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Look What Just Arrived! (#2)

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I did my first post about my new books, so here’s some of the latest books I’ve bought for myself and been sent by authors.

3/8 of these books were sent to me by authors: The Secret War, The End of Infinity and FireSeed One.  I’ve read the two by Matt Myklusch already, but FireSeed One is definitely high up on my reading list.  Don’t you just love the cover?

4/8 of these books I purchased today from the ever-expanding ‘Almost New’ (aka ‘Gently Used’) section of my local bookstore.  I’ve heard excellent things about Simon Scarrow’s The Legion and The Song of Troy by the famous Colleen McCullough and I really don’t know which one to read first.  As for Wilbur Smith’s The Quest, I might as well finish the series I started.  The accuracy is questionable to say the least, but Smith’s writing style is pretty addictive.  As for The King’s Daughter, it’s set in my third-favourite time period: Tudor England.  And it’s about a woman working to overthrow the infamous Bloody Mary in order for Elizabeth to take the throne.  Personally, I’d like to hear Mary’s side of the story, but I guess I won’t this time.

Only one out of eight of these books is actually new and I purchased it after hearing good things from a friend of mine as well as reading an excerpt on Amazon.  I’ve already started it and so far, so good.  The premise of Starcrossed is stereotypical, so it will be interesting to see what Josephine Angelini does with it.

So what are you guys reading?  Found anything good lately?

Books that Should be Taught in School

1.  The Accidental Hero by Matt Myklusch

Two words: killer robots.

Yeah, you read that right.  The Accidental Hero has everything kids love (killer robots, superheros and adventure) while including themes educators love to over-analyze (friendship, doing the right thing and believing in yourself).  It also will actually appeal to boys, who are incredibly neglected in both children’s and young adult literature.  Besides, with excellent writing, sympathetic characters, and incredible world-building, kids will be able to enjoy novel study for once. Continue reading →

The 3 Best Books to Read in the Bathroom

Hi, my name is Carrie Slager and I’m a bathroom reader.

There, I’ve just admitted it and I realize that I don’t want to be cured.  So, like Shaun in Deadline, I’m going to nurture my madness and to heck with what other people think.  What to know what the best books are for bathroom reading?  Read on!

1.  Any of the Bathroom Reader series.

This is what started it all: a birthday present from my uncle.  He gave me a Bathroom Reader and I’ve never looked back.  Each of the numerous books the Bathroom Reader’s Institute produces is filled with bizarre trivia that is conveniently divided into sections depending on how long each article is.  Some articles are only one side of a page while the longest are three or four pages.  Along the bottom of each page are little ‘running feet’, which are basically random facts for you to spout at parties to impress everyone. Continue reading →

Since I’m Guest Posting Today…

I would like to run a survey.  Yes, another survey.  I like feedback from you, my readers, because you’re the reason I’m still blogging.  If you’re curious about my guest post, you can find it by clicking this link.  It’s for Eona by Alison Goodman, which is an excellent book even if you don’t generally read fantasy.

Back to my survey.  I’ve asked you guys about what kind of content you like here on The Mad Reviewer, but I haven’t asked what you’ve thought of the blog itself.  So, what do you think?

Should Reviewers Give Bad Reviews?

To my surprise, I discovered a debate about the ethics of bad reviews.  It involved much blustering, ad hominem attacks and ridiculously obscure literary references, so here are the simplified arguments:

For: People have the right to voice their opinions.

Against: Reviewers should keep bad reviews to themselves because they hurt authors, especially new authors.

Now, the argument I came across mostly applied to national newspaper reviewers giving bad reviews to new poetry, but sort of degenerated to encompass all bad reviews by anyone, including bloggers.  That’s why I’ve chosen to write my own opinion on the topic, not only to get rid of the ridiculous rhetoric, but bring a little sanity to the debate.  Here we go…

First off, attempting to censor the internet is like trying to forbid a teenager from seeing their girlfriend/boyfriend—it only heightens the appeal.  Secondly, we need to talk semantics.  ‘Bad review’ is generally a misnomer because in nine out of ten reviews with that label, the reviewer has found at least one good thing to say about the book.  ‘Bad review’ usually implies that the reviewer simply hated it and wants to completely trash the book and the author, which is far from the truth.  A review with honest, thoughtful criticism is better than a review where the reviewer praises the book to the heavens while lying through their teeth.

And let’s not kid ourselves here.  Would you trust a reviewer that only gave 4 and 5 star reviews?  To me, that says they’re either lying or they love every book they read, even the ones that are truly bad.

I’m not going to apologize for giving 1 and 2 star reviews.  I’m not even going to apologize for the 0.5 star review I gave once.  Why?  Because I wrote my honest feelings about those books and I like to think I had genuinely constructive criticism.  If I didn’t publish reviews on books I didn’t like, not only would I have less content, I’d be selling myself.  When I started my blog, I promised to tell only the truth about books and I have.  I am not about to censor myself because one bad review might prejudice my admittedly small following against an author.  And frankly, I don’t think many other bloggers would.

I don’t see many issues in black and white, but this is one of the rare cases where I do.  You’re either completely for free speech or against it.  You either want bloggers to put their honest opinions out there, or you want to silence them—well, parts of them.  Again, let’s be honest with ourselves: Are our egos so inflated that we actually think one bad review by a blogger will ruin a new writer’s chance at gaining a following?

Of course not.  One bad review is not going to hurt authors.  In fact, sometimes I read reviews where the reviewer hated the book and went on to buy it because the premise actually sounded good to me.  I know a lot of people who are the same.  Yes, a lot of bad reviews will harm a new book, but in that case I have something thoroughly cold-hearted to say.  If your book is getting a large amount of bad reviews (70% or more), it was probably meant to fail.

So what do you guys think?  Should book reviewers keep it to themselves if they didn’t like a book?