Category Archives: The Writer’s Life

Blurbed

Posted on by

Side-note to my previous post: when my review copy of Bones of the Old Ones arrived, I was pleased to discover that the top blurb on the inside jacket cover was actually mine, quoted from my review of Jones’ previous novel. Though I’m not mentioned by name, I immediately recognized my Green Man Review coverage from early 2011. I didn’t actually see it until after I’d finished the book, when I idly checked out some of the jacket copy.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised since I had already seen I was the leading blurb on the Amazon page for this latest title (and a longer quotation from that same review is also on the Amazon page of the original book in question). But it’s cool to have it on paper in a book I actually held in hand.

Since I frequently receive advanced reading copies, it is possible, if my reviews are published early enough, to end up on the jacket cover of a first edition, though what’s more likely to happen is for praise for one book to end up on the jacket of a later book, as was the case here. It’s simply good luck that I signed up to cover this one late enough that I received a finished book, blurbing my earlier review, rather than an ARC which would probably have included no jacket copy.

My first time being blurbed? One of Neal Asher’s Polity novels, probably about eight years ago. But I never actually held a finished copy of the book.

Care2 Blog Weekly Roundup (12/15/12)

Posted on by

Yes, I’ve been doing some (mostly) holiday-related writing, lately, as my day job has slowed down just a little bit this month. I hope to do a few more posts at Care2 before New Year’s, should the opportunity present itself.

Can Lazy People Make the World a Better Place?

Why Are There So Few Female Game Creators? The Internet Responds

5 Wars More Important Than The War on Christmas

Five Reasons Not to Buy a Puppy for Christmas

The Family Dog Was a Wild Wolf All Along; What of It?

Reading and Writing

Posted on by

I have book reviews due this forthcoming Tuesday (the 4th) and Wednesday (the 5th), for two different publications. But I`ve also been finding bits of time here and there to work on some non-review titles. I`m listening to an audiobook of Cory Doctorow`s For the Win, which is, as always, enlightening. Somehow his fiction packs so much information about politics, technology, and culture, it competes with non-fiction for its educational content.

Speaking of, I`m also reading How Mathematics Happened: The First 50, 000 Years, by Peter Rudman. Not the first book I`ve read about the history of math, and probably not the last. It`s pretty good, and I`m learning something new with each page. I`m also enjoying the “fun questions“ peppered throughout the text. As the go-to book on the subject, I think I would still give Tobias Dantzig`s classic, Number, the nod. But I`m happy I picked this one up.

Lastly, I`m working on Asimov`s robot stories, via his Robot Visions collection. It`s the last of his major series I hadn`t gotten around to reading yet.

As far as writing goes, I have the aforementioned reviews, I`ve agreed on deadlines for two posts for Care2, I`m writing a little something up for Green Man, and that takes me to the end of the week (it`s a busy week). After that, I think what I`d like to do is work on a couple of essays I`ve previously pitched to AE, and put together a pitch or two for a local magazine I`ve been in touch with. Those are things I`ll give myself `til the end of the month for, since there are no impending deadlines attached, and, hey, it`s holiday time. I want to relax at least a little.

Care2 Blog Weekly Roundup (09/01/12)

Posted on by

The site is undergoing some changes, which will also affect the type and frequency of writing I’ll be able to do there. Of course, it’s been months since I’ve done much writing of all other than a minimal amount of assigned work. I’ve been passive rather than proactive, in other words.

However, I had a single, unexpected day off from work, and was able to get a few articles in under the wire, before the implementation of the new schedule, and here they are.

Sea Lions or Salmon: Which Protectee to Protect?

Wild Gene Boosts Rice Yield, Feeds World?

We’ve Already Used Up Earth’s Resources for 2012

Russians Rushing to Arctic Drill Sites

One Book, A Hundred Ways to Review It

Posted on by

In the last week or so I’ve met (barely) deadlines for book reviews for the Library Journal, Winnipeg Free Press, and AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review, each of which has fairly specific editorial needs.

Left to my own devices, I’ll tend to write something in the neighbourhood of 800 words for a book review. I will frequently personalize it, writing in a conversational, informal style. The Free Press’ book reviews style guide is fairly standard for a newspaper, with a firm word limit of 600 and an avoidance of the personal pronoun. This is not a tremendous adjustment, but it does mean I will write a different review than I would for the same book at a different outlet.

By contrast, AE is stylistically more open, and flexible on length. My editor over there will frequently latch onto something in my review and ask me to expand it, turning fairly straightforward book coverage into a more far-reaching critical essay. When you consider the subject matter and audience, this makes sense. A sci-fi magazine talks specifically about sci-fi, and will want to bring to the table more than surface-level insight about its area of expertise.

As a result I’m often very proud of my finished product over at AE, but put more time in on these essays than the general audience reviews I publish elsewhere. Exceeding 1000 words in this pieces is not unusual. I also draw more deeply on my literary knowledge to make connections as a matter of course, and frequently find myself looking up minute details of related works in the process of writing.

Then there’s the Library Journal, which poses an entirely different challenge. Writing a review that gets at the essential point in a mere 175 words is the ultimate exercise in brevity. I’ve learned to quickly identify the audience and the essential details of the book as concern that audience (including the basic review question: whether the book achieves its intent), which is about all you can do in that space.

It’s certainly possible to spend more time at one of these micro-reviews than one in which one is able to meander, perhaps because an extra step is involved: cutting and rephrasing all the extraneous information until the necessary level of conciseness is reached.

These aren’t my only review venues, of course, but they do represent a nice variety in terms of editorial and stylistic expectations. Perhaps you didn’t realize there was so much to writing a book review. I didn’t quite know myself.