But articulating why a novel doesn’t quite work can be an exercise in frustration. As a reader, I may know that it didn’t quite work, but not be able to put my finger on what’s wrong. Often, something is missing. Maybe the characters weren’t as sympathetic as I’d like, or the plot was a bit clumsy. So, as a reviewer, I need to figure out what went wrong. Even after I’ve identified the problem, how do I describe it? The issues I have with a book aren’t going to be universal. I may be frustrated by the very same things that someone else loves. I try to frame my criticism in such a way that I recognize the book fails to satisfy my personal preferences, rather than throwing out the blanket description of “BAD!”

This is the main reason I’m not certain about scoring in reviews. A 5/5 to me may be a 3/5 to someone else, for legitimate reasons. When I check Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews, seeing that a film got 60% isn’t particularly helpful; individual reviews provide a better understanding of whether the film will appeal to my individual tastes. After some debate, I decided to assign numeric scores in my book reviews, but I broadened my scoring. I score not just by the overall experience, but also categories such as “writing” and “characters.” I’ve not yet decided if this system satisfies me, but it allows me additional leeway. I may decide to scrap the numbering; some people find it too easy to fixate on the score and ignore the five paragraphs I spent explaining how I really felt about what I read.

Second – I love to read well-written negative reviews because they often say so much more than positive reviews do. And they often lead to me getting the book anyway – either because the reviewer disliked the book for the exact reasons I may like it or because my masochistic instincts kick in and I just need to experience it for myself – like when your buddy tries some really horrible beer (or food, or whatever) and your first instict is to say, let me have go. So, good review Niall and it was an interesting follow-up post (though since I didn’t really have anything to add I didn’t post over at your blog).

Now Niall, you go a little far in my opinion to imply that bloggers give positive reviews to stay in the good graces of any publisher kind enough to feed them books. I think this is bullshit. Some bloggers may fear this and may give positive reviews as a result, but these bloggers generally would reak of amaturism and probably aren’t all that likely to stick around or get many books from publishers in the first place.

Now I do agree that blogger reviews tend to be rather positive. I think the real reason for this is that the typical blogger reviewer is a fan first. And they generally have a pretty good idea of what sort of book they enjoy – and those are the books they choose to read. Very few people actually pick up a book they don’t think they’ll like. So, this automatically skews reviews towards the positive.

As Simon indicates and my own experience supports, publishers want well-written (or close-enough to well-written) reviews and really don’t care if they are ultimatley positive or negative. I’ve never had any publisher hint that I shouldn’t have written a negative review. Heck, I enjoy writing negative reviews even if I don’t do it all that often. They are fun and challenging – especially since I try to write it in a way that someone may still decide it’s the book for them even though I basically trash it – I got lots of this sort of thing when I reviewed a Salvatore book a few years ago – many people were very excited to read it for the exact reasons I disliked it so much. Oh and Simon – you still have my address right? hint, hint

Sadly, Simon, I don’t know that many publishers and publicity sorts are nearly so… what’s the word? Understanding isn’t quite it, I was going for more of a sort of Buddhist zen-state, but it’ll do for now. Anyway, I’m sure you know that there are men and women in high places who are apt turn on the likes of a little blogger over a few negative reviews, but happy to support bloggers who review good books badly, if positively.

But I should hide before I tread on any more toes. I just feel that it’s an important question to ask. Full disclosure and all that. And there does seem to be something of a dearth of negative reviews on blogs; more esteemed resources, meanwhile, seem to revel in being contrarian and even snotty.

Thinking out loud is perhaps not a great idea, however.

Bloogers!

Someone doesn’t like one of our books but then likes the next one people will get a sense of the sort of reader they are and when they have that they’ll start trusting them.

A literary taste is broad and complicated and sometimes contradictory(well it at least it should be)if a bloogers reviews reflect that complexity that’s good enough for me. It’s as simple as that.

Hagelrat is right: be it good press or bad, if people are talking about your book, if there’s buzz of any sort surrounding its release, there’s got to be a greater chance that the average Joe or Jane will recognise it when he or she is window-shopping in Waterstones or browsing in Borders. People aren’t like lemmings – as Sam says, we can and should be making up our own minds about whether or not a particular thing appeals to us, be it a book, a film, new food or fashion. As far as books go, a review, whether positive or negative, serves firstly to give people who otherwise wouldn’t look twice that first incentive to pick up, say, The Left Hand of God, or indeed, Tome of the Undergates, and make their own decisions according to their own criteria.

And though a part of me rebels against it, there is that other point that no-one’s quite making. The Speculative Scotsman may only be a month and change old, but I’ve been lurking amongst the community for years, and as such I don’t think I would be far off-base to say that a negative review on a blog, any blog really, seems to be an uncommon thing. It’s not like there’s a chance Orbit or Gollancz would stop sending ARCs to The Guardian or The Times if either made a habit of ripping their publications to shreds – the exposure is just too valuable – but as far as blogs go, I imagine things are quite different.

Bloggers are in the unenviable position of either buying just the books they want to read, and therefore leaning necessarily towards covering only those novels that they’re likely to react positively to, or relying on publishers to send them a selection of the good, the bad and the ugly alike. In that latter case, the bloggers in question must then decide how important the relationships he or she has with those publishers are before publicly savaging a book they’ve particularly disliked. There’s certainly bad press to be had in the blogs, but largely I think it’s a case of good press to be lost.

Now I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that blogs which rely on ARCs and the like are dishonest – I’d only be shooting myself in the foot, let’s be honest – but I feel there’s an important point to be made in amongst all that thinking-out-loud. At the end of the day, I don’t necessarily trust a good review in the way that I do a negative perspective; a reviewer has nothing to lose by saying nice things about something, and much to gain. A bad review, on the other hand, will do him or her no favours – it’s akin to biting the hand that feeds. Suffice it to say I don’t imagine any attempts I make to establish a working relationship with Michael Joseph, the UK publishers of The Left Hand of God, will meet with much success. For a book to be met with indifference or outright negativity, therefore, there have got to be some real problems for a blogger to take that chance.

Of course, none of that changes the fact that ultimately, readers must make their decisions for themselves. Better that they’re informed decisions, though, and better still that they’re decisions made bearing in mind the advice of bloggers whose reactions in the past have been similar to your own.

But for me, for the reasons outlined above, when I’m looking to add to my collection of books, a single bad review carries substantially more weight than a single good review.

I agree with Sam about much of what he wrote but I think that most people are able to understand that a review is not a black and white thing. Most readers must know that a negative review is simply negative in the way the reviewer feels. Aside from some special cases, a negative review doesn’t always mean a bad book. You have to go in-depth when you analyze a review. Anyway, I hope that’s what people are doing.

What I do know is that bloggers have to keep their integrity, if they *do* want anyone to listen to what they say. So Niall is 100% right to say he didn’t like the book – and any other future books he doesn’t like as well. This means that when he does tell us he loves a book, we are more likely to think ‘well, hey, that is a book worth checking out!’ If a blogger decided to give pretty good reviews to everything they read, then no one can really know what their thoughts are.

In terms of picking up books that even have bad reviews, I agree wholeheartedly with Sam. I intend to read The Left Hand of God – not soon, y’know? But I will read it. Probably when I can pick it up read cheap at a later stage. I will then make up my own mind on the matter.

I’ve read some sincerely bad reviews from people for books I loved. I’ve read some excellent reviews for books I’ve hated. *shrug* We all have different opinions, which is GREAT. This is what gives us such a wealth of books to choose from in the first place – because we all have such different opinions, the publishers feel more able to take a plunge on all those debut authors because they know someone, somewhere is gonna love this book. So celebrate our differences in opinion!

Rambled on for far too long – essence of post is that I agree with both Niall and Sam on this one