So who are the reviewers that you agree with?
psik
Russ Allerby has a SF/Fantasy review site. I have read his and a lot of other reviews over the last 4 years. He has a numerical ranking system which most reviewers do not. Although I do not think a numerical ranking can be truly accurate I think it is useful for the speed of comparison. Ultimately we are talking about THOUSANDS of works of fiction. Trying to remember and compare dozens of reviews on each work is a nightmare. Since Bujold's Vorkosigan series is popular and won a bunch of Hugos I applied his ranking system to it and compared my results to his.
So here is my ranking for the Vorkosigan novels:
Code:
psi allerby diff
[B]Falling Free[/B] 7 7/10 0
[B]Shards of Honor[/B] 6 4/10 +2
[B]Barrayar [/B] 8.5 6/10 +2.5
[B]The Warrior's Apprentice [/B] 5 7/10 -2
[B]The Vor Game[/B] 7 7/10 0
[B]Cetaganda [/B] 6 7/10 -1
[B]Brothers in Arms[/B] 7 7/10 0
[B]Mirror Dance[/B] 8 8/10 0
[B]Memory[/B] 8 6/10 +2
[B]Komarr[/B] 9 9/10 0
[B]A Civil Campaign[/B] 9 9/10 0
[B]Diplomatic Immunity[/B] 8 8/10 0
[B]Cryoburn[/B] 7.5 7/10 +.5
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold Rating: 9 out of 10
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-671-57808-1.html
We both agree that
Komarr and
A Civil Campaign are the best two books in the series. But it seems he does not like the Cordelia character and complains about her in
Shards of Honor and
Barrayar while I think
Barrayar was the first really good book in the series and I like what Cordelia has to say. He does not mention the word SCIENCE in any of his reviews so it is apparently totally irrelevant to his evaluation. But in
Barrayar I consider the conversation between Cordelia and Vaagan to be very important. Vaagan is responsible for Miles' very existence and it displays an attitude about science that Bujold exhibits throughout the series. Bujold was a pharmacist and her father was an engineer, and it shows in her story telling, though not in what most reviewers say about her works.
Allerby ranked
Warrior's Apprentice higher than I did but that was Bujold's first novel and she admits it was rejected four times. It is an entertaining story but just seemed annoyingly implausible so that is why I give it a low rank. It is however an important story since that is where Miles gets hold of the mercenaries so important to the rest of the series.
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks Rating: 9 out of 10
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-06-105356-2.html
Allerby gives
The Player of Games a 9 but I would only give it a 6 out of 10. I was a chess addict in high school, so I could get into the psychology of the protagonist but other than that I was not too impressed with the story.
I started these two but gave up on them. I went passed half way in
Consider Phlebas because so many people say it's great, but to me it just came across as mostly a sequence of gratuitous dumb violence and not even entertaining at being violent.
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks Rating: 7 out of 10
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks Rating: 8 out of 10
So if I only gave PoG a 6 then CP might at best get a 4 if I finished it. I don't want to finish it. A lot of readers only seem to care about the amount of excietment in stories to me. I read some of the bad reviews of
Komarr and
A Civil Campaign on Amazon. And lack of excitement is what some readers of the Vor series complain about. Miles isn't running around acting crazy and blowing stuff up so for them they are bad books.
How Allerby rates the Harry Potter books I pretty much have to agree with.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling Rating: 3 out of 10
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Rating: 2 out of 10
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Rating: 4 out of 10
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Rating: 3 out of 10
Unfortunately Allerby has only reviewed one of David Weber's books. I would give
Basalisk Station a lower rating than the second book,
Honor of the Queen, but not that low. I would give HoQ an 8 and OBS a 5.
On Basilisk Station by David Weber Rating: 3 out of 10
I might give Neuromancer a 3 maybe 4.
Neuromancer by William Gibson Rating: 7 out of 10
So it is like even when I find a reviewer I seem to agree with much of the time on the basis of the numerical rating, the reasons for the agreement and disagreement don't match. And the vast majority of sci-fi reviews for the last couple of decades hardly talk about the science. Things like numbers of points of view and characters using or not using contractions I hardly notice. So the literary characteristics are not my priority. Joanna Russ's attitude in 1975 is more similar to mine.
http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/6/russ6art.htm
http://www.kheper.net/topics/scifi/grading.html
[4896]
psik
