Writing Book Reviews — How and Why
Bill Ward over at Black Gate has a good article on writing book reviews. It is interesting that he distinguishes between writing a book review and a book report.
I have always tried to avoid writing the plot summary flavor of book report. I have been writing my opinions on the books that I read. I like to cover the quality, and position of the book in time and genre. It is more important to write about the how, why and where of a book and let the readers find out the plot by themselves.
By the way, I am now 8 books behind in my reviewing. I may never catch up, but I want to review the Varley book as well as the three Edgar Pangborn Books that I have. I read 3 SF magazines from the 1970s and I would like to discuss them, but the stories are rapidly fading from memory, so I might not get to them.
October is “Read a Book by Ray Bradbury Month”, so I will be taking Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes to work with me next week for my annual reading of this, my favorite book of all time.
