Tell that to Hilary Mantel who won the Booker Prize.

Unlike Craig Lancaster’s 600 Hours of a Life (the self-published version of 600 Hours of Edward), The Shenandoah Spy and The Gathering are historical fiction. Both are well researched and well written, and the characters are sympathetic and well drawn, and like people I could liked them a lot. Both could have been picked up by traditional presses, but as one agent informed me when he rejected my novel, “period pieces aren’t selling.”

Three good — self-published — books. Worth anyone’s time and money.

I would be happy to respond to comments regarding reviewing, literary criticism, or standards in fiction generally, but I’ve said everything I have to say about Winter Games, a subject which seems exhausted by now. So far as traveling to New Hampshire is concerned, that’s not possible. I have commitments stretching beyond the next year. I’m committed to releasing the next novel in a year, a third the year after that, and I’m negotiating with a potential publisher to deliver the fourth book in 2012.

Steve and I come at this from two different perspectives, as he says. I’m a novelist as well as a reader. An odd thing happens when someone, people, like me for instance, changes over from reader to novelist-as-reader. Like a lot of writers, I’ve lost the ability to read purely for pleasure. I read all novels critically, not simply for enjoyment. I’m always alert for the poorly cast sentence, the major and minor errors in usage, the misused idiom, the poorly placed modifier, the flat characterization, the illogical plot step. All the problems I’ve listed above. At times I’ll find writing that moves like clotting blood because it’s so dependent on prepositional phrases to carry the meaning rather than on the kernel. (The kernel of meaning is the Subject and Verb together with the Object, Object Complement, Complement, and all their variations. It does not contain modifiers.) Some novels I absolutely love, but my critical mind has to admit that they might not be very good books. If I were to review a book that’s not so good but I like it anyway, I’d still be duty bound to state what its flaws are. I have hated some novels that won the Pulitzer Prize, and I think the Nobel Prize is politically motivated and not a reliable judge of good literature. However, I could be wrong. The Nobel judges look at literature worldwide, and admittedly my knothole is much smaller. I thought the female characters in Lonesome Done were flat, but it got the Pulitzer and has much to recommend it.

My liking a novel does not mean I think it’s necessarily the best book ever, still less that it has no flaws. I like some books because the characters are interesting as well as sympathetic, because the story takes me into the world of that novel, because the writing sings, or because the setting is fascinating. Or all of the above. I thoroughly enjoy Robert B Parker’s minimalist style and I love James Lee Burke’s stylistic opulence. Reading the two of them at the same time is great fun and somewhat mind-bending because they’re so different. In terms of truly great books, the novels of E L Doctorow stand first for me, although most of them are not especially accessible. My all-time favorite of his is The March, but his latest, Homer & Langley, while gorgeously written, won’t be ending up on my shelf. The first paragraph contains a sentence so long and beautiful that only a master of the English language could have written it with the control he demonstrates, but the novel is about two handicapped brothers’ slow decline toward death. Not for me. I prefer stories that are more upbeat.

When I review a book, I read it in context of all the English and American literature that I’ve read in more than 60 years, coupled with (as I mentioned before) a PhD in English Lit. I also read with a mission regarding self-published fiction in general.

I hope every time I open a self-published novel to find a book that can help dispel the prejudice against self-published novels. So far, out of 20 (by other writers as well as those sent me for review) I’ve found only one: Craig Lancaster’s 600 Hours of a Life, soon to be released by a traditional publisher as 600 Hours of Edward. Another book comes very close, while a third needs more work to overcome what I consider a serious flaw. In due course Henry will post my reviews of both of these and more.

A self-published book will be judged against everything else they’ve read by people looking for a good read. I’ve watched people in bookstores. They look at the title, then the front cover, then read the back cover, then open the book and read the first paragraph, maybe a page or two. Every step of that is a judgment call that leads up to the final question: buy or not buy? All the time they’re weighing the book against what else they like to read. Occasionally, a self-published book is picked up by the stores and has to meet those same readers’ standards. It has to compete with all the other books in the store for the readers’ limited discretionary spending.

I review books, then, from the perspective of someone familiar with English-language literature, with what it takes to write an award-winning novel, and with the perspective of a reader in a bookstore.

If people think I’m tough. they should hang out at their local Borders or Barnes & Noble, grab a coffee, and watch people decide what to buy to read. They are the truly ruthless ones, and all of us writers should be aware of that. I’ve watched people do that with my own novel. It’s not easy, but it was a good reminder. The ultimate critics are the readers. They’re the ones who judge all of us writers.

“Responsibility”? No. Common courtesy? Yes. A review which does nothing but criticize and ridicule tells as much about the (unforgiving; unpleasant) reviewer as it does the book.

SPR: Does a self-published book need to be free of grammatical errors to be considered for a good review?

Mainly yes. You would expect a book off the shelves of a local bookstore to be 100% free of grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors. In general, SP books are intended for the same audience, so they should be of the same standard. OK, in practice SP authors don’t have editors and proof-readers to help them out so a handful of errors might creep through. But I think any reader or reviewer of an SP book knows that, and will make a (small) allowance.

SPR: Should a reviewer always include positive aspects of a book even if it is deeply flawed?

Yes, of course, if there are any. A reviewer acts as a sort of filter for interested parties – the reviewer didn’t write the book. He or she can only report on what’s there. If there are no redeeming features, then the reviewer must faithfully report that there are no redeeming features. But I’ve been reviewing short stories and scripts on and off for years, and I can only remember ever reading one story that had no positive features whatsoever.

“The writing style is clear and efficient, but Lacombe also understands the music of language. He knows how the rhythm of it can propel you across the page. Exposition is kept to a minimum. Where it is eventually required, it’s mostly delivered through dialogue and in scenes that also advance the action, so Lacombe has clearly thought about how to deploy it. Some of these scenes are long and the exposition a little too wordy, but they often segue into action-packed flashbacks which ‘show’ more than they ‘tell’, which is satisfying. It’s mercifully free of the awkward phrasing and endless typos that plague so many self-published novels. My virtual editor’s pencil was hovering, but was rarely put to use. There’s the odd overuse of adjectives, but on the whole this is the clean, workmanlike language you expect in an action-thriller and it really is a pleasure to read.”

I don’t think it’s beautiful language. It’s not writing for the ages. It’s workmanlike and rhythmic. And I think that’s appropriate for an action-thriller. In my experience, readers of the genre expect the language to be almost transparent. It has a job to do; it’s not the raison d’etre of the novel. John’s writing does the job, and his training in journalism probably equipped him well for this. It ticks two boxes on the list of “good” qualities I mentioned in Reviewing the Reviewers Part I: an appealing voice; and a tone and style appropriate to the subject.

But John is, as I said in my review, an “emerging writer”. I’ve read better stuff in action-thrillers, and you probably have, too. I have a habit of noting down particularly powerful or technically effective passages from the novels I read. For about fifteen years, I’ve been adding them to an electronic notebook that now runs to over 40,000 words. I didn’t note a single line from “Winter Games”. This doesn’t make it “bad writing”; it just means the textual surface of the novel isn’t its strongest point. If you’d like to suggest a passage that does deserve high praise for its power or technical efficacy, let’s hear it.

In the comments on Carol’s review, I also pointed out a problem with the narrative viewpoint (another technical aspect on my list of “good book” qualities) and discussed its impact on emotional engagement (Comment #9). I hadn’t been able to put my finger on the problem when I read the novel back in April, but Carol’s review made me realize what it was.

As for Carol’s thoughts on all this, and why she might take a different view, she’s perfectly capable of speaking for herself, if she’s inclined to do so. Although I will say this, which I also said in Part I: Carol is a novelist, I’m not. As a novelist, she would spend a lot of time messing about with words on the page trying to get just the right effect, and she is clearly a deep thinker on the subject. She brings an insider’s perspective to the technical work of writing that I could never bring, so her opinion will carry some weight.

Yes, her opinion. Contrary to what you seem to think, Janet, reviewing is a matter of opinion. Subjectivity counts for a lot, even when looking at what you call the “quality of the writing”. I could give you two sentences that are both technically correct in terms of their spelling, punctuation and grammar, and which both attempt to describe the same thing. One could move you to tears, the other might fall flat. This is because, as I said in Part I, “…the act of reading – making meaning out of words on a page – is an essentially subjective experience. They’re just dots of ink assembled into shapes we call letters and words. The magic happens in our minds, and it’s going to be influenced by what’s already there.”

This whole dialogue has been about exploring that subjectivity.

We have a golden opportunity here. Blogging has just tied video games in popularity. I’m not sure what the self publishing review site gets out of increased traffic, but you might be getting a lot more, soon.. You have probably grown weary of the “robot” issue, but please remember that high school kids are seeing this for the first time. What we want them to do is to examine each review, and defend their own analysis. We want them to translate, synthesize and evaluate.

My question to Henry Baum is: Can high school students get involved in this dialogue, and revisit some of the previously expressed sentiments? I want my own students to be passionate and to query the reviewers with thoughtful preparation. I do not want them to be treated disrespectfully, however, for seeking answers from either Ms. Buchanan or Mr. Reynolds.

The local newspaper, The Valley News, did a lengthy piece on John, after Winter Games came out. John covered sports for the paper while he was in high school. It’s possible the paper may pursue a story about students’ response to Ms. Buchanan’s review. That depends on how fired up the kids get, how many there are, and what can be quoted in the paper.

So please let me know your thoughts. Perhaps, if funds allow, this could culminate in a panel discussion at the school involving Carol Buchanan, Steve Reynolds and John Lacombe.

Thanks.