[QuickTidal]

I think this is a great post, worthy of discussion. Not just because I used to review books myself on a blog, but also because it makes a VERY good point. A larger and larger number of SFF reviewers and bloggers seem to be missing the toolbox and heading straight for the hammer...and that's really no use to anyone.

http://mark---lawren...d-horizons.html

What think we?

[Studlock]

That there should be a diversity in critique techniques? Sure thing, I welcome, even demand it. That being said I pretty much still hold social destruction critical analyse because A) I find it much more interesting to read about what books didn't mean to say but said it anyway and I'm tired of reading about straight white men, and following and reading those who partake in social destruction makes it easier to find books that aren't about straight white men.

[End of Disc One]

Is it just me or are bloggers becoming less relevant in SFF? It could be that some of the more prominent bloggers aren't nearly as active as they used to be, or that Goodreads is becoming more popular. But I don't feel the urge to visit the blogs nearly as much as I used to.

[QuickTidal]

End of Disc One, on 11 November 2014 - 07:06 PM, said:

Is it just me or are bloggers becoming less relevant in SFF? It could be that some of the more prominent bloggers aren't nearly as active as they used to be, or that Goodreads is becoming more popular. But I don't feel the urge to visit the blogs nearly as much as I used to.

That's a very good point. Good Reads is now my go-to place to see reviews...simply due to diversity of range of reviews for any given book. I can get a broad spectrum of opinion on a book I want to read. If I go to a specific blog for reviews (and I used to), I'm getting that one person's view (usually who I jive with in reading material) and it's kind of echo-chamber-y. At least at GR I'm getting good reviews, bad reviews ad all the stuff in between in one spot. It helps me make informed decisions.

So yeah, I think that's true.

[amphibian]

There's also been a huge dropoff in the number and credibility of professional critics who genuinely know and keep up with the enormous SF fields (science fiction AND fantasy, on top of regular fiction and non-fiction).

The money to be made as a fledgling/new-ish critic for a newspaper or magazine is actually very low these days. I'd say most of the people on these here Malazan forums - who generally have enough knowledge and writing ability to be decent and knowledgeable critics - readily realize that they have to pay the bills and support themselves/families with a real job. For everyone not doing movies or NY Times level reviews, being a critic can only be a hobby these days.

With the disappearance of longtime critics either through their passing away, personal disinterest or market contraction, we're left with a newer online generation that flat out doesn't have any predecessors to teach them the ways of writing good criticisms of works. They/we literally do not know how to criticize things well and they/we figure it out as we go along. As a result, we get a gradual and fumbling process which mostly produces slam pieces, fluff pieces and thoughtless pieces as the majority of our community aggregated reviews on Goodreads, Amazon etc. They/we don't have the toolbox Lawrence is talking about. It wasn't passed down to us from those who came before (like the best of toolboxes in real life) and they/we often don't have the time/energy/$ to put together a good one quickly.

I think there's some growing pains here, but there's also a huge need for people to just be quiet when they don't know what they're really talking about - and a need for constant self-examination/checking to see if one does really know what they're talking about.