Raymond's Reviews #0

Welcome to Raymond's Reviews, a regular series of reviews of current and forthcoming SF which will be appearing on USENET, the sf-lovers Internet list, and GEnie (other networks to be added as time and resources permit).

Why should you care? Well...first, I have been a hard-core SF and fantasy fan for twenty years. I read omnivorously and very quickly, and keep a huge refer- ence library of classics and not-so-classics spanning most of the field's history (I still, as a matter of fact, have the first SF book I ever owned). I already read a substantial fraction (half, maybe) of what comes out monthly. So I know the field pretty well.

Secondly, I'm not beholden to anyone. I'm doing this for love of the field and to scratch my itch to write -- not to fill space in a 'zine or satisfy timid editors. I will praise the good ones and pan the bad ones -- and I will be up front about my biases, too, so that you'll get a useful slant about the books I review even if your biases are different from mine.

Thirdly, I will write from a reader's biases, not a writer's or academic's. The first question I will try to answer is always "Is this book a good read?" A writer can pile on idea content, characterization, and stylistic nuance forever without necessarily producing something that is good to read -- and my prejudice is that such writers cheat the reader.

Because my purpose is to inform potential readers, you will probably see more friendly reviews than unfriendly ones, simply because I won't read a book that looks like industrial-strength turkey just to review it -- and after twenty years in the field I've got a pretty good nose for turkey.

To sum up, I aim to be a reviewer, not a critic. Don't expect highfalutin literary discourse or deep structural analysis of symbolisms and references. Where this series should help you is in deciding whether a book you've glanced at on the racks and felt iffy about is your kind of fun.

Without further ado, let's proceed to Raymond's Review #1...