i was going to write a review, but the internet did it for me.

[ironymaiden]

i had been laboring over a review of Counting Heads - i was frustrated that what i saw as a brilliant failure got such good press*.

the opening:
dear Tor,
thanks for crediting your editors. i will try to remember to use this feature in the future when choosing books to read.

Counting Heads is a brilliant failure, and i now know that i should blame David G. Hartwell. this book contains the seeds of five to ten great novels, but none of them were nurtured into existence. instead, we have a recycled container full of a slop of ideas.

but a guy on Amazon pretty much wrote the rest for me. (he even encourages people to read Neal Stephenson and matt_ruff instead.)



*then again, the loudest praise came from Cory Doctorow, who has similar limitations as an author, and that NYT tool.

Comments

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

It's worth knowing who edited things for this exact reason. Sadly, SF is as likely as any other genre to be snowed by hype.

You have a tag for "doctorow is overrated"? You are awesome. I like some of what he writes, but nobody is that awesome.