For me, it's the use of the word "shamed." He says he feels shamed that he can't recommend these books to others because of this one particular thing about them. If you're ashamed by something, you think it's a bad thing; he says he's ashamed of most SF being published today, so I don't think it's terribly surprising that some people will read that as "most SF being published today sucks."

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I'm not too worried about the slippage between "flawed" and "sucks" -- movie reviews do it all the time. They're demonstrably different things, but, they're both negative statements about quality or appeal.

It's not unreasonable, in everyday speech, to translate journalist-ese into your own lingo, turning "flawed" into "misguided" or "badly done" or something similar. What is unreasonable is a journalist mistaking a part for a whole so thoroughly, and in such stereotypical fashion.

I think focussing the discussion on specific terms is a red-herring type of problem. The real problem is, the guy offered an analysis of a chicken, and said (without further evidence) it also applied to cats, rabbits, pigs, sheep and horses.

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He says he feels shamed that he can't recommend these books to others because of this one particular thing about them. If you're ashamed by something, you think it's a bad thing; he says he's ashamed of most SF being published today

That's stretching the transitive property a bit. Some poeple might be ashamed to recommend a show about a cheerleader who fight vampires. Does that mean they think the show is bad? Or do they just think that some aspects of the show will prevent other people from enjoying it, despite its quality?

Because if shame indiates that the genre sucks, it's odd that he says things like:

A perfect case in point is the work of David Marusek, whose first novel, "Counting Heads" (Tor/Tom Doherty, $24.95) was one of my favorite books of last year in any category, and an exemplary entry in the sci-fi genre.

This is one of the books he can't recommend. I don't think he believes that it sucks.

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I haven't read that article, but I can say definitively that part of the reason I don't generally recommend Jandek's music (let alone Merzbow, Sunn o))), Peter Brotzmann, or any music where the signal to noise ratio is fairly low) to anyone outside of hardcore music geeks is the awkwardness involved in trying to explain why it's so great. Most people don't have the patience or interest in sounds so far out of the norms of harmony and structure. It's not exactly shame, but I do approach my appreciation of this kind of fringe music with a sense of self-deprecation, in that I know that being open about my love of what most people would consider a horrible, horrible grating squall is the equivalent of wearing a Darth Vader outfit to work every day BUT Halloween.

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huh. I would never use the word shamed to describe how I felt about why i couldn't recommend a book to someone. Sadden, maybe if it was truely that good and I didn't think it would be appreciated by enough people. Maybe because that is what I do. part of my job is to suggest things people might like to read. With my family(including DH's family) I am somewhere between 95 to 99% on the money. Can't tell with the public, but I've had enough good feedback to know I am doing a reasonable job.

At this point I am willing to say - his language choices were what I found off- putting. I'll look again, because I'm interested in reviews that actually seem to be about a book.

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Well, maybe the guy needs to work on his shame issues then. :)

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From the LA Times:

A memorial service for science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Lincoln Avenue Baptist Church, 1180 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena.

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I finally finished a fucking book. One not in MP3 form, that is.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is complete. I liked it, but I'd have liked it more if the narrative:atmosphere ration had been a little higher. I got who Norrell and Strange were, and how they related pretty early on. I can't quite call it fluff, but there was a lot of...oh, nuanced reiteration that my impatient self could have done without.

I was quite surprised by how much I felt for Drawlight once Strange got his hands on him-- I swear my eyes pricked with tears when he panicked that he wasn't going to be able to fulfill all three tasks because he didn't know what one of them was. Of course, I was sitting in the neurologist's waiting room at the time, handling my own sensations of uselessness.

And, quite sappily, I'm dreadfully happy that Jonathan met up with Arabella once before the book's close-- and can only assume that the promise made to/by that fairy lady on the dancefloor would mean something in a putative gazillion page sequel. In fact, I was wondering if he'd remember that she'd told him Uskglass's name, but I have no bones with how it actually turned out.

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Connie, if you're around, did you see last night's Daily Show? Jon interviewed the author of Misquoting Jesus, and it was obvious that he was really fascinated by the book--it was one of the more serious and informative interviews I've seen on TDS. Problem is that now I want to read the book, and I have neither the time nor the money for it!

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Oh, I hadn't recalled who recommended Misquoting Jesus but I requested it from the library and just got it yesterday. I haven't opened it yet.

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