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Yay For New Reviewers!

Posted by Steve the Bookstore Guy On Monday, June 07, 2010

So. We had a contest. All sorts of people entered. We were expecting one or two good ones amidst several crappy ones. As it happens, nearly all the submissions were solid. However, some were just better than others. We ended up with three "winners" who are going to enjoy doing a couple reviews a month for us. So, here they are, along with reasons why we chose them:

Shawn Boyles--Turns out we know this guy. He is one of the lovely fellows over at Rocket Road Trip. He sent us over some thoughts on JULIAN COMSTOCK (which were near identical to Steve's) as well as some other reviews as a portfolio of sorts. His reviews were well written (you will see his review of Connie Willis' BLACKOUT shortly), and he tends to share similar opinions on novels with us.

Vanessa Christenson--She sent in a review of THE FOLDING KNIFE (as well as a half-dozen other reviews as her own portfolio). As Nick put it, "She like read my mind..." A scary thought, we know. She also proposed a solid idea for some specific reviews (you'll see what we mean). Elitist indeed.

Dan Smyth--We are going to be honest here (aren't we always?). Dan almost didn't make it. It was between him and two others (who it wouldn't be fair to mention). You see, Dan has this crush on KJ Parker. We don't share this sentiment. Even though he heaped far too much praise on THE FOLDING KNIFE, his tone was near perfect. He just fit. It also helps that he was able to recognize his own susceptibility to Parker's faulty charms (we all have them...mostly), and he supplied us with his opinions on other novels.

As you can see, we primarily picked people who wrote well, agreed with us (duh), and supplied us more than one review. Some of the problems other reviews had that held them back were not agreeing with us (duh), a propensity to only rehash the plot of the novel without talking about why is was GOOD or BAD, had stuff in their reviews that was incorrect, or it just wasn't written how we liked. It's our blog. We pick who we want, and we want to make sure they match with our general way of thinking.

With that, we want to thank everyone for their time and submissions. Congrats to the winners! This will truly be a way for more reviews to come out, and for all the readers of our awesometastic blog to benefit. In a change from the method mentioned in the rules of the contest, our new reviewers are going to write in First Person. Only we (Steve and Nick) will be writing in the Hive Mind style...cause that's how we really are.

The End

6 comments

  1. koshr Said,

    is this going to cut the amount of reviews from you two?

    Posted on June 7, 2010 at 5:02 PM

     
  2. Vanessa Said,

    DUDE you spelled my last name wrong.

    Despite that, I'm excited to be on board!

    Posted on June 7, 2010 at 6:17 PM

     
  3. Dan Smyth Said,

    My name's right. :) Then again, I'm the addict. So, maybe you shouldn't believe me... Let the madness begin!

    Posted on June 7, 2010 at 10:33 PM

     
  4. Vanessa Said,

    Um. I just realized I'm the only woman among 4 other male reviewers (5 if you count Rob). Should I be worried?

    Posted on June 7, 2010 at 11:34 PM

     
  5. -Slamel- Said,

    @koshr - Not necessarily. Steve and I will still be trying to keep up the pace, however the biggest impetus behind scaling up our operation here was that life is becoming increasingly busy and difficult to reconcile with an extremely time consuming website like this. Steve has a kid he wants to see once in a while, more and more responsibilites at work, and a wife who, if I am allowed to say it, is hot and awesome to be around, so he wants to see her occasionally too. I am ramping up my school schedule, taking about 21 credit hours of 4000 level classes to finish my double majors. Not to mention the girl I'm dating who I don't mind spending time with. So with all of that said, there is a good chance Steve and I might step back a little bit but, like i said, we will try to keep up the pace. We didn't bring the other three into the fold to replace us (Honestly, who can? We are perfect.), however they do offer us a little bit of a buffer zone. Which is nice.

    @Dan - Your crush on KJ is madness.

    @Vanessa - No one counts Rob as a male. And yes, you should. I rarely keep my hands to myself...just ask Steve.

    Posted on June 8, 2010 at 1:27 AM

     
  6. @Vanessa--I didn't spell your name wrong. See. Look. As they say in WoW, if you don't have a screen-shot it never happened. I'm hopped up on pain pills, leave me alone...

    @Nick--It's OK to say my wife is hot. She is.

    Posted on June 8, 2010 at 8:40 AM

     

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