Stratofanatic's Emporium

Recently, a book reviewer for Fafnir  approached me with a problem. His first draft was vague and meandering, but that isn't necessarily unusual, as  most of our reviews need revision. Still, this fellow was a good academic, and it turns out his first draft was messy for a reason. Namely, he was floundering on the ethics of critically reviewing a book whose politics he so ardently supported. Although there  were  criticisms that he considered valid concerning the book's structure, he didn't feel right about expressing them. I appreciated his reaching out to me. I'm a relatively chatty kind of editor, though of course many don't have the time. And the ethics of book reviewing is a real thing. My own viewpoint is slightly different from James Gifford's , who among other good advice nonetheless recommends Books that fulfill career requirements simply cannot be read the same way as those that come after tenure and therefore without the same material demands on the a

Time for two reviews by me from the SFRA Review ! Belatedly, I only just now realized that I never mentioned my review of Robert Waugh's book, The Tragic Thread of Science Fiction (2019), which SFRA Review published last November. You can find my review here . It's maybe the most negative review I've ever written, but his New Criticism framework -- yes, really, New Criticism (!) -- doesn't hold up much. I'm afraid. I was honestly disappointed .... I'd read some of his Lovecraft criticism a while back, and his article on "The Rats in the Walls" was clearly a notch above what most other Lovecraft fan-scholars were doing. Anyway, my most recent review -- just came out today -- is a highly laudatory review of Amy Binns's biography of novelist John Wyndham, Hidden Wyndham (2019).** Just for giggles, I've managed to make references to Thomas Pynchon, Elena Ferrante, C. S. Lewis, and an extended analogy with A. S. Byatt's novel Possession . Check