Trusted reviews

[devaed]

Fair point - in Blood Song's case, though I didn't think the writing in the sample was amazing, it certainly wasn't bad enough to disbelieve all the reviews. But on the whole, it's usually a good way to weed out which books are getting an artificial boost in the ratings.

 

[HareBrain]

Personally, I'd like to see Amazon introduce a means whereby you could choose to filter reviews and ratings, say by only including reviewers who have more than twenty reviews (or a number of your choice), or who write more than a hundred words (ditto). At least it would make it more of an effort to game the system.

 

[biodroid]

I think amazon should only get professional reviews. Just saying this book was cool and giving it five stars is misleading

 

[devaed]

Personally, I'd like to see Amazon introduce a means whereby you could choose to filter reviews and ratings, say by only including reviewers who have more than twenty reviews (or a number of your choice), or who write more than a hundred words (ditto). At least it would make it more of an effort to game the system.

This would be a nice addition - I'd use it all the time! Hopefully Amazon are aware of the problems with their review system, and implement something along those lines eventually.

Incidentally, I know they bought Goodreads recently - I wonder if they're intending to use that somehow to improve things?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

let's hope so...

 

[Moggle]

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.

.

I just checked the ratings on goodreads, and out of 4,727 ratings, 3 readers gave him two stars and two gave him 2 stars.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

I just checked the ratings on goodreads, and out of 4,727 ratings, 3 readers gave him two stars and two gave him 2 stars.

actually it's 43 2* and 18 1*
(the overview stats only update every 6 months or more)

It's still a totally unheard of average. And look on Amazon.com - 1000+ ratings - that's more than twice what Abercrombie, Weeks, Brett etc have years after their debuts.

On the flip side 64 of my Goodreads friends have rated it, giving it a huge 4.69 average!

The two I trust most gave it a 4* and a 2*

 

[Bugg]

I thought Blood Song was very good - I would give it 4/5 and was happy I took a chance on it. I have been suckered by other reviews on Amazon, though, mainly involving Brandon Sanderson. Never again.

 

[biodroid]

I think Sanderson is a better writer prose wise.

 

[Bugg]

He could be the greatest writer of prose that ever lived, but if I find his characters and stories boring nothing can change that. I've read his Mistborn books and The Way of Kings, so I've given him more than a fair chance.

But that wasn't my point. The Amazon reviews of Blood Song made me take a chance and I enjoyed it very much. They made me take a chance on Sanderson as well and it didn't work out for me. Win some, lose some.

 

[devaed]

He could be the greatest writer of prose that ever lived, but if I find his characters and stories boring nothing can change that. I've read his Mistborn books and The Way of Kings, so I've given him more than a fair chance.

But that wasn't my point. The Amazon reviews of Blood Song made me take a chance and I enjoyed it very much. They made me take a chance on Sanderson as well and it didn't work out for me. Win some, lose some.

Interesting... our tastes are certainly significantly different! But I can respect that.

Out of curiosity, you say you enjoyed Blood Song - do you think it deserves its current rating (i.e. best-rated epic fantasy on Amazon), though? I don't think anybody is really taking issue that people have enjoyed it; tastes will differ, and the quality of the prose isn't going to put off everyone. What I, and I think others, felt was odd was the universal acclaim. Every big author, from Sanderson to Rothfuss to Lynch to GRRM, have a decent spread of 1 to 5 star reviews - Ryan basically has nothing on the lower end and a ton of 5s, suggesting the book is not only better-liked than anything by those authors, but close to perfect.

 

[biodroid]

Does that mean Ryans facebook friends rated him highly and the real readers rated him poorly?

 

[Moggle]

deleted.

 

[Moggle]

actually it's 43 2* and 18 1*
(the overview stats only update every 6 months or more)

It's still a totally unheard of average. And look on Amazon.com - 1000+ ratings - that's more than twice what Abercrombie, Weeks, Brett etc have years after their debuts.

On the flip side 64 of my Goodreads friends have rated it, giving it a huge 4.69 average!

The two I trust most gave it a 4* and a 2*

Crap, I screwed that entire post up. For some reason I referenced the number of negative 1 and 2 star reviews he got, not ratings. Obviously he has a bunch of 1 and 2 ratings like you said. What I now find a little odd is that after one day, the book has gone from 4,727 ratings to 5,033 ratings!

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Crap, I screwed that entire post up. For some reason I referenced the number of negative 1 and 2 star reviews he got, not ratings. Obviously he has a bunch of 1 and 2 ratings like you said. What I now find a little odd is that after one day, the book has gone from 4,727 ratings to 5,033 ratings!

Goodreads gets votes stuck in buffers. I got 700 in one day once (doesn't show on the stats chart but the total bumps up suddenly).

 

[Kissmequick]

There are no 'truthful' reviews, there are only opinions. The trick is to find a reviewer who sees things as you do (or indeed one who thinks opposite, because if they recc a book you know to avoid and vice versa!)

For instance, there is a very popular fantasy author who I have tried and tried to read. The prose is good, the characterisation fantastic but...but for me he doesn't write what I'm interested in reading, or characters that I actually care about. So a slow scene with some description becomes a slog, because I don't care. etc. Other people rave about these books, and maybe that is their truth, but my truth is, can I read something else now please? With other authors, I may be dazzled by the prose but be frustrated by the fact I've got 100 pages in and nothing has happened yet. These are my truths, as I read, and according to my own preferences.

In the book business, once you get past a certain level of 'competent' everything is subjective. Maybe lots of people liked the book you didn't, for reasons that baffle you as much as they baffle me for those bestselling authors. One man's meat is another man's 'OMG NO! ACK, POISON!' after all.

Find a reviewer who looks at books as you do. That will be your 'truthful' review. Mostly...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Absolutely. The Shining Girls, great reviews. I hated it... Reviews are always subjective.

 

[Bugg]

Interesting... our tastes are certainly significantly different! But I can respect that.

Out of curiosity, you say you enjoyed Blood Song - do you think it deserves its current rating (i.e. best-rated epic fantasy on Amazon), though?

As I say, for me it would get 4 out of 5. I am curious, though, as to why people who don't like it so much aren't posting reviews that would redress the perceived balance. Nothing's stopping them, after all.

 

[Werthead]

It should be noted that Blood Song isn't actually a new book, it had self-published ebook editions for a good year or so before the 'official' version came out, which is how it's gotten so many reviews.

Self-published books can also create a bit of a weird effect on them. I see lots of self-published authors reading one another's work and bigging it up in the hopes of reciprocation. It's an interesting self-marketing effect in effect.

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.

Thanks

One of the problems with bloggers (world's smallest violin, First World Problems etc) is the simple workload involved. I read 3-6 books a month and easily receive 20-30 in review copies per month. Looking at the sheer number of review copies I've received in seven years, 90%+ have gone off to charity shops unread. This isn't counting the several thousand books in my personal library from before the blogging days that I'd like to re-read and review some day, and the occasional need to re-read books I've already reviewed so I know what's going on in the sequel (especially if the sequel takes five years or something to come out).

On this basis, I've fallen so far behind on my to-read pile it might realistically take years to get to books I received two or three years ago. As a system, it's quite crazy.

 

[Ursa major]

In the meantime, Wert...

Whose reviews do you trust; and who amongst them post reviews of books that you don't/haven't yet?