That review in the blog entry of a couple days ago made me start thinking about the reviews I see a little more often than the ones in print: I mean the reviews on Amazon.
There are writers who’ll tell you they pay no attention to the reviews to be found on Amazon and at the Barnes & Noble site. I usually find this kind of hard to comprehend, though there must be those who genuinely don’t look…or don’t care. Yes, some writers will tell you that the only reviews worth paying attention to (and not always even those) are the ones done by professional reviewers, the ones that appear in the trades. Certainly all you have to do to find evidence on which to base this case is go over to Amazon World (which is worth a glimpse if you haven’t seen it).
Well, other writers can do what they like. I do look at those reviews from time to time. I hope it’s not always simply ego making me do it. It can’t always be bad for you to see someone saying that they liked your book, can it? God knows, there are times in the middle of the night when every writer wants to hear that…
And then there are the negative reviews. Some of them are funny. But at the same time I often find myself looking at one or another of them and thinking, “Well, never mind if that’s funny…is it right?” Certainly the “professionals” don’t have a monopoly on correctly identifying something that doesn’t work. So I look at the reviews with some care. You never can tell when you’ll run into something useful…
Here are some from Amazon and B&N that caught my attention recently. I’m not always going to comment…
By far, So You Want to Be a Wizard has the most reviews:
this book is great! i say if you like adventure and you read thick books then this is the book for you!
Um…okay. 
(Why do I keep thinking of that Kliban cartoon? “I really go for a man in a thick suit!” …I see a lot of variants on this theme, though, from people who find it unusual to read a book in a single sitting. But here’s the other side of the “thick book” argument:
I thought this book was strange and it did not entertain my interest that I thought it would. I thought the plot was not as good as it should have been, and the boncept it was based on i thought was extremely poor. if you like confusing and thick books i guess you would like these books…
About Deep Wizardry:
I think this is one of the best books she has written. All of her wizardry books are fab. I hope she writes more. I think that all her books should get 5 stars and 2 thumbs up, and mabye even better! —
A lot of the DW reviews are like that. But if I start to get cocky, there are always plenty like this:
The sequel to So You Want to Be a Wizard. I loved that book so I though I would like this one. I liked every other wizard book she has written except this one. I always fell asleep reading it. The spells and magic stuff are cool but the plot just wasn’t as good as High Wizardry, A Wizard Abroad, and the Book of Night With Moon. It got so boring after they had to tell Nita’s parents that they were wizards. I didn’t even know that Nita hadn’t died (since I never finished it) until I read the next book in the series. I give it 3 stars because the plot kinda sucked but the Stuff was cool
“The plot kinda sucked but the Stuff was cool.” That’s the kind of thing that makes you wake up at night thinking, “Stuff. What does ‘stuff’ mean? And how the heck can I do more of it?…”
And there are some that are equivocal:
This book was well put together but got me really confused. I could not figure out who was who and what was what. Otherwise this book was pretty good.
Uh…make up your mind?! …And a few review titles in passing: “I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” … “Great Story” … “Good,but not as good as the first book.”
And one which brought me up short:
This book is so creative! I read the first three chapters, and then I couldn’t put it down! You realy get to know the characters in this book. And then you start thinking like the characters. And pretty soon every thing that happens to them happens to you.
Mmmm…boy, I hope not. …On High Wizardry:
I enjoyed the first two books in this series very much and was dissapointed by this installment. Diane Duane does not usually give easy answers to her moral dilemmas but in this story both the dilemma and the story were too easy… As a convicted Christian I find the idea that the ‘lone power’ ie satan can be redeemed repellent – this stuff is poisoning kid’s minds. This sequel was obviously written to milk the orginal concepts and make a bit more money and I think I would admire Diane Duane infinitely more if she had stuck to her integrity as an author.
Hmm. Well, leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether my integrity is intact in this regard, I really think that — assuming an omnipotent and ultimately compassionate Deity — then for a mortal to declare his or her own limits on how much ability said Deity has to redeem is probably futile. Yes, I know this is a heresy. I forget which one. I’ll sort it out with Her some other time.
Is “really wanting to write another book with the same characters” the same as “milking the orginal concepts [to] make a bit more money”? Seems some people do get this idea…but trying to combat it head-on instantly brings up charges of “protesting too much”. Oh well…
This book. What can I say? If the theology/morality wasn’t so pointless, affectated and plain ridiculous…it would still be a crime against humanity on the part of the publishers.
Wow. Better tell the people at Harcourt not to open any mail from the International Court of Justice at The Hague…
Yet, in other comments: “The best”, “Best of the series!”, “Definitly the best book in the series so far”. And charmingly, “In my next life, I wanna be Peach.”
As regards A Wizard Abroad: “The best of the series.” “Amazing!” “Grrrrrrreat!” And:
Uh… This will probably make sense some day. Soon, I hope. …Meanwhile, this next one is particularly intriguing: I think it’s the enthusiasm that captivates me.
A Wizard Abroad [wizardry series NO.4]” this was not even a good book to go with the wizardry series. The only good parts of the book are as follow: 1. It takes place in ireland. 2. It has custom spells. 3. Most of the people are wizards. 4. Theres one kiss in it 5. The main character is a girl. And there are many things i hated about it i’ll give you five examples. 1. There are few spells in it. 2. The spells where weak and pitiful. 3. Everyone is a wizard. 4. There are few battles. 5. The kiss at the end took up two pages. So, as you can see the book sucked in almost all aspects
Other comments: “Not the best in the series, but okay”, “Not bad, but could be better”, “Well… definitly not the best…”, as well as “Super,” “I love these books!”.
…You get the idea. The reviews for Wizard’s Dilemma and A Wizard Alone are equally mixed. Balancing all the possible negatives, in my view, are the positive reviews given them by people with terminal diseases and people involved with autism. These have come to me mostly in letters: I’m not going to quote them here.
So now a new book is out, and the first review has already appeared: it’s a kindly one. Others won’t be. I’ll probably look in again in a month or so and laugh, or shake my head…and get on with another book. It’s all I can do…
