Changes afoot

Contemplating some changes around here. Like many people, I have increasing problems with Goodreads and their policies regarding review content. To say nothing of their, uh, complete disinterest in accessibility, shall we say. I'm in their top 1% of reviewers globally, which sounds great until I start thinking about just how many advertising dollars I've made for them over the years. I mean, if I wholeheartedly loved them, no biggie, but I'm making an effort to be more conscious of where my financial footprint is these days, and well, *shakes head*. Plus, because of aforesaid Goodreads issues, most of my community there has scattered to other services.

So considering some changes. I initially used Goodreads because so many people like seeing a book cover with a review, and that was an easy way to do it. Easier than Amazon Affiliate, which I also used briefly, and could go back to. There's also Booklikes, which seems to be the preferred Goodreads alternative these days.

Amazon Affiliate links raise other issues. I have competing impulses about making money off these reviews, even if it's just a few cents here and there. On the one hand, it feels unnecessary and sort of . . . squirmy. On the other, I do put in a fair amount of work here, and people do find it useful. And the truth of the internet is that if you have an audience, even a small one, you're making money for someone, and if you want any control over that, you've got to take it yourself. Plus, I kind of interrogate that squirminess I mentioned – is it that usual notion of cottage industry guilt where we are taught to devalue ourselves and our work because we aren't part of the traditional creation/consumption model, blah capitalism blah? Dunno.

Poll #16359

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

How strongly do you prefer to see a book cover with each review?

View Answers
Mean: 3.74 Median: 4 Std. Dev 2.10

1 1		9 (23.1%)
2		5 (12.8%)
3		5 (12.8%)
4		2 (5.1%)
5		8 (20.5%)
6		6 (15.4%)
7		4 (10.3%)
8		0 (0.0%)
9		0 (0.0%)
10 10		0 (0.0%)

How strongly do you prefer to have some sort of rating or scale included with reviews?

View Answers
Mean: 6.36 Median: 7 Std. Dev 2.31

1 1		3 (7.7%)
2		0 (0.0%)
3		2 (5.1%)
4		1 (2.6%)
5		9 (23.1%)
6		1 (2.6%)
7		7 (17.9%)
8		10 (25.6%)
9		5 (12.8%)
10 10		1 (2.6%)

Would you use Amazon Affiliate links?

View Answers

Sure, useful!
8 (20.5%)

No, I hate it when bookbloggers do that
0 (0.0%)

No, it's just not how I get books
25 (64.1%)

Not sure.
6 (15.4%)

The Three Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A scientist is drawn into a conspiracy involving a computer game and an old research station and extra-terrestrial life.

Translated from the original Chinese. I have to admit I read this book mostly because the way it's being talked about made me really uncomfortable. There's the contingent who want to treat it as some sort of referendum on the Chinese science fiction landscape, or Chinese literature in general, as it was a wildly successful bestseller there. Yeah, okay, tell you what – go take a look at this week's NY Times bestseller list and pick out the book we should translate into other languages for readers to judge as a referendum on all of American writing of that genre. I'll wait. And then there's the way the translator responded to criticism by making a lot of sweeping statements about Chinese writing that I have very little doubt, even in the absence of any personal expertise, are dubious at best. This book is occupying some weird space in reviewerland, is what I'm saying.

So I read it, and. Um. It's not very good. Flat characters, some shall we say eyebrow raising decisions regarding women, a lot of but humans don’t human that way, etc. Which kind of figures, since if notions of best seller can be translated, then this book is Chinese Tom Clancy. So . . . there you go.

It did intrigue me on behalf of other Chinese science fiction, though. The cultural context of this story – the asides about how communism impacted intellectual thought, for example – interested me more than anything else.

I generally have a pretty good nose for these things, though, and I smell movie deal, for what that's worth.



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