I launched A Dribble of Ink with a review of Terry Brooks’ The Elves of Cintra (which you can find HERE), a review I am particularly proud of because, as far as I can tell, it was the first officially published review of one of this year’s biggest Fantasy releases. I was also proud of it because it was the first official review I had written as a blogger. I take pride in the fact that I put a lot of thought into my reviews, often taking extensive notes throughout my time reading the novel, and spend a fair amount of time gathering my thoughts before weaving them into a comprehensible review.

One area with which I take particular care is that of spoilers. I’m of the mind that they have absolutely no place in a review at all and write my reviews accordingly. This article was originally prompted by another review for Terry Brooks’ The Elves of Cintra written by Drew Bittner for popular online magazine SFRevu, which you can find HERE (but, if you haven’t yet read The Elves of Cintra, beware of heavy spoilers!).

This article isn’t directed towards anyone in particular, SFRevu is a terrific publication, but rather towards a particular subset of reviewers who seem to feel entitled to take the plot points of the novel (twists and all), abridge and paraphrase them, throw in a peppering of opinion and then call it a review.

As a reader, I feel that reviews of this nature serve little purpose for myself. I generally look to a review when I’m on the fence about reading a particular book, curious to see what other readers and critics thought of the novel and then judging, based on their experiences, whether the book will be worth my time. So why then would I want the reviewer to detail to me the events and plot points of the novel before I had ever read it? How is this in any way a critique and not just a summarization? I personally read novels for the enjoyment of the twists and turns of the plot, the development of the characters and the emotional impact that a story can have on me. A review such as the one written by Bittner essentially takes away a third of this equation and lessening the enjoyment I can find in the novel.

As someone who reviews novels myself, my problems with reviews such as this stems from my inability to comprehend the purposes behind spoiler-filled reviews. As I mentioned earlier, most readers look to reviews when they are trying to decide whether or not they want to read a novel, and I would assume that most of these readers would not like significant portions of the story spoiled for them beforehand. So, in the interest of reaching as wide an audience as possible with a review, why would someone want to riddle their review with spoilers that effectively limit their audience? I understand the idea behind discussing specific events in a story and using them to illustrate your different thoughts and ideas about a novel, but I feel that these intricacies are better saved for discussion, perhaps on an internet forum, among those who have already read the novel and can provide more rounded discussion and counter-arguments.

My other major argument is that a review that focuses on detailing specific story events generally only contains about 15-25% content that the author can claim as their own, the rest is simply a summarization of the novel being reviewed. In a lot of ways it reminds me of the writing we are told to do in high school: full of quotations and citations, but bereft of opinion and individuality. Hardly inspiring for a reader and mind-numbingly dull for the writer.

In the end, I feel that a successful review does not tell the reader how the story is told, but rather how well the story is told. I care little for story details, in fact, the less the better. I can find a perfectly good synopsis on the dust jacket of any book I’m interested in; instead I’m interested in knowing how well the author portrays the story they have set out to tell. How readable is their writing? How cringeworthy is their dialogue? Will the pacing replace my sleeping pills or my caffeine pills? I don’t give a damn about the twist on page 139 until I read the novel, and I’m not going to read the novel until I know how good of a job the author has done.

As with most everything though, there’s always a silver lining, and these spoiler-filled reviews are no different. A year from now, when Terry Brooks publishing his next novel, I will always know where I can go to find a nice refresher course on The Elves of Cintra… but then again, wouldn’t Wikipedia do a better job?

So, in review of my review of reviews I feel that critics need to take a step back and really ask themselves what it is that their readers want. For, in the end, a review is less about the story and more about the emotions, opinions and instincts of the critic as they read and reflect upon the novel. I think that some people happen to lose sight of this fact and in turn do a disservice to their own readers, an incident that needs to be addressed by anyone (blogger, journalist or reader) as they sit down at the keyboard and begin to type their ever persuasive argument about the quality, or lack thereof, of the latest novel to leave their “to-read” pile.

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