Tag: books

A new blog and some book reviews

Zero Sum inaugurates his new blog with a review of A THRONE OF BONES:

This book is monumental. The sheer size of the hardback version is simply staggering. On the cover, there is an intricate array of bronzed scrollwork surrounding a skull. Its quality, finish, and attention to detail are readily apparent. It sits on my bookshelf and carries a commanding presence that is only rivaled by Webster in mass, and very few in quality. Each chapter has a header using the skull and some artwork, it’s a nice touch.

But you don’t buy the book for its cover, so onto the details. The book uses multiple points of view throughout the book highlighting and interlocking web of storylines…. The book to me was initially very complex, between the characters, terrain, alliances, politics and military strategy.

I should probably mention that the second print run of the hardcover does not feature the skull from the cover as a chapter heading, but replaces it with new artwork by the cover artist featuring a pair of wyverns with their tails intertwined.  The dustjacket is also now gloss rather than matte, and the errata from the first run has been corrected.

Didact’s Reach reviewed the novel and actually found it superior to Martin’s series.  I wouldn’t go that far myself, but it’s certainly encouraging to know that it at least merits the comparison.

I’ve read every one of the books in A Song of Ice and Fire, and this beats the pants off all of them. Even A Storm of Swords. Seriously. It’s that good.

This book works because it doesn’t pretend to be more than it is- an epic historical fantasy novel. The utterly depressing and frankly pointless moral nihilism of ASOIAF is nowhere to be found; in its place is a powerful and uplifting vision of faith and republican virtue, challenged as it is on every side by civil war, dark magic, and loss of faith. The frankly ludicrous “realistic” sex scenes in ASOIAF are thankfully nowhere to be found here; in fact, the sex is kept largely out of sight, which I think is a good thing, as it reduces the number of distractions significantly. It doesn’t try to do anything other than tell a truly epic story. And if you’re an avid reader of historical fiction and non-fiction, of the Ross Leckie/Robert Harris variety, then you’re in for a real treat.

ATOB is set in the same intriguing fictional world of Selenoth as SE, a world that fuses the best traditions of the ancient Roman Republic with many of the ideas of the Christian Church as embodied by the Holy Roman Empire. The world is both strange and familiar, and as a literary device, I have to say, this is damned effective. I’ve read my share of Roman history too, so I really appreciated the little details that Vox put into the book. For instance, the scene in which Valerius Corvus observes the “coronation” (if that is the correct word) of the new Holy Father is exactly what I would expect from the martial and spiritual traditions of a Roman Republic, where god-kings were cast aside in favour of Republican rule, combined with the clear separation of Church and State that is a founding principle of Christian theology. The battle scenes are particularly effective displays of Vox’s thorough command of military history; he switches almost effortlessly between individual perspectives of the horror of battle to large-scale tactical views of the conflicts, without losing coherence or purpose.

This thread at r/Fantasy is more than a little amusing.  I’m really enjoying “A Throne of Bones.” Best not to read about the author first. It’s a delight to see the always-open minds of the fantasy-reading rabbits at work. I particularly enjoyed this remark: “I just googled the guy and I already hate him.” But I quite appreciate reluctant praise from those who dislike or even despise me, as it is arguably the most meaningful.

Allusions of Grandeur also reviewed the book, but you may want to think twice about reading the review as it does contain a spoiler or two despite the reviewer’s apparent desire to avoid them.

A Throne of Bones is a long, remarkably dense work of fiction.  That it is well-written and compelling helps to hide this fact, especially when you read this in the Kindle format, for once you start reading, it is very difficult to stop.  As such, the sheer entertainment value coupled with Vox’s need to constantly propel the plot forward at a rather fast clip (much like what you would expect from the TV show 24), makes this book seem shorter than it is.

I will not attempt to summarize the plot, as a) I don’t want to reveal spoilers and b) doing so would almost be a novel unto itself.  Nonetheless, the plot of this book revolves primarily around war, and most of the subplots revolve around this as well.

What makes this book both an entertaining and fascinating read is that Vox draws on his rather tremendous depth of knowledge and literary theory to create a world that is quite imaginative and “realistic,” which is in turn populated with characters that are interesting, sympathetic, and multi-dimensional…. a good portion of the plot conflicts are moral conflicts, which make the
conflicts meaningful.  The characters are not random actors that exist
simply as plot devices.  Rather, they are characters with their own
beliefs, motivations and moral codes.  Whether you agree with any given
character’s motivations or not, you cannot deny that any given
character’s motivations are what make the story so compelling.  In fact,
the constant moral conflict found with Marcus Valerius is what makes
him such a compelling character.  Watching him struggle with him
adjusting his theological studies to the real world of war causes you to
sympathize with him.

And what do you do with witches?

“The thesis of The World Until Yesterday is that we in
industrialized societies have much to learn from people who make (or
recently made) their living by hunting-and-gathering or small-scale
farming.”
– National Public Radio on Jared Diamond’s latest ode to the primitive life in Papua New Guinea

“A young mother was tossed screaming on to a pyre of tyres and burned alive after being accused of killing a neighbour’s six-year-old son with sorcery.  Kepari Leniata, 20, ‘confessed’ after she was dragged from her hut, stripped naked and tortured with white-hot iron rods.  She was then dragged to a local rubbish dump, doused in petrol and, with hands and feet bound, thrown on a fire of burning tyres. As the mother-of-two screamed in agony, more petrol-soaked tyres were thrown on top of her….  The tragedy unfolded after Miss Leniata’s young neighbour fell sick on Tuesday morning. He complained of pains in the stomach and chest and was taken to Mt Hagen hospital where he died a few hours later. Relatives of the boy were suspicious that witchcraft was involved in the death and learned that two women had gone into hiding in the jungle.  After they were tracked down, the pair admitted they practised sorcery but had nothing to do with the boy’s death. Miss Leniata, they said, was the person responsible.”
– Mail Online

Clearly we have a lot to learn from such a simple and noble way of life. I don’t know about you, but I find it more than a little amusing that the poster boy for modern pop science is advocating a Rousseauean idealization of a state of nature that happens to include the great historical secular bugaboo, witch-burnings.  As I have repeatedly pointed out, far from being progressive, secular post-Christianity is more regressive than 7th century Islam.  It’s ultimately a return to the mores of precivilized paganism.

Saruman: the misunderstood hero

Adrian Simmons presents an interesting and unusual take on The Lord of the Rings:

The more you know about Sarumon, the more sympathetic to his situation you become. He is the first picked to go, and the first to arrive in Middle-earth. He journeys to the east with Aratar and Pollombo, and those two don’t return (not much is said about the blue wizards, but honestly I get the feeling they kind of flake out altogether — a very real danger with volunteers who get to bring their friends along).

But Sarumon’s always second fiddle. Right from the start Varda makes it clear that he’s not in charge, and later when the White Council is formed, Galadriel doesn’t want him in control of that august body either. And he learns that that weenie Gandalf (who comes to Middle-earth one hundred years later) gets one of the three rings of power the day he freaking lands. Ugh! The humiliation! You’d retreat to the fastness of your ancient tower, too.

Sarumon’s activities are not well defined, but there are hints that he tangles with ring wraiths, and he is in the thick of it when the White Council goes to Dol Guldur to deal with the Necromancer. After Dol Guldur, he withdraws a bit, but even then he is still working on the Sauron problem, and his solution is as awful as it is cunning. You have to keep in mind, he’s come to Middle-earth, he fights the good fight (for over a thousand years), stress causes his hair to turn from black to white, he gets the keys to Orthanc, and he discovers the palantir. And after Dol Guldur is where the Big Plan starts.

And here is the tragedy of it all, as Sauron and Sarumon were co-workers back in the day, they have a remarkably similar ‘corporate culture’, and a pretty similar worldview — and this is why the wise don’t really want Sarumon in charge — because his answer to Sauron will be to become Sauron, Ring or no.

Sauron, of course, knows all this, and that’s why it is so easy for him, via the palantir, to pluck at Sarumon’s pride and ensure that, like the gung-ho fireman, he overestimates his own abilities and underestimates the situation, and his teammates have to burn valuable time and resources bailing him out.

And since Sarumon can’t force Men or Elves to fight his Big War, he comes up with the idea of the half-orcs/Urik-hai. The injunction by the gods? Doesn’t say shit about orcs, does it? Hell no it doesn’t! So, really, it was only a matter of time before Saruman realized that he could raise an army of his own orcs to take on Sauron’s. Give him another hundred years and he won’t need the damn Men or the Elves. It really has a whole Stalin vs. Hitler vibe, doesn’t it?

I guess it just goes to show that no one likes a “letter of the law” guy.  Wizard or no.  Read the rest at The Black Gate.

A MAGIC BROKEN free on Amazon

I also posted this notice on Helen’s Page, which is rapidly turning out to be a rather useful online bulletin board for the liberty-minded.

The novella A MAGIC BROKEN is free for Amazon Kindle users today and tomorrow.

It has 78 reviews, including this 5-star one:

“This is a short book, and I understand it is intended to introduce
some characters and setting for Vox Day’s upcoming book “A Throne of
Bones.” I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once it gets going, it is hard to put
down. I highly recommend it, especially if you are weary of the typical
book in the fantasy genre that goes on and on and on and never comes to a
conclusion. You won’t be disappointed in your purchase, and you will be
excited to read the next book.”

A better class of fake review

One has to respect that at least Zoidy went to the trouble of buying the Kindle version before writing his fake review.

Boring! Very much a Warhammer novel (with the license), January 25, 2013

By Zoidy, Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a terrible book. Slow, tiresome, boring!

It’s pointlessly
wasteful with pages upon pages of characters writing letters that say
nothing! Of characters that spend ungodly amounts of time internalising
about simple issues like whether to put their cloak on to go outside!
What’s the weather like?! Who might see them outside?! Will they catch a
chill…and on and on! This is horrible writing.

Also, thanks to the Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40k worlds for providing pretty much most of what this author has written.

Note to the next fake reviewer: it’s more convincing if you actually read the book.  And noticing the absence of any brand logos or laser guns would also help.  Of course, actually reading the book sort of defeats the purpose of the fake review, doesn’t it?  If Zoidy thinks A Throne of Bones has pages of pages of letters – about 12 out of 854 – I’d hate to imagine what he’d conclude of Pat Wrede’s Sorcery and Cecilia, which I am given to understand is a Vampire Diaries-licensed novel.

I should be absolutely fascinated to learn what elements of the Warhammer 40k universe are present in the novel.  I don’t know whether to be flattered or appalled that people are actually willing to pay money in order to publicly trash my work.  But it occurs to me that this may open up whole new horizons in the honorable profession of getting paid to not write….

Jared Diamond and the Grass Hut Imperative

At least there is one left-liberal who is honest about his heartfelt desire to return to the Great Grass Hut Matriarchy:

….The World Until Yesterday, a vanity project marketed as anthropology. In this book, Diamond draws from his extensive field research in New Guinea to share his views on the shortcomings of contemporary American society. Primitive approaches to social problems, he thinks, would better serve our society. For example, he argues for: dedicating more resources to mediation as an alternative to civil lawsuits, establishing “conventional monopolies” to smooth out trade fluctuations, deemphasizing competition and the desire for excellence among children, on-demand nursing for infants, spending more time talking to our children, devising new living conditions for the elderly, accepting that the gulf between rich and poor in the United States provides an explanation of the popularity of religion in our country, preserving language diversity, and ending obesity.

At its core, the book is based on a fundamental contradiction. Diamond explains that the customs of primitive societies are not applicable to the characteristics of our society; then he proceeds to use those customs as the basis for recommendations for improving everything in our society from parenting to diet.

Apparently it’s not enough that we’re basing our trade policy upon early 19th century illogic, our monetary system upon early 20th century fraud, our economic system upon Depression-era nonsense, and our immigration policy upon a play written by a Jewish immigrant to Britain in 1908, Diamond wants us to go all the way back to cannibalism, huts, and throwing rocks at one another.

What I don’t understand is why?  I mean, they don’t actually ever go and live in Papua New Guinea or Deepest, Darkest Africa themselves, so why do they think that the primitive lifestyles that they favor should be imported and imposed upon the West?

The bright lights of the hrududu

You may recall that I’ve mentioned how the Rabbit People have three basic weapons to which they resort.  One of their most important ones is exclusion; to a herd animal exclusion is the worst of all possible fates because they are incapable of even imagining survival on their own.

Now consider in this light an intriguing one-star review of A THRONE OF BONES that appeared yesterday courtesy of one Virginia Conterato of EdinaMinneapolis.

It’s very difficult to review a book so badly written. The wordiness
attempts to disguise the utter lack of decent storytelling and world
building. There is a whole lot of NOTHING happening along with badly
written dialogue and poorly developed characters. It is not often that I
write negative reviews, but I felt I needed to warn others away from
this terrible book. THis book is truly terrible. Don’t waste your time,
much less your money. 

It’s even harder to convincingly review a book one hasn’t read.  Or, as appears to be the case, even bought.  Isn’t it amazing how strongly some of these one-star reviewers feel they need to “warn others” and save them from exposure to the terrible, horrible, doubleplusungood novel?  As if otherwise, they might inadvertently read such a miniscule tome?  It tends to remind one of McRapey warning his readers not to read this blog or even mention Lord VoldemortRSHD.  This is classic Rabbit People behavior, especially in light of how Mrs. Conterato clearly hasn’t read the book.  You’ll note that attack reviews are usually phrased in the most general of terms; if they do provide details, they usually just happen to come from things that take place in the text selection available on Amazon.  Seriously, is there anyone who genuinely believes that Kay is one of the very few people who bought the hardcover?

Although I have to admit, the idea of an angry little rabbit flipping furiously through all 854 pages just to write a credible-sounding fake review does amuse me.  It’s worse than TIA’s unclimbable Mount Chapter Four.

Now, why would a married woman in her late forties be so upset that she would go to the trouble of posting a fake review at this particular time?  The answer, I suspect, is to be found at Change.org, where last year Kay signed the petition “Senator Amy Klobuchar: Publicly Come Out in Support of Same-Sex Marriage”.  Logic suggests the following scenario: McRapey repeatedly pounds the homophobic drum, Kay’s little rabbit ears perk up, and she bravely hops forth to do battle on behalf of the Whatever warren and her lesbian writer friends at The Loft.

And then the bright lights appeared….

Now, you’d have to have lived in the Twin Cities to fully appreciate what I find funniest about the good doctor’s wife.  You see, when Kay signed the petition, she claimed to live in Edina.  But she doesn’t.  As it happens, in high school I dated a few girls from Edina, including one who lived just down the road from Southdale. Which, you see, is why I happen to know that Kay, like many others in certain parts of Richfield and southwest Minneapolis, only affects to live in the more prestigious city….

I now await, with no little amusement, the declarations of how scary the Rabbit People find it to discover that Lord Voldemort now has the dark and dangerous powers of Google-fu at his disposal.  I have to confess, I’m more than a little tempted to knock on her door and offer to sign her nonexistent hardcover the next time I’m in EdinaMinneapolis.

The other interesting thing, in addition to the fake reviews, is that there are at least two rabbits who are giving helpful ratings to all the negative reviews and rating all of the positive reviews unhelpful.  Given the timing, one of them is likely our little friend Kay.  It’s not so much the review as the rating of the review that is of interest here:

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

1 out of 5 stars: hard to follow yet very predictable January 21, 2013
By  Tracy

This a long book, very slow read. Not a lot of action or suspense. You can tell whats going to happen almost every step of the way. It is layed out like it is 7 or 8 books stuck together. The chapter titles are just the name of the character that will be prominent for that chapter. Then the next chapter is for the storyline of the next character and so on. After forcing myself to finish the book, it is only a lead up to a second book! It does’t even stand on it’s own! Horrible!  

Helpful indeed.  This is how the Rabbit People fight; it’s all nonsensical, passive-aggressive attacks intended to be plausibly deniable, sniping from behind corners, and appealing to the herd; the correct way to respond is not through reactive passive-aggression, but rather to shine a light on the little critters’s activities.

We are not like them, we are better than them.  They know it.  And they know we know it.  That is why they hate us.

UPDATE: Some are incredulous that I would post information that is freely available to the public about a suspected fraud here on this blog.  Very well, let me be clear.  I am demanding an admission from Mrs. Conterato that she neither purchased the hardcover nor the Kindle version, nor did she read the book in its entirety prior to posting her review.  On a related note, I am requesting the order records from my publisher today; since the book is not available in retail bookstores, I should be able to confirm within days that she did not, in fact, ever purchase the hardcover that she claimed to have reviewed.  I will remove the public information from this post if a) Mrs. Conterato admits she did not buy the book and her review is a fake one, or b) if she proves that she did purchase the book and read it in its entirety.

UPDATE II: I just got an email from the publisher containing a list of the books sent to Minnesota.  None was sent to anyone named Conterato or to the address shown above.  Or to Edina…. This is not yet conclusive proof as one more possibility exists that I am presently having tracked down, but it is a significant step in that direction.

Interview by Speculative Faith

E. Stephen Burnett interviewed me for the Speculative Faith Blog about A THRONE OF BONES and various aspects of the novel that some Christians apparently consider to be controversial.

ESB: What’s different between Summa Elvetica and your newest novel, A Throne of Bones?

Vox Day: About 650 pages, for one thing. Summa Elvetica could be considered a long chapter in the life of one of the perspective characters in A Throne of Bones, the military tribune Marcus Valerius Clericus. In fact, it explains his agnomen, Clericus, which means “priest”. But the real difference is that I learned to stop being clever and to focus on the story instead of the subtext. The Wrath of Angels, for example, is a subtextual spin on the single European currency and the failure of the European elite to replace the pound sterling, but no one has ever picked up on that. I’ve found that the depth of the subtext tends to detract from the natural flow of the story, at least when written by an author of my admittedly limited talents.

After A Dance with Dragons came out, I was talking with a friend who was as disgusted with that epic disappointment as I was, and he was lamenting that with Martin having gone south, there wasn’t anything worth reading in that genre. I always wanted to write a fat fantasy and figured I couldn’t do all that much worse than Martin had, so I decided I would return to the world of Summa Elvetica. This time, however, I would throw out the intellectual fireworks that no one seemed to notice or care about anyhow and focus solely on writing a good story with strong, memorable characters. I assumed I’d have to self-publish it, but I needed to get Marcher Lord’s permission first since it could be considered a sequel of sorts even though there is absolutely no need to read the earlier novel. All I was looking for was a release and I was shocked when Jeff said he wanted to publish it, even after I warned him that I intended for it to be around 300,000 words. He didn’t blink, not then, and not later when I turned in the 297,500-word manuscript.

Despite being longer, Throne was much easier to write than Summa. It was exactly 494 days from that first conversation to publication on December 1, 2012. I figured that taking six years to write Dragons hadn’t done Martin any good, so what was the point of dragging the process out? Also, if it was going to be a spectacular failure, the less time I wasted on it, the better.

ESB: Now for the controversial parts. Last week, your editor/publisher Jeff Gerke shared the story behind the novel. In part: “The author felt very strongly that the book needed to have vulgarity (which, he informed me, is different from profanity), nudity, and even sex.” To you, how are vulgarity and profanity different? Which Scriptures have informed your views? Do you think you can write a character saying something you would try not to say?

Vox Day: The distinction between profanity and vulgarity is not original to me, anyone can look up the etymology of the words. To be profane is to attack the sacred. To be vulgar is merely to be low and common. Even the most uptight, eagle-eyed Churchian will not find any blasphemy or taking the name of our Lord and Savior in vain; such profanity wouldn’t make any sense in the world of Selenoth. To me, the idea of writing a book where legionaries are anything but low and common in their speech and behavior is so ludicrous that it would be more credible to give them jet packs and laser guns than to delicately avoid showing them drinking themselves insensate at every opportunity, whoring in brothels, bitching about their officers, and jeering at those who betray a physical response to being terrified in battle.

The verses which influence me on the subject of literary language are Leviticus 19:12, Colossians 3:8, and 1 Peter 3:10. Particularly Colossians 3:8. I find it absurd and bordering on the delusional to see Christians who would never think to object to angry, malicious, and slanderous speech in fiction nevertheless try to use the Bible as a basis for objecting to vulgar language in the mouths of fictional characters. I write about life in a fallen world and I do so as honestly and accurately as I can. I believe that to do otherwise is to be deceitful.

And yes, I absolutely assert that I can write something that I would never say or even think for myself. The writer is not the character. And the writer whose characters are little more than various reflections of himself is one who lacks imagination, creativity, and basic powers of observation.

This is merely an excerpt from the interview; read the rest of it at Speculative Faith.

A bestiary of hate

And why it is increasingly important to provide Amazon reviews for books you really like.

Now, some authors firmly believe you should never engage with a critic of your books.  They’ve got a sound basis for this belief, because most authors are sensitive little wallflowers who can’t bear criticism, so when they do respond to it, they tend to overdo it a little.  Or a lot.  The prime example, of course, being Laurell K. Hamilton, whose epic hissy fit was ironically more entertaining than any of the novels she inflicted upon the general public.  Her predecessor in the sexy corpse genre, Anne Rice, also provided another well-regarded classic in the annals of authorial peevishness, albeit one handicapped by the virtue of it showing at least some signs of the sanity entirely missing from Hamilton’s masterpiece.

Given that I have been the beneficiary of the constant attentions of various anklebiters and more substantive critics for some years now, I am considerably less upset than most writers when it comes to negative readers.  They’re bound to come, particularly when an author is as free with his own opinions as I am.  But that doesn’t mean that I am any less inclined to permit reader absurdities go unchallenged, particularly when they are putting them out there in public in an attempt to influence the decisions of potential readers to give my books a shot or not.  Also, given that I am a polemicist of some notoriety, I am more conscious than most of how some purported “reviews” are nothing more than polemics by other means.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion of every book.  Tastes and intellects differ considerably.  But no one has a right to not have their opinions mocked or criticized.  Now, most of those who have read and reviewed A THRONE OF BONES have expressed a generally favorable opinion of it; some have even written of it in a superlative manner.  Most consider it to have surpassed their expectations.  Not these three reviewers, however, who claim to have found literally nothing of merit in the novel:

THE DELICATE CHRISTIAN FLOWER

“I was looking forward to reading it. I was sorely disappointed to find
profanity, and vulgarity and a few other things I found objectionable.
If you are into Christian fiction, this is not the book for you.”

Translation: “All books with bad words are bad.  Don’t read them.”

My response: hey, at least her opinion is based on fact and is reasonably consistent, given that she also gives a glowing five-star review to a children’s Bible that leaves out that unimportant bit about Jesus’s death.

THE EVERYDAY ANKLEBITER

“This book is bad. So bad that I was moved to leave my first amazon
review and I couldn’t just put it down and move on to the next book in
my pile, I had to move on to something I already knew was exceptional,
like Tolkien. Since zero stars is not an option, I can at least take
some comfort in the fact that I had to give “A Throne of Bones” one star
in that it pushed me into something more worthwhile.”

Translation: “I hate the author, so I’ll just fling some imaginary crap and hope it sticks.”

My response: Trolls are going to troll and anklebiters are going to snap at ankles wherever they can.  Keep in mind this first-time “reviewer” appears to be the same guy who was dumb enough to claim, on this blog, that the novel was a structural imitation of Gibbon – whose work covered the imperial Roman period some 200 years after the Republican era I utilized – and a literary imitation of R. Scott Bakker.  The fact that the “reviewer” is a fan of Bakker’s who is still bitter about my failure to genuflect before Bakker in the nihilism debate is, no doubt, entirely unrelated to his review….

The strange thing about The Everyday Anklebiter is that he apparently has never stopped to think that there are thousands of readers of this blog who are perfectly able to do what he has done in purposefully tanking the ratings of authors they don’t like.  This sort of negative review isn’t merely abusive, it is dangerous to the entire review system, given its potential to start a reviews war.

If you have an Amazon account, I would encourage you to report this as abuse. I have already done so.  Personal vendettas belong on the blogs, they have no place on public book review sites.

THE OVER-HIS-HEAD GUY

“The author show no imagination. He basically just copies imperial Rome
at the time of the Roman Catholic church. Neither one of which I find
entertaining in a fantasy setting. If I wanted to read about Roman
Legions and the Church I’d buy a history book. I’ll get through it
eventually and maybe it will get better but if the first 20% is this bad
I can’t imagine how it’s going to redeem itself. Don’t waste your money
or your time. It’s the worst book I’ve ever read and I’ve read about
everything.”

Translation: tl;dr

My response: (laughs)  Imperial Rome copied at the time of the Roman Catholic Church… that pretty much says it all.  But it least it is an honest review, as clearly, if the idea of combining Rome and fantasy bores you, A THRONE OF BONES is almost surely the most boring book you could ever hope to read. 

No book is for everyone because we all have different tastes.  Some read fiction, some don’t.  Some love history, some find it tedious in the extreme.  But these reviews should help underline the importance of reviewing the books you like, especially those books you love.  So, later today, I’ll be posting a review of a book I recently read that I really liked, and which I would recommend reading.