire review model and take eBooks almost exclusively to save the publishers a bit of money.The thing is, a lot of the eReaders I’m seeing have tremendous limitations for file format. So, what would you suggest? Is getting non-Kindle format books onto a Kindle too difficult to bother? What about Sony’s new eReader? Can I get PDFs onto eReaders or are there tools to help me convert to the correct format? What about plain text or txt files or .doc files?What do you suggest or what are you experiences with eReaders?