Posts Tagged: Blogosphere

News

An Aside | I’ve joined the Suvudu team!

By Aidan Moher January 18th, 2012

Suvudu LogoToday is an exciting day for me. Last year, I had the opportunity to write for Tor.com and to maintain two satellite sites for them on Facebook and Twitter. It was a wonderful experience and I met many lovely people as a result. That endeavour has ended, but in its place I am proud to announce and equally exciting adventure: I’ve joined the blogging team at Suvudu, the official Fantasy/Science Fiction/Gaming blog of Random House and Del Rey.

For the most part, I’ll be covering videogames for Suvudu, something I touch on lightly here at A Dribble of Ink, but I’ve been wanting to write about more frequently. I’m grateful for the folks at Suvudu giving me a platform to do so. I already have some great interviews lined up and hope to follow those up with reviews, news, retrospectives on my favourite games and much more. Del Rey works with many of the world’s best videogame publishers and developers, which in turn will give me access to some of the industry’s best minds, a resource I’m eager to tap into. But, fear not, in addition to all the great series that Del Rey is involved with (Mass Effect, Star Wars, The Elder Scrolls, etc…), I’ll be covering a wide range of games in the genre, from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, to The Last Guardian, Kingdoms of Amalur, XCOM, Metal Gear Solid and more. Anything that interests me or my readers. It’s a wonderful opportunity and I’ll hope that you’ll follow me over there, too.

What does this mean for A Dribble of Ink? Not much. Coverage here won’t change and there will be little crossover in content, except perhaps some posts here and there that I might port over from Suvudu as an archive.

My first article, about the delay of the Star Wars: The Old Republic 1.1 update, can be found HERE.

News

An Aside | 2012 Hugo Award Eligibility

By Aidan Moher January 6th, 2012
Hugo Awards Logo

It’s Hugo Award season. You know what that means, right? And endless line of authors/publishers/writers/editors/artists parading their 2011 works and begging you to vote for them. And bloggers, like me, for A Dribble of Ink. I’m eligible for ‘Best Fan Writer’ for this blog, my contributions to SF Signal and my twitter feed (that counts, right?). A Dribble of Ink is eligible for ‘Best Fanzine’ (which is still a ridiculous and antiquated category). So, think of me when you’re filling out your ballot. Lord knows I’d appreciate it and would love to see a blogger (myself or another) make the short list.

Feature Article

Article | My Favourite Blogs of 2011

By Aidan Moher January 5th, 2012

Every year, I like to gather together some of my favourite bloggers/fan writers and give them some extra exposure. If you’re voting for the Hugos, consider these bloggers/blogs for the ‘Best Fan Writer’ and ‘Best Fanzine’ awards!

My Favourite Blogs of 2011

Staffer's Musings, edited by Justin Landon

Staffer’s Musings, edited by Justin Landon

Landon’s blog is new to the scene, but in the nine months he’s been around, he’s become one of my favourite voices in the community. He’s funny, but manages to use that sense of humour to eloquently and convincingly articulate his opinions and insights (even if I don’t always agree with him). He seems to post a new review each day, and he’s begun to interview authors. I expect big things of Landon in 2012. Plus, he looks like this.

Some posts of note:

His blog: http://staffersmusings.blogspot.com/
His twitter: @jdiddyesquire
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Feature Article

Guest Post/Article | On Capsule Reviews and Egotistical Bloggers

By John Ottinger III April 27th, 2010

Last week, I ran an article about one Librarian’s experiences as a buyer for a library chain. It was a nice look at a side of the industry that doesn’t receive a whole lot of coverage online, yet is a very powerful influence on everything from cover art to which books publishers are buying from authors.

* Professional Reviews: I spend time diligently going through Library Journal, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and other professional review journals. The majority of my selections come from there, and that’s probably what you’ll catch me perusing at the reference desk.

In the article, I was put off by the above comment, which seems to exclude reviewers like myself (bloggers/amateurs/essayist reviewers/etc…) from being useful to this librarian, citing capsule review (short, paragraph-long reviews) from publications like Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly as being part of the determining factors. This came as a surprise to me, as I’ve always felt these capsule reviews were more or less useless. A little egotistical of me? Sure. But a valid curiousity. One tongue-in-cheek comment from myself led to some interesting discussion in the comments section.

As one librarian points out, I’m far from an authority on book buying, with any influence I have swinging towards the enthusiast crowd, so I went to someone I knew had experience writing both as a long-form reviewer and a ‘capsule’ reviewer for Publisher’s Weekly. John Ottinger, from the lovely Grasping for the Wind to drop by and give his insight into how both styles of review benefit the industry in different ways.

The Article

 

About a week ago, Aidan linked to a librarian who posted an essay on how she chooses books for purchase at the local library. It was a fascinating read, but of even more interest were the comments that Aidan’s post generated from several librarians and reviewers on the effectiveness of capsule reviews versus the long and/or more in-depth reviews one can find online.

As someone who writes capsule reviews for Publisher’s Weekly, and who also writes more lengthy, semi-in-depth analyses of different books at my blog, I bridge the gap (at least in terms of what I write) between the two schools of thought, namely, that capsule reviews contain too little information to be of use and online reviews would be a better choice for finding out what readers really want, and that capsule reviews are essential to the industry and without them, librarians could not make decisions about what to buy.

Both types of reviews have value, or I wouldn’t write both. But each has a different sort of value and to expect one to perform as another does is to walk a path of frustration. To my mind, capsule reviews have more value to the librarian due to their format and nature and “online/lengthier reviews have more value to the reader.
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