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misterjay's review
3.0
There are a lot of good essays here. My favorite is the one about Joe Vs. the Volcano, which ought to tell you everything you need to know about the topics on hand. However, to be a little more descriptive - the essays collected here began life on Tor.com and were written by a diverse array of talent from across the science-fiction and fantasy world.
Topics include everything from Star Wars to LotR to Harry Potter to, well, Joe and his Volcano and how they relate, or can be related to, modern issues and questions of inclusion, gender, race, othering, and the meaning of life and death. It’s a good collection fit for both bite-size reads while waiting line or for measured chunks of enforced downtime. Recommended.
Topics include everything from Star Wars to LotR to Harry Potter to, well, Joe and his Volcano and how they relate, or can be related to, modern issues and questions of inclusion, gender, race, othering, and the meaning of life and death. It’s a good collection fit for both bite-size reads while waiting line or for measured chunks of enforced downtime. Recommended.
athryn's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
This was a good anthology of essays, about science fiction topics. Some of them were better than others. I particularly liked the essay about Stephen King. Some of the ones that were analyses of books I haven't read were kind of hard to get into.
abetterjulie's review
3.0
I love Tor essays, so this was a no-brainer. Since it's a collection, some were more to my liking than others. I fully skipped at least two to avoid spoilers, and one that I had absolutely zero interest in. My favorite was The Peril of Being Disbelieved: Horror and the Intuition of Women by Emily Asher-Perrin. Personally, I preferred the ones that taught me something over the ones that were fandom-based, but both were well-written and engaging.
marimbav's review
3.0
La recopilación es interesante. Pero cojea un poco por la diferencia de temas entre los artículos. Algunos me han parecido muy interesantes y otros no tanto ( incluso alguno he leído en diagonal). Pero se agradece estás recopilaciones y deseosa que hagan más.
pearseanderson's review
3.0
This was a mixed-bag of essays, I don't think it constitutes Tor.com's best work or can often be of much use if one hasn't read the required SFF they're discussing. I went through this quick and mostly came away with a better sense of the discourse around SFF and the larger community of critics and analysts, which feels good.
thesincoucher's review
3.0
An anthology with a wide range of articles and as such there were some that I liked more and those I didn't have any interest in. This is the reason why it doesn't get a higher rating because there are some articles that I skipped. I in particular loved Grady Hendrix's article on Beloved by Toni Morrison.
gerd_d's review
3.0
Fun, for the most part, as most essays primarily talk about the respective writers love of reading and writing.
I would say, however, it's been a very bad editorial decision to put two essays on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" back to back.
While the first is effectively piquing interest in the series by not much talking about it but rather focusing on how it affected the essayist, the second just as effectively squelched that interest when the (different from first) essayist tries to compare Jordan to Tolkien but only succeds to make the author's story sound to be a rather bland brand of juvenile fanfiction (with no disrespect to either juveniles or fanfiction, both of which surely can produce better stories than what the essayist describes there) freely mixing elements of various mythological origin, with a mainly white Christian focus.
That makes Robert Jordan's work definitely "American", yes, but it sounds a far cry from being the work of an "American" Tolkien.
On the things I really enjoyed reading side, there's a long history of everybody's fave Tolkien character, Galadriel.
Really wants me go back to Tolkien.
Then there's a fabulous 40 page essay on the complicated realtionships in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys cycle. Even if the articla left me unsure if the series itself would be to my taste, the essay itself is such a glowing love declaration to, well, love in all its unfair complication, I can't help but recommend reading it.
The greatest disappointment IMO, are the two essays included that focus primarily on African-American culture, both give you no basis where they come from or where they intend to head to and just leave you confused if you haven't already a solid backdrop to the matter - in which case both essays become superfluous.
I'm sure there stood better on offer.
So, some of the best is a misleading subtitle in a ways, or an honest one, depends on which ever way you want to read it. Because some of the articles included are best, but the majority is just there to give us broad overview of the rich variety of essay written on Tor.com regarding reading, writing, books, novels, movies, TV and society and every imaginable aspect of culture inbetween...
I would say, however, it's been a very bad editorial decision to put two essays on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" back to back.
While the first is effectively piquing interest in the series by not much talking about it but rather focusing on how it affected the essayist, the second just as effectively squelched that interest when the (different from first) essayist tries to compare Jordan to Tolkien but only succeds to make the author's story sound to be a rather bland brand of juvenile fanfiction (with no disrespect to either juveniles or fanfiction, both of which surely can produce better stories than what the essayist describes there) freely mixing elements of various mythological origin, with a mainly white Christian focus.
That makes Robert Jordan's work definitely "American", yes, but it sounds a far cry from being the work of an "American" Tolkien.
On the things I really enjoyed reading side, there's a long history of everybody's fave Tolkien character, Galadriel.
Really wants me go back to Tolkien.
Then there's a fabulous 40 page essay on the complicated realtionships in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys cycle. Even if the articla left me unsure if the series itself would be to my taste, the essay itself is such a glowing love declaration to, well, love in all its unfair complication, I can't help but recommend reading it.
The greatest disappointment IMO, are the two essays included that focus primarily on African-American culture, both give you no basis where they come from or where they intend to head to and just leave you confused if you haven't already a solid backdrop to the matter - in which case both essays become superfluous.
I'm sure there stood better on offer.
So, some of the best is a misleading subtitle in a ways, or an honest one, depends on which ever way you want to read it. Because some of the articles included are best, but the majority is just there to give us broad overview of the rich variety of essay written on Tor.com regarding reading, writing, books, novels, movies, TV and society and every imaginable aspect of culture inbetween...
punkgodofthestraightrazor's review
4.0
Mixed bag
Some of the essays were more interesting than others, and some were about fandoms that I'm not part of. I particularly liked the essay about villainesses, but found the one about the Raven Cycle to be much too long and completely overwrought.
Some of the essays were more interesting than others, and some were about fandoms that I'm not part of. I particularly liked the essay about villainesses, but found the one about the Raven Cycle to be much too long and completely overwrought.