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biodroid

biodroid

A.D.D.
Joined
Oct 11, 2007
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I fell for the hype of Anthony Ryans book Blood Song, I gave up on 65% so in fairness I did try and give it a chance. It was pretty generic and cant understand the hype. I would like to know other than the well read chrons reviews and advice where is a good source of reviews that are truthful and unbiased on the interweb? I am beginning to feel that amazon pays to inflate the reviews of books they want to sell a lot of.
 
I can't help with a source, but I second the interest in finding one, for exactly the same reason. I actually forced myself to finish Blood Song purely due to the reviews - and the ending was no better than the rest of it. Mediocre story that is badly written/edited - with clumsy phrasing and outright, distractingly poor grammar at times - yet it has nearly 1000 five-star reviews on Amazon (currently the top-rated epic fantasy on Kindle) and an average of 4.61 on Goodreads from nearly 5000 reviews. A lot of those reviews compare Ryan favorably to authors of the quality of Rothfuss, Sanderson and Lynch, too. That one experience has basically shattered my confidence in those sites for reviews.
 
Pay more attention to negative reviews than the overly complimentary ones. If the first half a dozen negative reviews complain about the same problems, like slow pacing, bad characters, boring plot, awful ending this is typically a bad sign, even if the book's overall rating is high. It means steer clear away, especially if these things matter to you.
 
I've had on the whole good experiences with thewertzone.blogspot and sfsite.com. Also worth a look: fantasyhotlist.blogspot

You will always find reviews you disagree with. No reviewer will entirely share your taste and in my experience very few reviewers (including the experienced ones) are able to separate their own preference from objective quality.

Coragem.
 
Moggle said:
Pay more attention to negative reviews than the overly complimentary ones. If the first half a dozen negative reviews complain about the same problems, like slow pacing, bad characters, boring plot, awful ending this is typically a bad sign, even if the book's overall rating is high. It means steer clear away, especially if these things matter to you.
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That's a rule I follow too - especially when the kindle version of a book is setting me back $15. Usually it works, but even the (very few) negative reviews of Blood Song were more in the vein of 'not my kind of thing', rather than those specific sort of criticisms. Seeing as the book is a coming-of-age epic fantasy, which is exactly my kind of thing, I figured I was pretty safe! :p

Still, it's good advice, especially when looking at self-published books - I think overall scores often start off inflated by 'reviews' from friends and family.
 
Coragem said:
I've had on the whole good experiences with thewertzone.blogspot and sfsite.com. Also worth a look: fantasyhotlist.blogspot

You will always find reviews you disagree with. No reviewer will entirely share your taste and in my experience very few reviewers (including the experienced ones) are able to separate their own preference from objective quality.

Coragem.
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Cheers Coragem! As you say, it's a big ask to find anyone whose reviews you can always agree with... but at least serious reviewers tend to mention technical issues with a book, even if they loved the story.

It's a shame there's no review aggregator site for books, like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes...
 
Moggle said:
Pay more attention to negative reviews than the overly complimentary ones. If the first half a dozen negative reviews complain about the same problems, like slow pacing, bad characters, boring plot, awful ending this is typically a bad sign, even if the book's overall rating is high. It means steer clear away, especially if these things matter to you.
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Indeed, that's why I read the 3 star Amazon reviews.

I never trust glowing reviews which cannot pick a fault. No book is that perfect!
 
devaed said:
That's a rule I follow too - especially when the kindle version of a book is setting me back $15. Usually it works, but even the (very few) negative reviews of Blood Song were more in the vein of 'not my kind of thing', rather than those specific sort of criticisms. Seeing as the book is a coming-of-age epic fantasy, which is exactly my kind of thing, I figured I was pretty safe! :p

Still, it's good advice, especially when looking at self-published books - I think overall scores often start off inflated by 'reviews' from friends and family.
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You can pay $15 for an electric download??!!!??? Holy mother of God, I thought the attraction of Kindle was the cheapness. I'm glad I don't use it. I still spend ages in Waterstones reading a chapter or two, before buying. I did get my local library copy of a book that had amazing reviews (not SFF) and I couldn't read more than the first four chapters.

Generally, reviews don't move me, but comments here I find to be very reliable. I must get my book out soon - it's a coming of age epic fantasy trilogy...;):)
 
We have been trying to get some reviews up and running on the front page of Chronicles, thanks to Brian, and I at least try to be honest (even though it takes me forever to read a book these days).

No ratings as such, just honest opinions - and if there is something you disagree with, in my case at least, I'm here to ask so you can see where I'm coming from.
 
Boneman said:
You can pay $15 for an electric download??!!!??? Holy mother of God, I thought the attraction of Kindle was the cheapness. I'm glad I don't use it. I still spend ages in Waterstones reading a chapter or two, before buying. I did get my local library copy of a book that had amazing reviews (not SFF) and I couldn't read more than the first four chapters.
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Sadly so! You're right, normally price is the benefit - even new release bestsellers tend to go for less than $15 - but as this was only available on Kindle, and it had such amazing reviews, I took the risk. Lesson learned. :p

Boneman said:
I must get my book out soon - it's a coming of age epic fantasy trilogy...;):)
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You'll certainly have an interested reader here then - it's a part of the fantasy genre I've always loved. And even better, I don't have to read your sentences several times just to understand their meaning, so you're one up on Blood Song already ;)
 
That meta-score sounds like a good idea. A shame it ended. Hmm. Could that be something we could do on Chrons? If it's just a matter of putting together average scores then perhaps a select number (few at first) of reviewers/blogs could be picked, and an average formed from their opinions.

Being self-published it feels a bit catch-22. If reviews are great there's an assumption (which I entirely understand) it's friends and family. If they're bad, people won't buy it.
 
As much as I frequent Mr Werts blog to read his reviews sadly because he is no robot :) he cant read all books I would like him to read, but yes, his blog I trust and often make decisions from his insights.
 
biodroid said:
Work faster man come on :D
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Can't you see he's already working his fingers to the bone.


By the way, I see what you mean about the ratings of Blood Song. 149 out of 179 rated the book as 5 star. Is any book that good?

By the way, I admit that I've given a book 5 stars, but that was one which I enjoyed in spite of it being in a genre I don't normally read and it got the elusive fifth star because the prose wasn't just functional and didn't simply convey the story to the reader, but was part of the story. And yet, it seems from what you and others have said, Blood Song's prose often isn't even very functional.

.
 
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Ursa, he is very clunky in his writing, he starts off slow then doesnt explain much on why these guys are super soldiers etc. then includes dumb action scenes to justify their skills. And these are 14 year olds taking on soldiers with many years experience. Doesnt make sense. I also found he contradicts his characters feelings a lot and introduces new plot devices very late in the book.
 
I've just twigged that you're talking about a book I took a peek at on Amazon a few days ago, after it was recommended. I couldn't work out the rating either. Some of the 5-star reviews were a bit suspicious, being very short and/or by people with few or no other reviews, but most gave no sign of being anything other than genuine. And so many of them! But nothing I read in the sample and nothing about the concept suggested it was anything other than run-of-the-mill. Bizarre.
 
thaddeus6th said:
Being self-published it feels a bit catch-22. If reviews are great there's an assumption (which I entirely understand) it's friends and family. If they're bad, people won't buy it.
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It must be frustrating! Self-published authors who make the effort to put out something polished have definitely been let down by the rest - people who throw their unedited first draft on Amazon, then make sure the first thirty-odd reviews are glowing anyway. It's created this weird situation where there's a minimum threshold of four- and five-star reviews before people even begin to think a book might legitimately be worth a read.

Samples do help a lot, though. If a book's rating has been completely overblown, you can usually tell from reading those.
 
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