I Broke The Review Rules

I think I broke Jeff Vandermeer's reviewing rules.

Oh wait, he said books. I'm okay.

Ho ho.

This seems like a good time to talk about the "Everyone's A Critic" panel at Eastercon, seeing as a rash of "what's a review?" posts have broken out over a few blogs. I hear it's contagious and reoccurring. Cheryl has a sensible post about it and there are comments aplenty on Torque Control.

I enjoyed the panel, it at times felt like bloggers vs. the establishment, in a fun way, and strayed onto a conversation about authors and reviewers and the shenanigans resulting from the collision of the two.

The assumption made by some of the panel was that a review on a blog tries to aspire to being a "proper" review, that there is some serious intention behind it. I don't think this is necessarily true. Someone from the audience said that their blog was just a substitute for talking down the pub, and I like that idea. I'm just chatting away to the interweb, and some people read. I probably wouldn't expect or want this style from a "proper" magazine. It's all about trust I think, or maybe brand. Some places are trusted for serious, impartial reviews, other blogs are read because the blogger spouts torrents of rage, other blogs are read because they feel like reading a friends diary. Fortunately we have the choice these days.

The question also arose as to why bloggers would rather blog than write reviews for other publications. Andrew Drucker summed it up for me, (paraphrase) "that would be work". Made me laugh, but it's also true, blogging is something I do for fun, in between the other stuff I have to do. I have no doubt that working with an editor such as Paul or Niall would help me write better reviews, but for the moment at least, I'm not worried about that. I'm concentrating on trying to write better fiction, not better reviews.

Having said all that, it's my blog and I'll change my mind if I want to. I have control, as I said at the panel. If I feel like taking a few hours to write a serious review I could (or could try), if I want to write a one word review, I can. (Argue the definition of review elsewhere...) But I'll probably just write a few paragraphs about what I liked and didn't like about the book, in a more or less, stream of consciousness, talking down the pub style. Then post a Doctor Who rumour.