Reviewing Matters
March 19, 2009 in Blogs
I’ve been sitting on an unpublished review of C. J. Henderson’s book, To Battle Beyond. As it happens, within the past week or so I was asked to review another fantasy novel–not exactly directly, but rather a game designer put out a call for anyone willing to write a review of a novel composed to help promote a new game, and knowing that reviewing matters, I volunteered. The book should be in the mail to me soon; and so that reviews don’t bump each other off the top of the front page too quickly, I thought it was about time to publish the other. I’ve dropped C. J. a note to let him know it is there; I expect I will hear from him in a couple days.
On the subject of dropping notes about reviews, I have been waiting for RPG Net to review two books that were sent to them last year–my Faith and Gaming compilation, and the compilation Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1. I think we sent these in September, and I waited patiently until the new year before dropping a note asking whether they had been received and whether there was a problem. I received a polite answer from the person who handles their incoming e-mail, informing me only that the question had been forwarded to the individual who handles their reviews. A month later having heard nothing more, I wrote again to the same person, noting that I had heard nothing and that I at least wanted to confirm that the books were received and that he expected that they would be reviewed. That has now been over two weeks ago, and it is a bit frustrating not to have received even an “I got your note and will investigate” response.
But perhaps I don’t play Paranoia because I have enough of it in my own mind. We’re waiting for the RPG Net review of the Game Ideas Unlimited series before making a decision about whether to go forward with volume 2, and it is a bit annoying to be delayed so–but that is not their fault and not their problem. It just happens that we need to know whether the book will be well received before we commit to publishing more, and they’re the best barometer we’ve got for such a question.
–M. J. Young
JohnA1nut said on March 19, 2009
Speaking of book reviews, when are you planning to put the rest of the Multiverser novels to print?
M. J. Young said on March 20, 2009
I wonder that myself. It’s not entirely within my control when Multiverser books go to print, and publishing a novel is a very expensive project which takes a long time to pay for itself. At the moment, we’ve got a lot of things on hold because we want to see what happens with the Game Ideas Unlimited series review before committing too many resources in any direction. But there are things that are not moving along as well as I had hoped and expected, and certainly the novels are one of these.
–M. J. Young