Holy self-righteous, Batman!
- Thou shalt read the book, damn it!
- Thou shalt not covet thy best friend’s ass, nor shall thou review thy best friend’s wife’s book. And thou shall never review thine own book, under thine own or any other name. Nor shalt thou trash thy enemy’s book.
- Thou shalt not bow down to false idols, nor make promises to authors, no matter how much you want to be their friend. Thou shalt not write for publishers or writers, but for readers, and readers only.
- Thou shalt not sell thy soul for free books.
- Thou shalt not lie, nor bear false witness. The stairway to heaven is not paved by bestowing five-star reviews.
- Thou shalt go into the valley of the shadow of the good, the bad and the ugly and journey until the very end, bearing witness and fearing no evil, but thou shall not give away the ending.
- Thy review may begat blurbs, but thou thyself shall not intentionally commit blurbery.
- Thou shalt tell the truth, and state thy prejudices up front. Neither a cheerleader nor a bully shall ye be.
- Thou shalt back up all your arguments, give examples and use quotations. Write well, always.
- Remember honesty and integrity, and keep them holy.
If this is a little too hoity-toity for you, you can always write for Amazon. Or, if you’re serious, check out Anthony Boucher’s Proposed Code For Mystery Reviewers. Boucher was a lot more respected than I’ll ever be, and he expressed things a lot better than I do, but the gist of it remains.
If you’re still interested in writing reviews for us, drop us a line…
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Having said all that, though, if you’d like to submit reviews for us, drop me a line.
