Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Reviews from Amazon are no more reliable than those from the publisher themselves... they are all skewed to sell you the book. Reviews should come from a fully-impartial third party, like a site or magazine dedicated to reviewing, not selling.
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Amazon reviews are useless in my opinion. Not for the reasons above, but
1. They are self-selecting - people with a stake in the book will post - either they loved it/have obligations to the author.., or they hated it/detest the author... How likely is it that you will have similar taste with an unknown Amazon reviewer?
2. They are usually short and non-descriptive - I liked it/hated it kind and that is just useless in a review unless you *know* the reviewer's tastes
3. There is no guarantee the reviewer actually read the book as Harriet Klausner' blurb based reviews prove
I look constantly for and buy new authors and so I have several review sites I use that I know are reliable from experience in time with them, and then excerpts are all important - usually a page or two of the book makes it clear for me if it's a must, a check it more, a later when in the mood, or a complete avoid.
In sff at least there is a large network of very good reviewers and review sites, with different interests for that matter so you can find reviews of the latest vampire yarn, as well as of the hard sf space opera or the latest hardcore mil-sf, so it's easy to check books out. What is hard is to get people to review lesser known books since reading time is limited and every month there are lots of major sff releases and those tend to get the most attention, with lesser known novels appearing here and there based on reviewer's taste.