John has asked that I publish my review criteria, so here it is. Note that this only really counts for books I’ve read this year (2006) and beyond – in years past I wasn’t quite as critical as I am now.

I have to admit I’m seriously thinking of changing my rating to simply ‘Worth it’ or ‘Avoid it’ since that’s all I’m really trying to convey, but at least for now here is what my rating system is.


If a book has no rating, that means I didn’t finish it. I don’t quit that many titles, but more than I’d like. Unfortunately I’m unlikely to blog about them because at that point they don’t become worth any more of my time.

A one star rating implies that the book is overall very poor, but might appeal to somebody who must have the work based on a particular series. An example of this would be many of the D&D books published by Wizards of the Coast. Overall this means I regret spending time reading it because I got nothing out of it. I have to wonder why I would finish such a book, but who knows.

A two star book is one that is going to appeal to fans of the series or author, but the book has some issues. Note that this book isn’t lame or a waste of time – it just isn’t going to appeal without something else (love of author, fondness for the subject matter, etc.) to help pull you through it. I’ve read several books by Jack Chalker and Fred Saberhagen like this.

A three star rating indicates that the book is very solid and fans of the genre will enjoy it. It should offer some new ideas perhaps or be such an engrossing plot or contain interesting deep characters. There are plenty of books like this – in fact I’d argue that most sci fi published today fall into this category.

A four star rating will be used when a book is a great – really a fantastic sci-fi book that anybody who enjoys sci-fi will find worth the time to read it. In fact, it’s so good a sci-fi fan who doesn’t read it would probably regret it because it will be talked about and see time in the reward nominee lists. Books like Rendezvous with Rama and Ringworld are in this category for me.

A five star rating is rare – this is the book that gets it all right and does it so well, you believe most readers, whether they like sci-fi or not, will enjoy reading this one. This is the book that is so good you’d recommend it to everybody – your mom, your spouse, etc. The Knight is a book like this, as is Ender’s Game to me.

I also include half-star ratings when I feel like it – I don’t always know exactly why in advance, but I try to put that into the text.

I’m not trying to review the reading experience as John does (as an aside, I think that’s a fine way to review and I’m glad I know how he rates books in his reviews.) I’m more interested reviewing in a book as a piece of literature and helping place these books in the complete collection of literary efforts. Are many sci-fi books just pulp fiction? Sure, absolutely, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting. I understand the concept of sci-fi as the ‘literature of ideas‘ because it isn’t always about symbolism and characterization but instead about cool ideas on the potential of the past, present, or future. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate when a book does deliver on all these things and when I read one that does I think it deserves mention.

I like to do a review after I’ve read the book and can still remember it so I sometimes I just end up with a summary instead of a full in-depth review. Sorry about that, but if I don’t have time I figure even the summary info is better than nothing. I also like to think a little bit about a review and not write it up immediately after reading the book because I like to be able to gain some perspective on it. That’s hard when you’ve literally just finished it and are exciting or disappointed with the ending. If I take a day to think about it, I often realize the book isn’t quite as good or as bad as I might have initially thought.

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