| ▲ | throw4847285 4 hours ago |
| This review is just a plot synopsis. There are no quotes from the book to give me a sense of the quality of the writing. The review feels targeted at somebody who is already bought into the premise, not somebody from the outside who wants to know if "There Is No Antimemetics Division" is a good book or not. In that sense, it totally fails as a book review. |
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| ▲ | mkeeter 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The review is also heavily LLM-inflected, to the point of being distracting. GPTZero gives it a 100% chance of being AI generated, and I've found that these tools may give false negatives from a well-prompted model, but false positives are rare. If you are looking to tune your intuition for AI-written text, here's an interesting list of their quirks (ironically provided as a Claude skill for removing those quirks from emitted text): https://github.com/stephenturner/skill-deslop/blob/main/refe... |
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| ▲ | doug_durham 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I have never read a review and got a true notion of whether the prose is good or not. Is that really why you read reviews? I thought this was a great review because it very concisely described what is an unorthodox book. If you want to see if the prose is any good, read the book. It is a good book by the way. |
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| ▲ | throw4847285 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, I read reviews to learn if a book is good or not. Quotes from the book that are carefully selected often help to showcase what the author is capable of, on top of a clear description of their writing style. I want the reviewer to sell me on what moved them. That is different than whether or not the reviewer was compelled by the ideas in the book. If the reviewer is a good writer, then I've learned something. Then, I know that somebody who is a good writer thought the ideas in a book were interesting, which by the transitive property, implies the author being reviewed is also a good writer. In this case, I don't think the reviewer is a very interesting writer, so I'm not convinced that they are a good judge of interesting writing. | |
| ▲ | throwaway27448 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It sounds like you're describing a summary (which does not deal with quality) rather than a review (which necessarily deals with quality). The posted writing seems to fall somewhere in between. | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > If you want to see if the prose is any good, read the book. I don't read complete plot summaries of books that I ever plan to read. That's why I look for "reviews." The only reason it's hard to write a review is because you can't give away the plot, but you have to give a sense of the appeal and the quality of the book. Otherwise, it's just a summary. I can't know what books are available on the market through introspection. The only way I can know about them is through being informed. I don't want to read a complete plot summary of a book I have yet to read. If the only way I can find out about the existence of books is by having the plot spoiled, that's not optimal. edit: Also, tbh, if a book's plot is good, I don't need you to tell it to me. The person who came up with the plot already carefully came up with the way they wanted to tell it to me. Not sure why you think you can do better if you think the book is good. If the book is awful to read but the plot is interesting, feel free. > It is a good book by the way. The reason this doesn't work as a review is because I don't know you, and I don't know what you like. If you can say this in a way in which it doesn't matter whether I know you or what you like, and give away the least plot possible to accomplish this, you've written what most people are looking for in a review. | | |
| ▲ | satvikpendem 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Agreed, and plot itself doesn't make a good book either. Some have very interesting plots but terrible prose and pacing while others are vice versa. Therefore a "review" that is merely a plot summary actually says nothing of the quality of the work. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you say to just read the book then what's even the point of writing a review? I could say the same about any book which renders the advice meaningless. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've noticed this too online and on YouTube, where "reviewers" conflate a plot summary with an actual review of the pros and cons and often deeper analysis of a work. These days I need to go to specific subreddits to get true reviews beyond surface level details, such as at r/TrueFilm. |
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| ▲ | comboy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's not a well-written book. It's an interesting book (more like a story). |
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| ▲ | wetpaws 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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