I've recently started following ozarque's LiveJournal. ozarque, AKA Suzette Haden Elgin, authored a book I've had on my to-be-read-eventually list for a least a decade, viz The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense. She has also written sci fi. I like sci fi. I was looking at Amazon.com customer reviews for The Ozark Trilogy when I found the following review:

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Ozark Trilogy, September 9, 2002
Reviewer:
I didn't find this readable, but not for the reason one would think. The author does an excellent job of keeping her worldbuilding from being hokey, and she clearly has some knowledge of and respect for Appalachian culture. Readers worried about whether they'll be able to handle flying mules shouldn't.

The bad news for me was the lack of action and challenge in the books. I simply got bored by the insignificance of most of what happened. I don't utterly unrecommend this omnibus; readers who like sort of chatty, slightly humorous, light fiction may well enjoy it. I like dark, gritty stuff, and it didn't work for me.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Notice that, at the time, only 1 out of 4 responders found this review "helpful." I found it very helpful. Based on this review, I have decided that I would probably enjoy reading the Ozark Trilogy. The author, without taking a gratuitously self-obsessed approach, told me enough about his own tastes and temperment to allow me to place his comments about the book into a useful context. With this review, the anonymous critic has crafted a tight little capsule review that communicates a heaping helping of useful information.

Unfortunately, most of the people who read the review and who took the time to click a button in response to it reported that they failed to extract anything helpful from this offerring.

I don't take these anonymous critics at their word. I suspect that they interpretted the question "Was this review helpful to you?" to mean "Do you agree with the views expressed in this review?"

( Read more... )

Tags: amazon.com customer reveiws