Nice.

Neil Gaiman on the recent NYTimes YA SF kerfuffle:

It's an odd review -- I think that rule number one for book reviewers should probably be Don't Spend The First Paragraph Slagging Off The Genre. Just don't. Don't start a review of romance books by saying that all romance books are rubbish but these are good (or just as bad as the rest). Don't start a review of SF by saying that you hate all off-planet tales or things set in the future and you don't like way SF writers do characters. Don't start a review of a University Adultery novel by explaining that mostly books about English professors having panicky academic sex bore you to tears but. Just don't. Any more than a restaurant reviewer would spend a paragraph explaining that she didn't normally like or eat -- or understand why other people would like or eat -- Chinese food, or French, or barbeque. It just makes people think you're not a very good reviewer.

If you missed it (how did that happen?), there's a round up of links here.

Comments

[Gail]

I did miss it.

Interestingly enough, almost a year ago Salon published a review of the same book that carried that same tone--kidlit sucks, thank God Saint Mieville has condescended to write something for the field.

It's not Mieville's fault that reviewers are taking this attitude, but I'd be anxious if reviewers were using my work as an excuse to humiliate the people I write for.

[Allie]

This makes me love Neil all over again.