Fun Reviews
Reviews are different than ratings. If you go to Amazon, you’ll see five stars which are shaded according to the ratings people have given your book. The shading approximately reflects the average rating. Currently, both First and Next Time are at 4.4 stars. The number of ratings is quite a bit higher than the number of actual reviews, mainly because ratings require clicking a star on your Kindle, while reviews require writing a few sentences or more. In the past week, First received a couple of fun Amazon reviews. Well, more than that, but these two I particularly enjoyed. The first was a five-star review by a gentleman with the moniker Joe Chambliss:
The EMD technology enabled a private venture to do what only NASA had done before (and I'm a NASA retiree). The development of the technology then using it for exploration was well written and the course of history was believable and engaging. The main character was down to Earth and relatable. Good hard science fiction!
Why did I enjoy that one so much? As you’ve read in recent posts here, several people have called the EMD unbelievable and slighted the book for it. In the review above, a real-life NASA retiree said the technology was just fine. Granted, he could be a rocket scientist or he could be the guy who empties the ashtrays in Mission Control. Do they still have those? He worked for NASA so I’m going with the former. Thank you, Mr. Chambliss, that made my day.
The other one that tickled my fancy landed squarely in the negative with a two-star rating from an Amazon customer who goes by TEF. The title of their review was “A descent story but reads like a trashy dime store novel”. Yes, they wrote “descent” instead of “decent”, but let’s not get petty. The body of the review reads as follows:
If you are a serious sci- fi reader you most likely won’t enjoy reading this. I had to skip a lot of lame filler to finish this. The characters were not very interesting and it just felt like the same characters you’d find in any modern day kindle thriller.
Did that ruin my day? Not at all. In fact, I wanted to respond but Amazon doesn’t provide a way to do that. My response? “I had to use small words in the book so you could get through it without moving your lips while you read.” Seriously, though, I’ve said before that I understand not everyone will like my books. Maybe TEF was having a bad day. Maybe TEF is a pseudonym for a well-established SF writer in their own right. Whatever the case, a SF book that’s character-driven won’t hit the same chord with every reader. Between Mr. Chambliss and TEF, I appreciate that both took the time to write their opinions. I always do, regardless of the message.