I review books for SCI FI Magazine.

Wearing my book reviewer hat, I explain to everybody who wants to send me their books that I can only read, let alone review, only a fraction of the books that are sent to me, and that some other factors control what I review…but that is not saying no; that is insurance against the occasional author who thinks I have issued guarantees. (There was one lady who got quite irate, despite such a warning, when I never did cover her book; I ultimately told her that I *did* take the time to read the damn book and found it nothing special, and that she did not want me to say so in print.)

So how do I decide which books to review?

Well, keep in mind that this is a job, and that one key attribute of a job is that you want to do it as quickly and as efficiently as possible. I have four book reviews to write, for the average column; I have been known to stretch a column to six, if passion for the work drives me, but four is what I am being paid for. I am no longer a fast reader, certainly not for this work. It can take me a week to finish a book. So all the reading I do, all of it, including the pleasure reading not associated with the column, which I insist on making time for, has the bi-monthly deadline lurking behind it.

So if I already know and love your work, or suspect I will, I make that book one of the four right away.

By contrast: have I been too nice to you, too recently? Have I raved about one of your books, in the last year? Multiple? Gee, I honestly don’t want to be accused of always taking the easy route. Maybe I’ll save your current one for pleasure reading.

Is your book part of a series? Is it multiple books into the series? Sorry, I have neither the time nor the inclination to catch up. And if I express confusion, as my review, explaining as my review that the book is not for those who wish to jump on midstream, I do not want to receive buckets of hate mail from fans who think I should have made a life project of educating myself enough to write a concordance, for a three hundred word review. (This happened with fans of Laurel K. Hamilton.)

I always try to put in an anthology or collection. (They are also deadline insurance; I can always say something about a collection.)

My columns tend to have a numerical male bias. They just do, unless I consciously counter it. I try to consciously counter it. I always try to include at least one book by a woman; the goal is half the column, but I have not always achieved that, and sometimes I don’t even achieve the one. So if I see a new book by a writer I have never heard of and it looks like it might be interesting, that writer has an extra plus if she’s a woman. She just does.

I am more likely to read and thus review books whose subgenres I am partial to. Horror-thrillers have a leg up, though I am aware that I cannot fill the column with them. If I rave about one, the next one needs to be extraordinary to be in the same column.

If I am not grabbed by your book within twenty pages, it goes on the discard pile. I am aware that some books have long entrance ramps. The entrance ramps need to be interesting too. LONESOME DOVE has a very long entrance ramp, but grabbed me in the first paragraph, when Gus told the pigs that if they were going to go eat that rattlesnake, they should take it under the porch — and they listened. That book had me at hello, dammit. Have me at hello. I don’t have the time to not be interested while I read your book. I have too big a pile to get through.

Very long books are occasions for dismay. I love John Shirley. I will review a John Shirley book in a heartbeat. I have a massive bound trilogy by him. It is on my shelf to be explored someday. I did not have weeks to read it. For the same reason, Ian Banks has multiple epics on my shelf, for someday. I have and will review doorstops, I am not saying I won’t. Their presence on my bookshelf torments me. But the time investment does enter into my calculations. How soon is my deadline? Can I read two shorter books in the same amount of time, and finish the column? Do I have to schedule a stand-alone novella published in chapbook as one of my reviews, to make time for the behemoth?

Have you been an asshole to me, or to people I care about? Three or four people are on this list. One guy I won’t touch. Sorry. He tried to do me damage. I won’t read his books, however acclaimed. Nor will I review books by the guy I consider a racist.

How much lead time are you giving me? If, like Subterranean Press, you mail me everything months ahead of time, there are multiple columns where the review can appear. If, like many publishers, you get the bright idea of sending me your books a month or so after publication — well, I do try to review new books; the more antiquated your product, by deadline, the more unlikely coverage becomes. Subterranean almost always gets a review. They just do. Their product is fine, but their treatment of reviewers sterling.

Finally: I tend NOT to review more than one book by a single publisher within a column. I will break this rule when I have to, but there have been occasions where I had to restrain myself from just reviewing four Sub Press books in the same column, because I had them handy and they were all sent to me with months of lead time.

These are all factors.

Tags: horror, John Shirley, Lonesome Dove, writing | Category Blog Business, Books, Frequently Asked Questions, Life Wisdom, Uncategorized, Writing