Seriously?
Dec. 17th, 2008 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesSo, of all the SF/F genre books that were released in 2008, the Library Journal picks these?. (You need to scroll down for the list of SF/F picks).
I don't really understand what their criteria for "best" was. It's certainly not quality, sales, storytelling, or anything else I can discern. And while I don't like to snark about books or insult people's tastes therein, I just can't help but be bewildered why these get the top spots. Not saying they're bad books, but I can list at least 25 better ones that came out this year.
Just, no. I'm sorry, but I just don't think the latest (and definitely not greatest) Pern book deserves to go above the latest (and definitely great) entry in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. And just so we're clear, with all due respect to McCaffrey & Son, Novik totally pwned the dragon genre. A lot and with extreme prejudice.
Not to mention I'm not sure why "Zoe's Tale" by John Scalzi failed to make the list.
I kind of think the Library Journal people just picked a handful of random SF/F books off the closest shelf somewhere and declared they were the best. Doesn't this list look like a collection of books that would be on the reshelving cart in your local library when the librarian pushes it around to the SF/F shelves? Does to me.
Ugh. I really wish that when people made "best of" lists, they would include what their criteria was for declaring something to be the best while excluding other things.
I don't really understand what their criteria for "best" was. It's certainly not quality, sales, storytelling, or anything else I can discern. And while I don't like to snark about books or insult people's tastes therein, I just can't help but be bewildered why these get the top spots. Not saying they're bad books, but I can list at least 25 better ones that came out this year.
Just, no. I'm sorry, but I just don't think the latest (and definitely not greatest) Pern book deserves to go above the latest (and definitely great) entry in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. And just so we're clear, with all due respect to McCaffrey & Son, Novik totally pwned the dragon genre. A lot and with extreme prejudice.
Not to mention I'm not sure why "Zoe's Tale" by John Scalzi failed to make the list.
I kind of think the Library Journal people just picked a handful of random SF/F books off the closest shelf somewhere and declared they were the best. Doesn't this list look like a collection of books that would be on the reshelving cart in your local library when the librarian pushes it around to the SF/F shelves? Does to me.
Ugh. I really wish that when people made "best of" lists, they would include what their criteria was for declaring something to be the best while excluding other things.
