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WHY I DISLIKE AND DON'T TRUST REVIEWS
Reviews are subjective, and here in the age of the internet everyone and his brother has something to comment on, whether they have solid insight to offer or not. For years, whenever I would go on a site like Amazon.com in search of a particular product, I looked to the customer reviews to see if any previous consumers could give me the lowdown on the quality, functionality, and longevity of said product. Big mistake. For every rave review I saw, there was always someone who had terrible luck with the same item. In fact, there were generally so many contradictory opinions that pretty much every product I looked at averaged out to... well.. average in recommendations. Thus, I stopped paying attention to reviews.
The same goes for book reviews.
As far as my own book goes, online reviews have been hard to come by during all the years that it's been available. In the beginning, I even paid a few professional readers for scholarly commentary to get my book into play. And what, you ask, were the ultimate, combined conclusions of all of the reviews, both solicited and spontaneous? Any guesses? Yep, they averaged out to somewhere around a C+. What did I tell you?
Below, take a gander at two completely different fellows who read OSAS and critiqued it on the internet:
First, an unsatisfied chap who calls himself "ag". I'm printing his review exactly as he wrote it (you'll see why)...
REVIEW BLURB: help (1 star)
TEXT: author in need of medical help of the literary kind
a difficult book to read
editorial doctor should consider 1. a literary emetic. to rid the author of the thesaurus he has swallowed.
2. a binding agent to treat his narrative diarrhoea
why use a simple adjective or concise phrase to convey meaning where you can use metaphors consisting of multiple obscure ,at times,synonyms or several paragraphs of waffle will suffice.
toxophilate for lover of archery or ? master archer. please even the spelling was wrong
I found myself putting the book down many times especially in the first several chapters, it was like walking through a bog, much effort for little reward.Only my innate stubbornness kept me going.
use of so called sophisticated language smacks more of literary snobbery.
keep the narrative tight , style simple ,book in need of a prune 100 paged or so.
I can easily entertain such a review without having my feelings hurt. In fact, I encourage frankness and helpful suggestions on how I might better myself. I strive to emulate Errol Flynn's Robin Hood character from the 1939 film of the same name, where he battles Alan Hale's Little John for the right to access a log-bridge to cross a stream. At the end, when Little John beats Robin, the latter scoffs at John's apology and says, "On the contrary! I love a man who can best me!" Well, ag old pal, you critiqued and you offered a few suggestions, but if I indeed need some help with my writing, I can't gloss over the fact that you do as well. For such a compact review, you demonstrated an array of spacing issues, punctuation errors, capitalization short-comings, and -- yes -- kind of a snotty attitude. Next time, be a bit more constructive and leave the snipes for someone else. And by the way, there are neither too many nor too few words in OSAS. It's exactly the length and complexity that I wanted it. Please pass the book on to someone who might enjoy it better than you, and find yourself something more to your liking.
Next, read a review by someone named Anthony who read the same book and liked it for some of the exact reasons that ag hated it:
REVIEW BLURB: None (5 Stars)
TEXT: Ok, first off let me say this is my first book review so please be understanding. Over the past few years I have read a large number of fantasy/Sci-Fi type books. Most of these books are easy to read and excusing a few well placed words are at about a 6th grade reading level. Of Staves and Sigmas is quite the opposite. In my personal opinion this book was written on a Upper Graduate Level. When you first start reading this book, you become lost in how it is written. Rather than "dumb it down" like a lot of authors do, Geoffrey took a different approach and bumped it WAY up. The one problem I see with this book is some readers will lose interest and not be able to follow along, not because they do not understand the story, but because they do not understand the meaning of the words. I will admit, while reading the first few chapters, I became lost, almost board (sic) in having to think about what I was reading rather than just reading it. It became a chore to understand the words so I could understand the concept the writer was meaning. After about three chapters I noticed I no longer needed to concentrate like before. The words flowed with ease and I even realized I was able to pick up on the meanings behind uncommon words without having to focus my attention on doing so. I noticed when I spoke, I started to implement more intelligent words into my conversations. I noticed when I focused my attention while writing a paper for class, my papers became more professional and my grades increased.
I grabbed two of the sentences from the book to show you an example of what I am meaning.
"He was nigh to becoming absurdly inverted, where his conscious was imminently becoming the pesky, intrusive sanity that interfered with the greater, everyday normalcy of his lunacy."
"Yet, quizzically, somewhere in the subterraneity of his being there existed a longing, an almost calming ardour that inconceivably wished for consummation, that desired the end like a broken man who waited for death."
The entire book is like this. Although like I previously stated, once you get through a few chapters, sentences like this flow by like you were reading Green Eggs and Ham. Overall this book was a superb read and I am eagerly awaiting the second installment due soonish.
I recommend this book to anyone wanting a great story with an adult writing style.
And there you have it. One absolute pan, one glorious rave, both for the same novel. And while I appreciate Anthony's terrific review, which would have wafted me up to Cloud 9 if it weren't for the weight of the heavy thesaurus I swallowed, I can only revisit my original premise that reviews are subjective, and therefore of little true worth to me and to readers in search of books to consume. And again, OSAS is exactly as I wanted it, and OQAQ will be the same.
The same goes for book reviews.
As far as my own book goes, online reviews have been hard to come by during all the years that it's been available. In the beginning, I even paid a few professional readers for scholarly commentary to get my book into play. And what, you ask, were the ultimate, combined conclusions of all of the reviews, both solicited and spontaneous? Any guesses? Yep, they averaged out to somewhere around a C+. What did I tell you?
Below, take a gander at two completely different fellows who read OSAS and critiqued it on the internet:
First, an unsatisfied chap who calls himself "ag". I'm printing his review exactly as he wrote it (you'll see why)...
REVIEW BLURB: help (1 star)
TEXT: author in need of medical help of the literary kind
a difficult book to read
editorial doctor should consider 1. a literary emetic. to rid the author of the thesaurus he has swallowed.
2. a binding agent to treat his narrative diarrhoea
why use a simple adjective or concise phrase to convey meaning where you can use metaphors consisting of multiple obscure ,at times,synonyms or several paragraphs of waffle will suffice.
toxophilate for lover of archery or ? master archer. please even the spelling was wrong
I found myself putting the book down many times especially in the first several chapters, it was like walking through a bog, much effort for little reward.Only my innate stubbornness kept me going.
use of so called sophisticated language smacks more of literary snobbery.
keep the narrative tight , style simple ,book in need of a prune 100 paged or so.
I can easily entertain such a review without having my feelings hurt. In fact, I encourage frankness and helpful suggestions on how I might better myself. I strive to emulate Errol Flynn's Robin Hood character from the 1939 film of the same name, where he battles Alan Hale's Little John for the right to access a log-bridge to cross a stream. At the end, when Little John beats Robin, the latter scoffs at John's apology and says, "On the contrary! I love a man who can best me!" Well, ag old pal, you critiqued and you offered a few suggestions, but if I indeed need some help with my writing, I can't gloss over the fact that you do as well. For such a compact review, you demonstrated an array of spacing issues, punctuation errors, capitalization short-comings, and -- yes -- kind of a snotty attitude. Next time, be a bit more constructive and leave the snipes for someone else. And by the way, there are neither too many nor too few words in OSAS. It's exactly the length and complexity that I wanted it. Please pass the book on to someone who might enjoy it better than you, and find yourself something more to your liking.
Next, read a review by someone named Anthony who read the same book and liked it for some of the exact reasons that ag hated it:
REVIEW BLURB: None (5 Stars)
TEXT: Ok, first off let me say this is my first book review so please be understanding. Over the past few years I have read a large number of fantasy/Sci-Fi type books. Most of these books are easy to read and excusing a few well placed words are at about a 6th grade reading level. Of Staves and Sigmas is quite the opposite. In my personal opinion this book was written on a Upper Graduate Level. When you first start reading this book, you become lost in how it is written. Rather than "dumb it down" like a lot of authors do, Geoffrey took a different approach and bumped it WAY up. The one problem I see with this book is some readers will lose interest and not be able to follow along, not because they do not understand the story, but because they do not understand the meaning of the words. I will admit, while reading the first few chapters, I became lost, almost board (sic) in having to think about what I was reading rather than just reading it. It became a chore to understand the words so I could understand the concept the writer was meaning. After about three chapters I noticed I no longer needed to concentrate like before. The words flowed with ease and I even realized I was able to pick up on the meanings behind uncommon words without having to focus my attention on doing so. I noticed when I spoke, I started to implement more intelligent words into my conversations. I noticed when I focused my attention while writing a paper for class, my papers became more professional and my grades increased.
I grabbed two of the sentences from the book to show you an example of what I am meaning.
"He was nigh to becoming absurdly inverted, where his conscious was imminently becoming the pesky, intrusive sanity that interfered with the greater, everyday normalcy of his lunacy."
"Yet, quizzically, somewhere in the subterraneity of his being there existed a longing, an almost calming ardour that inconceivably wished for consummation, that desired the end like a broken man who waited for death."
The entire book is like this. Although like I previously stated, once you get through a few chapters, sentences like this flow by like you were reading Green Eggs and Ham. Overall this book was a superb read and I am eagerly awaiting the second installment due soonish.
I recommend this book to anyone wanting a great story with an adult writing style.
And there you have it. One absolute pan, one glorious rave, both for the same novel. And while I appreciate Anthony's terrific review, which would have wafted me up to Cloud 9 if it weren't for the weight of the heavy thesaurus I swallowed, I can only revisit my original premise that reviews are subjective, and therefore of little true worth to me and to readers in search of books to consume. And again, OSAS is exactly as I wanted it, and OQAQ will be the same.
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