by Robert Reed
Juan Miguel Aguilera: In addition to my new Akasa-Puspa anthology, which I’ve already mentioned, I’m working on the script of a science fiction movie called Mindgate, which will be filmed in the U.S. The protagonist will be played by Rachael Leigh Cook. This will be my second film; my first was Stranded. However, this time I’ll be directing as well.
Note: A special thank you to Alicia Amaro, who helped with the translation.
About the Author
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro is the co-author, with Robert Silverberg, of When the Blue Shift Comes, which received a starred review from Library Journal. Alvaro’s short fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Analog, Nature, Galaxy’s Edge, Apex and other venues, and Alvaro was nominated for the 2013 Rhysling Award. Alvaro’s reviews, critical essays and interviews have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons, SF Signal, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Foundation, and other markets. Alvaro currently edits the blog for Locus.
Another Word:
The Precious Five-Star and the Reviewers of Mount Doom
Alethea Kontis
Book reviewers fascinate me.
My first official publishing gig was as a book reviewer for the local free press in Murfreesboro, TN. Every two weeks, I turned in five thousand eight hundred words about my favorite author or tome du jour. Not that it mattered; I didn’t get paid either way. But I got published! (And, eventually, this led to bigger and better gigs . . . including ghost writing book reviews for the New York Times.)
I suspect my history as a professional reviewer is one of the reasons I’m unafraid of reviews for my books. I’m intrigued by both the terrible and the gushing. Bloggers have had epiphanies about my writing that never would have occurred to me. Conversely, one review encouraged a re-listen of my audiobook with an ear for every nuanced mention of sex, alcohol, and lascivious intention. (If you are truly horrified by such things, you probably just shouldn’t read Enchanted. Or AlphaOops.)
The chemist in me can’t help but look at all this business scientifically. Reviews are by their nature subjective and often tell us more about the reader than the book in question. Similarly, reviews reveal trends in the 21st century reading public. Do they crave more back story, or are they impatient to get to the end? Are they tired of dystopia? Are they looking for more “realism” in their fantasy? (This last one still baffles me as much as the young people who refuse to believe in love at first sight.)
With my latest book release this February, the trend I spotted was something I affectionately call “The Precious Five-Star.” Most of my books (happily) have lots of five-star reviews, some four stars, a few three stars, and proportionately fewer two and one stars.
This release, however, seemed to be racking up the four-star reviews in spades. My first thought was, “Mom is going to be furious.” (Dearest is her favorite and she’ll argue passionately with anyone who says otherwise.) My second thought was, “Did my writing suddenly take a nosedive?” And then I started reading all those four-star reviews.
They were glowing.
Reviewers finished the book and immediately started reading it again from page one. New fans were eager to pick up the first two volumes of the series. Old fans loved it as much as book one. All of them said they couldn’t wait to get their hands on every other future book in the series. And every one was a four-star review.
Like other authors who are amused by a trend, I went on Twitter to have a bit of fun. (THIS BOOK CHANGED MY OIL & MADE ME BREAKFAST IN BED! #4stars) Wackiness ensued . . . as did a discussion that surprised me. An author, a reader, and a professional blogger all responded, telling me that they saved their five-stars for “Books That Changed Their Lives.”
Now, I’ll be honest with you. I have never sat down at my computer, cracked my knuckles over the keyboard, and announced, “Today I am going to change someone’s life.” Moreover, I don’t really want you to change. I happen to like you just the way you are. I’ve been telling stories since I was a kid. My purpose now is pretty much the same as it was then: to entertain myself and my friends. If it’s not your cup of tea, there are always other choices on the menu.
But come on . . . change your life?! That’s a lot of pressure to put on an author before even cracking the spine. Nevermind the fact that it is ultimately you who changes your life. If our words inspire you to do so, that’s an honor you give us. We just sit here giggling and weeping over keyboards. You are the amazing, life-changing person in this equation. (In case you forgot.)
It seems that the majority of people reserving space for the Precious Five-Star are intelligent folks who are very serious about their reading. It follows that those of us who are writing for that demographic would have book reviews on the Intrawebs at large with fewer stars than those more unprofessional folks who have shamelessly filled Amazon and Goodreads with a glut of five-star reviews from street teams and random passersby.
My current writer-in-residence, K. Tempest Bradford, is one of those professional reviewers who uses five stars sparingly. She is suspicious when a product has too many five-star reviews. To her, four stars are more believable. But is this what every reader thinks? Does every reader see “three-and-three-quarters stars” and go read the reviews—or even reviews at other sites—before purchasing?
In time, will the Precious Five-Star hurt sales? In the New York publishing world, sales are everything. Slipping sales lead to contracts not being renewed and dropped series and soon the authors that didn’t change your life are no longer publishing. (You may think this an extreme case, but I’m afraid it happens far more often than you’d like to believe.)
One of my romance writer friends discovered another side effect of this Precious Five-Star culture: a blogger said to my friend at a social gathering that she should not expect a five-star review of her work because those are reserved. Really? Is this appropriate author small talk now?
The more I delve into this dilemma, the more uncertain I am about where I stand on the issue. As a child actress, I was taught never to boo someone on stage, no matter how bad the performance, because that person was brave enough to be on stage. As an optimist, I believe that love should be declared loudly and as often as possible. It costs us nothing, and there’s not enough of it in the world, so what’s to lose?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and their own score system. As long as people continue to be unique, diverse individuals, reviews will never be standardized (and thank goodness!). But will Precious Five-Stars ultimately become a matter of pride or a source of punishment for authors today?
In 2009, the FTC required that blogs mention they “received a free review copy of [Book] in exchange for a fair and honest review.” Does the book industry need to initiate a Precious Five-Star disclaimer? “Your book might buy me a ticket to Hawaii and drive me to the airport, but unless it flies the plane, it’s not getting five-stars from this review site.”
Now I’m curious. How do you review?
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a goddess, a force of nature, and a mess. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, turning garden gnomes into mad scientists, and making sense out of fairy tales.
Alethea is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, and penned the AlphaOops series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including The Wonderland Alphabet and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her debut YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012.
Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea now lives in Northern Virginia with her Fairy Godfamily. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie.
Editor’s Desk:
Danger! Radioactive!
Neil Clarke
It’s hard to be
lieve that it has been over two years since my doctors implanted my defibrillator. Life as a cyborg hasn’t been what my childhood self would have expected. I can’t run faster, see further, or even lift a car. A few times a year, I become a wireless transmitter, but all I can do is upload heart data to my cardiologist. It’s been long enough now that they’ve decided it was time for me to go in for some thorough testing. Late last month, I spent the better part of a day being run through a battery of tests, one of which left me radioactive enough to set off airport scanners.
My childhood self encouraged me to stomp around and roar. Consider it practice for when the radiation causes me to become fifty meters tall, which would be big enough to stand alongside my new best friend and fellow radioactive menace, Godzilla. That didn’t happen either. Reality can be such a disappointment.
Giant monsters remain a guilty pleasure. However, it’s a coincidence that “Postcards from Monster Island” was published in this issue. It was scheduled long before I knew I’d become a mildly (and temporarily) radioactive cyborg. Everything happens for a reason, so I’m convinced that this is just another sign that the universe enjoys mocking me for my genre affections.
The universe wasn’t the first one to mock me and certainly won’t be the last. One of the reasons my childhood self dreamed so passionately of being a cyborg or giant monster was bullying. I was a small kid, often the youngest in my class, geeky, and smart. In grade school, I was tormented physically and psychologically for years. Of course I’d dream about becoming a fifty-meter creature that could stomp on his enemies and exact revenge with a breath of nuclear fire. When the opportunity presents itself, going from bullied to bully is incredibly easy. We can rationalize anything when we’re embroiled in justified rage, even when it means becoming the things we hate.
I suppose from that perspective, the universe is really laughing at me because it knows that things turned out for the best. No superpowers, but they never kept me down and I still have my dignity and self-respect. That’s something to keep in mind as I move forward.
SSSKREEONK!
About the Author
Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, owner of Wyrm Publishing and a three-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.
Cover Art: Sleeping Giant
Julie Dillon
About the Artist
Julie Dillon is a science fiction and fantasy illustrator creating art for books and magazines, as well as for her own projects and publications. She has won two Chesley awards, a Hugo Award, and has been nominated for two World Fantasy Awards.
