Now THERE's a review!

[seawasp]

As I've mentioned before, Boundary -- and for that matter all the stuff I've been involved in writing -- seems to bring out totally polarized reviews; either people really like it or they hate it, with very few "well, it was okay" comments.

Here's a man who REALLY didn't like Boundary. I love this one!

(One star) another piece of garbage..., October 1, 2006
Reviewer: david in georgia (Georgia (USA)) - See all my reviews
...from Baen books, trading on a well-known name (Flint's) being slapped on the cover to sell a bit of rubbish that reads as if it wasn't even proofread much less put thru anything resembling a serious editing process. Clunky, trite and a waste of time and the purchase price. I'm not sure there was a single scene or idea in this book that wasn't stolen from earlier works...not a single original idea in the whole thing, unless doing something worse than anyone has done it before counts as "original."

C'mon, david in georgia, don't be shy. Tell me how you REALLY felt.

I'm a bit put out by the "wasn't even proofread" bit, because I know it was. As for the rest, it's just another illustration of that wonderful variation in perception. When "david in georgia" can say "not an original idea in the whole thing" and even suspect all the scenes were stolen, and others find it an exciting and original story, you KNOW that much of reading remains in the mind of the beholder, so to speak.

Of course he's totally right in one sense; there isn't an original idea in that book, really; then again, I'm not sure I've seen an original idea in ANY book in the past several years, so I would be reluctant to use that as a yardstick to judge anything I read.

Comments

Re: Doc Smith...

[denubis.livejournal.com]

While that's true for content produced now, according to Cornell's Copyright Information Center (http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm#Footnote_7) which seems a credible enough source, works written in 1923-1963, and who were not renewed are now in the public domain. Setting aside a debate on the value of these copyright laws, most of his works do seem to be in the public domain. Of course, I may not have looked at the right places searching for renewals but the project gutenberg transcriptions of those years did not seem to hold an entry.

Oh well. This "debate" is academic and while usefully distracting me from grading, is pretty much without merit. Cest la vie.