Many of these reviews were originally written for the rec.arts.sf.written newsgroup. Although originally rather informal productions, their scope and purview quickly grew to become substantially more elaborate. I've often thought of reviewing as an attempt to communicate an essentially experiential phenomenon -- in other words, I am more interested in describing what it was like to read a novel rather than describing the novel itself. In many ways, therefore, the writing of the WIRs was (and is) an essentially blog-like activity. It should be noted that, as I repost the WIRs here, I will be reformatting them to a web-friendly form. In time, you will also be able to find entirely original WIRs here. |