There are serious book reviewers.  There are jerks who simply give a book a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, as if a book were something like a pair of boots from L. L. Bean.  There’s everything in between.  When I ask, who qualifies as a reviewer, I really mean, who qualifies as a serious reviewer?

I’m talking about reviewing fiction.  Memoirs (too often close to fiction?), history, biography, technical, scientific, etc. are less likely to be questionable as long as the author of the review is objective.  Recently, a history of Jefferson was questionable and reviewers said so—some of those reviews might have been a bit subjective.  On the other hand, it’s hard to see how a book on quantum mechanics can be controversial (surprise, surprise! it can be, due to the philosophical underpinnings).

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Don’t get me wrong—I know Amazon is a business.  The management there has adopted policies they think will maximize their profits.  My complaint is that they also pretend they are helping indie publishers and indie authors.  I’m not saying that doesn’t happen some of the time, but they are certainly inconsistent.  They adapt policies and inconsistently apply them.  Reviews are a case in point, as we saw in Part One.

There is another aspect of their review policy—past, present, but hopefully not future—that is detrimental to all authors: treating books as just as another product, like shoes, clothing, appliances, toys, and so forth.  By doing so, a reviewer of a book becomes a reviewer of a product—all too often, a book reviewer also reviews other products, in fact, right on Amazon.  For product reviews, the buyer just looks at positives and negatives, perhaps disregarding the latter, if it seems to be just sour grapes or an isolated incident (yet, Amazon ranks that negative review higher than a positive one).

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[Note: This is the first post in a three-part series.  Enjoy!]

Amazon has gone over the top with their change in book review policy.  They have responded to the egregious practice where some authors ask family members and friends to write glowing reviews of their books.  These reviews often are little more than attempts to stuff the ballot box because Amazon’s algorithm counts positive reviews.  This practice, of course, offers no real service to readers and hurts authors who receive few but thoughtful reviews.  Amazon’s first attempt to correct this was to weigh negative reviews more than positive ones.  Now they’ve gone over the top.

Amazon, of course, caused its own problem.  It’s the biggest bookseller in the world, I suppose, so the ranking of a book on Amazon is a big deal.  It’s inevitable that some authors will try shenanigans to game the system.  There are two opinions here:  (1) That’s OK, because Amazon forces authors to do this; and (2) it’s morally ambiguous at best.  I suppose there’s a whole spectrum of thought between those extremes.  Joe Konrath, for example, one of the champions of self-publishing and now eBook publishing, has said he sees no problem with such chicanery (this is from the NY Times article mentioned below, so I won’t use quotes—I’m surprised Joe would say such a thing).  I tend to the second extreme.  You’ll find I don’t have many reviews (maybe a consequence of being too moral?).

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(Carolyn J. Rose, Sea of Regret, ISBN 0983735956)

Sea of Regret is the sequel to Carolyn J. Rose’s An Uncertain Refuge.  The theme of the first book was human beings abusing other human beings.  The theme of this sequel is human beings abusing animals.  In this case, unscrupulous business people’s profit motives threaten a wildlife center on the Oregon shore.  There is a quiet intensity to the struggle of the protagonists punctuated by action scenes that clash with the rough-hewn beauty of Ms. Rose’s settings.  You’ll like this book.  Sit back, throw another log on the fire, sip a good whiskey or brandy, and become immersed in the age-old struggle of David versus Goliath.

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(Tim Young, Poisoned Soil, Harmony Publishing, 2012, ASIN B009EAV6VY)

Tim Young’s novel Poisoned Soil reminds me of some of Baldacci’s home-spun Appalachian thrillers.  It’s a story about greed, guilt, desperate people, and ethnic justice.  It’s a simple story that deals with complex issues.

The prose also seems to be an all-American version of magical realism, that Garcia Marquez / Isabel Allende technique of making reality magical and magic real.  (Toni Morrison is another American author using the same technique, which actually started with Kafka.)  I won’t go into detail why this is true about Young’s book, but it sets the book above the norm and the bar high for anyone who attempts this.

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(Edgardo David Holzman, Malena, Nortia Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9842252-7-9)

Malena (1941) is the name of a tango with lyrics by Homero Manzi (Homero Nicolás Manzione Prestara) and music by Lucio Demare (this duo wrote two other tangos I like, namely Negra Maria from 1942 and Tal Vez Será Su Voz from 1943).  Malena is also the name of a character in Edgardo David Holzman’s fictional portrayal of some of Latin America’s darkest days—the Dirty War in Argentina from 1976 to 1983.  This novel uncovers the heart and soul of this beautiful and often troubled South American country.  Pick it up for a few cozy evenings to learn what happened during that period in Argentina; spend the rest of your life trying to forget it!  I read it cover to cover in three installments—you need to stop periodically and take a deep breath.

Fascism and genocide are often evil fraternal twins locked in an incestuous embrace—Turkey’s persecution of the Armenians, the Nazi holocaust before and during WWII, Argentina and los desaparecidos, Pinochet’s Chile, the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and many other cases where human beings become monsters, torturing and killing thousands (millions in the case of Nazi Germany and Ottoman Turkey).  In the U.S., we take comfort that this has never happened here, yet our consciences should not be clear—we have let it happen elsewhere and, in some cases, been willing accomplices.

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(J. Elder, Entity, MuseItUp Publishing, B008QWRL9M)

This novel is the sequel to the author’s Spectra, which I also reviewed.  Consider this review a sequel to the first.  In that review, I introduced the idea of sci-fi thriller, a sub-genre of science fiction.  My definition differs from Hollywood’s, where “thriller” often signifies an over-abundance of action to the detriment of the thrills and suspense.  Both Spectra and Entity are fine examples of sci-fi thrillers:  they are Goldilocks books where the author gets the balance just right.

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(Carolyn J. Rose, Through a Yellow Wood, ASIN B008HU0RMG)

This mystery is the sequel to the author’s Hemlock Lake.  I also reviewed the latter for Bookpleasures.  You might also want to read that review (you’ll also find it in the category “Book Reviews”).  Sequels are often compared to the first book in a series—this one is longer, just as well written and entertaining, and a bit more profound.  I recommend it.  Moreover, if you didn’t read Hemlock Lake, read them both.  They are great stories from an indie writer who has mastered her craft.

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(John L. Betcher, The Exiled Element, Create Space, ISBN 978-1475180589)

The Exiled Element is the fourth book in the series that features ex-military intelligence officer James Becker (Beck), his ex-CIA crypto-analyst wife Elizabeth (Beth), and assorted friends.  Beck is a lawyer in Red Wing, Minnesota.  Nevertheless, considering the Becker couple’s background, even the uninitiated will guess that author John Betcher does not write legal thrillers.  Every book in the “Element Series” is somehow related to counter-terrorism.

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(Ben Coes, The Last Refuge, St. Martins, ISBN 978-1250007155)

Military adventure and thriller junkies will get their fixes and then some by this new book in Ben Coes’ Dewey Andreas series.  Savor it.  Enjoy the adrenalin rush.  Following that, when you wake up at night worrying about reality versus fiction, be thankful you have real people like Dewey waging real-life battles against terrorism.

When ex-special forces member Dewey Andreas is asked what the greatest danger to America is, he replies, “Radical Islam.”  The question should have been: What is the current, greatest danger to humanity?  My answer goes beyond Dewey’s:  it’s radical fundamentalism, aka terrorism, in all its forms.  America and the Western world are its usual targets.  The U.S. has homegrown terrorists and international terrorists.  We also have to face off with the rogue nations—whole countries bent on destroying us.  The most dangerous of these is Iran, the villain in this adventure.

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