EW Reviews SF/F
Issue #980 (February 29, 2008) of Entertainment Weekly offers some brief reviews of science fiction and fantasy books.
Here’s a snippet…
by A. Lee Martinez
Movie Pitch: Iron Man meets X-Men.
Lowdown: The dialogue and supporting cast are full of creaky clichés, but in time Mack’s smash-and-grab mission acquires some satisfying philosophical heft.
Grade: B+
by Iain M. Banks
Movie Pitch: A Star Trek “Prime Directive” episode meets The Lord of the Rings.
Lowdown: Trippy geography and climactic techno-mayhem can’t fully offset the slog through pseudo-Tolkien territory.
Grade: B
by Kim Harrison
Movie Pitch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Tank Girl.
Lowdown: Outlaw may be tough for newbies, but Rachel’s personal growth, series-altering revelations, and a lot of humor make it inviting.
Grade: B+
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Are these the entire EW reviews? The mind boggles at a 400+ page book by Banks being summarized as “A Star Trek ‘Prime Directive’ episode meets The Lord of the Rings.”
EW has three kind of reviews:
1. A long featured book review (about a page to a page and a half).
2. Several medium sized 1-column reviews.
3. Three or four mini reviewlettes with bulleted points like “movie pitch” and such (it varies week to week and depends on the genre).
When science fiction gets reviewed, it’s almost always in the reviewlettes which is where they usually cover genre fiction (sf/f one week, mystery another, comics another, chick lit another, etc.) And no, these are just excerpts, there is another plot synopsis I leave out.