The Bad Bully Review(er) Manifesto (or, Why Negative Reviews Are Good)
If you haven’t heard or seen it yet, the proverbial shit hit the SF/F-community-fan today on this Strange Horizons review of Michael J. Sullivan’s Theft of Swords.* Not just any shit, mind you, but a rather familiar kind of excrement that makes the SF/F world an amusing and altogether strange place. The short version: Liz Bourke wrote a scathing review of Sullivan’s novel (technically two novels packed into one), in which she derided the book for weak prose, inaccurate use of Early Modern English, plot and character inequities, and the frequency of weak female characters. In response, a number of people left comments assaulting Bourke in one of two ways: 1) rejecting Bourke’s criticism as patently bunk, and 2) launching accusations at Bourke herself. (There were other reactions too, but you should read the comments to get the full picture.) The result? A long dialogue about the value of negative reviews, what constitutes “being mean,” and similar themes we’ve seen before. The review/comments also inspired this post by Adrian Faulkner about why bullying reviews are bad news indeed, from which the following gem-of-a-quote comes from: I don’t know what happened to make some of these reviewers so bitter. Jealousy of the author’s success, a misguided thought that this will make a name for themselves? I wouldn’t accept racism, homophobia or anti-Semitism in a review, so why should I accept bullying? Surely, in the 21st century, we’re better than that? It genuinely shocks me that the genre community believes that type of behaviour is acceptable in this day and age. Seriously, people, it’s not hard to write an honest review! Hard, indeed. So hard, in fact, that it must be difficult to find said honesty in a negative review. Clearly a spirited reviewer like Bourke must be lying for cheap shocks, lambasting Sullivan because he just so happens to be the random victim of the week. And by lying, Bourke clearly has put herself in league with racists, homophobes, and anti-Semites. Why not neo-Nazis, the Westboro Baptist Church, Rick Santorum, and the British National Party too?** Or perhaps not. What all of this seems to point to is a public devaluation of actual honest criticism. We have grown used to — in this community, at least — a misdirected honesty. Too little attention has been given to the full picture, one which has, on the one side, the good and the beautiful, and, on the other side, the bad and the ugly. You can imagine which side isn’t getting its fair shake. But negative reviews are not only fascinating, but crucial. As a writer who occasionally workshops his fiction, I know how important it is to be told honestly when something doesn’t work. That usually means having to accept harsh criticism not unlike what Bourke wrote in her review. Someone who only tells me good things, or refuses to tear my work to pieces where it needs such treatment, is useless. Likewise, a reviewer who cannot write negative reviews is less a reviewer than a slave to publicity. We have to be able to tell people when we don’t like something, just as we have to be able to tell people when we do. And we should have free reign — minus those spaces where libel might be committed — to explore the “why.” Negative reviews are a way to remind the public, authors, and publishers about the standards expected of publication.*** The fewer negative reviews available where they belong, the more likely it is that bad books will continue to be published.**** None of that makes a reviewer a “bully.” To make that assessment is to expose a woeful ignorance of how bullies operate.***** Bullies don’t stop at criticizing the “behavior” that you make public for consumption. Rather, bullies seek to inflict personal damage, physical and emotional, assaulting you where you should feel safe. They’re opportunistic predators. Is Liz Bourke a bully? Not by a long shot. Passionate and brutally honest? You bet. But very little of her review could be misconstrued as a personal attack against Mr. Sullivan, and those elements which some have taken to be “bully behavior” might be better called “hyperbolic criticism.” Her review does what some of the best reviews do: provide solid evidence, passion, and personality. To question her argument because you disagree with her tone, her method, or her chosen “target” says more about your personal investment in fandom than the quality of Bourke as a critic. Nor does launching personal attacks against someone you accuse of the same activity useful to your cause. Rank hypocrisy is a one-way-street, as it were. Whatever we think of reviews, good and bad, they must be honest and they must provide sound reasoning, even if we still disagree with them in the end. They should not, however, be held to Adrian Faulkner’s standard: The best reviews create debate about the thing they are reviewing, the worst create debate about the review. Holding the value of a review to the whims of human reaction is not unlike deciding drunk driving by whether someone crashes their car. Then again, there are probably better analogies for this… What do you all think about negative reviews? ————————————————————- *For the record, I have had two reviews published in Strange Horizons: Tron: Legacy (Adam Roberts disagreed with me here) and Bricks by Leon Jenner (no thoughts whatsoever). **Look these folks up if you have no idea who I’m talking about. ***When I say negative reviews, I don’t mean one-line rants, as is common on the Internet. ****I have not read Sullivan’s work, though we are interviewing him for The Skiffy and Fanty Show next month, which will require me to read his work. Bourke’s review will have little influence on my take, as my reading standards are understandably different. Personally, I can let go and enjoy a fluffy book. Don’t take my word for it, though. Read my reviews in the last year or so. Don’t go farther than that, though. The deeper
Haul of Books 2012: Books Received Vol. 1 (Post-Christmas Edition)
Everything you see below are books (and a movie) I got over Christmas, whether as presents or through spending my Christmas money. Needless to say, I bought a lot of stuff. Before you check out the books, though, I’ve got a few questions: What did you get for Christmas (or your particular winter holiday)? Which of the following books sound interesting to you? Feel free to leave a comment with your answers. Here goes (warning: there’s a lot of stuff in this post): Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker (Eos) This is the third novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary SF, now back in print from Tor. In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life, for profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth century Hollywood in the days of D.W. Griffith, and then Mendoza is in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man that looks disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined. Synecdoche, New York directed by Charlie Kaufman (Sony Pictures Classics) From Charlie Kaufman, comes a visual and philosophic adventure, Synechdoche, New York. As he did with his groundbreaking scripts for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman twists and subverts form and language as he delves into the mind of a man who, obsessed with his own mortality, sets out to construct a massive artistic enterprise that could give some meaning to his life. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Hope Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Samantha Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden’s own deteriorating reality. Slow River by Nicola Griffith (Del Rey) She awoke in an alley to the splash of rain. She was naked, a foot-long gash in her back was still bleeding, and her identity implant was gone. Lore Van Oesterling had been the daughter of one of the world’s most powerful families…and now she was nobody, and she had to hide. Then out of the rain walked Spanner, predator and thief, who took her in, cared for her wound, and taught her how to reinvent herself again and again. No one could find Lore now: not the police, not her family, and not the kidnappers who had left her in that alley to die. She had escaped…but the cost of her newfound freedom was crime and deception, and she paid it over and over again, until she had become someone she loathed. Lore had a choice: She could stay in the shadows, stay with Spanner…and risk losing herself forever. Or she could leave Spanner and find herself again by becoming someone else: stealing the identity implant of a dead woman, taking over her life, and creating a new future. But to start again, Lore required Spanner’s talents–Spanner, who needed her and hated her, and who always had a price. And even as Lore agreed to play Spanner’s game one final time, she found that there was still the price of being a Van Oesterling to be paid. Only by confronting her family, her past, and her own demons could Lore meld together who she had once been, who she had become, and the person she intended to be… A Practical Guide to Racism by C. H. Dalton (Gotham Books) A look at the races of the world by a lovable bigot, capturing the proud history and bright future of racism in one handy, authoritative, and deeply offensive volume! Meet “C. H. Dalton,” a professor of racialist studies and an expert on inferior people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, and sexual preferences. Presenting evidence that everyone should be hated, A Practical Guide to Racism contains sparkling bits of wisdom on such subjects as: The good life enjoyed by blacks, who shuffle through life unhindered by the white man’s burdens, to become accomplished athletes, rhyme smiths, and dominoes champions The sad story of the industrious, intelligent Jews, whose entire reputation is sullied by their taste for the blood of Christian babies A close look at the bizarre, sweet-smelling race known as “women,” who are not very good at anything—especially ruling the free world A crucial manual to Arabs, a people so sensitive they are liable to blow up at any time. Literally. Including a comprehensive glossary of timeless epithets, with hundreds of pejorative words for everyone from Phoenicians to Jews, A Practical Guide to Racism is an essential field guide for our multicultural world. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead Books) After more than 189 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for The
SandF Episode 3 (Torture Cinema Meets Twilight) is Live!
(We’re playing catch-up right now, which should explain why there have been two episodes this week. There was no episode last week. Regular schedule shall resume next week!) The newest episode over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show is a little obvious from the tile: a long and intoxicated review of one of the worst films ever made — Twilight. If you’re up for hearing Jen and I babble about the good and the bad of the “vampire epic,” then you should stream or download the episode here.