[KatG]

There's enjoying epic fantasy and there's enjoying epic fantasy. You get a lot of pundits who claim they enjoy epic fantasy stories, but what they actually mean is that they enjoy epic fantasies as long as they are written exactly the way the pundit believes they should be. These tend to be the people who not only want to see more variety and literary styles in epic fantasy but want to purge the sub-genre and restrict and censor what is published in it. And those are the good reviewers who know something about what they're talking about.

Most reviewers have no experience with sf and fantasy at all, even non-genre sff, which has been a major obstacle for genre publishers to market works and get mainstream attention, reviews and sales. With more sff genre titles being put out in hardcover first, and with the volume of web sites, genre titles are getting reviewed much more often than they used to be, frequently by people who have very limited knowledge of the genres. This guy seems to know a bit, but has film critics disease. So maybe don't send it to him.

[Gary Wassner]

Uh oh. Confusion. What to do.

Maybe we could get this guy to log on to sffworld and help me out here? Anyone know him?

[KatG]

Now, confusion can be a friend. I watched "I Love Huckabees" recently, and could not but help think of your forum, Gary. :)

[Gary Wassner]

I saw that movie too KatG. Dustin Hoffman is much much shorter than I am. But I do resemble Jude Law.....

[Jay_T]

My apologies this is a older thread, but it caught my eye.

Rick is one of the most respected reviewers in the online speculative fiction community period. The Agony Column is widely read, and there aren't many people deemed as credible then Kleffel. He will be fair. I have never read any criticism from him that I felt was too out of proportion.

He definitely is well read in all genres, and I really don't see what the beef is with reviewers who judge books by their personal merits, that would seem the point - otherwise it really wouldn't matter whose review you read.


A negative review doesn't have to reflect a less knowledgable reviewer, or unread reviewer, and a reviewer doesn't need to know the history of the genre. All he/she has to do is be able to read, and tell us what they think about what they read.

If a book gets a bad review it just may be a sub-par book, there are certainly more of those than the opposite.

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't send him a book Gary , I'm just saying his reputation is beyond question.

[Gary Wassner]

I think you are right Jay. There is no point in having your books reviewed if the reviewers are not credible, and he certainly is. But I still wonder if it makes sense sometimes to ask for problems. If he hates Epic Fantasy and is tired of elves and ogres, then why prime his pump with another book that he might initialy have proclivities against? Judging a book by its personal merits is what I would always hope a reviewer would do. Of course, we all see them differently, those merits, and we all read differently - we see things that others miss and we miss things that others see. If I was selling millions of copies already, then I wouldn't be so worried about testing the limits by asking a tough critic to review a book utilizing tropes that he has proclaimed he does not support.

Now, I may be wrong entirely about him. I am going by what others have told me. It's an uphill battle with many reviewers today when they read the synopses of my books. Not one has walked away spurning them in the end though, so i admire the perserverence and objectivity in the industry. But I still worry.

If you tell me that he is fair minded and open-minded, then I will trust you on that. I don't know him or his reviews. If you tell me he will read me without prejudice, then I believe you.

[Brys]

I'm losing respect for Rick Kleffel - he has not given a negative review. When he's reviewing books that are genuinely good, he writes decent reviews. But then he ruins it by not having a single negative review - and he reviewed Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan, and the review still made it out to be competent epic fantasy.

I have never read any criticism from him that I felt was too out of proportion.

I've just never read any criticism by him. That's a problem - his reviews are Harriet Klausner style but with a bit more depth (ie he seems to actually have read the books, but despite that he feels he can't say anything bad about them). I know he has a lot of respect, but quite frankly, I don't see why. His reviews don't seem particularly credible to me - the only differentials in books he has are those which are outstanding and those which are good. It doesn't help you to decide.