Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Forums

Wow, the WWE Books Reviewed is awesome!  Turns out that there are more than 500 books represented - lots of reviews to read!

I keep thinking about posting some reviews here, but always seem to find myself intimidated by the tremendous quality of the reviews I keep reading.  That, and once I finish a book, the siren song of the next book sweeps me away - it's an addiction!

Props also for the Pringle Modern Fantasy - jynnandtonnyx waves a mouse and magics weeks into days - thanks!!

I'm so happy that the Angela Carter book is here now - The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman is such a GREAT book!!!!  The Bridge, Who Made Stevie Crye?, Lanark, The Eyes of the Overworld, all great new additions.  The book from the Pringle list that I'm most looking forward to reading is Helprin's Winter's Tale - one of these years I'll get to it - so much reading to do...

BTW, when you get a chance a notice for these should be posted to the New Features & News forum - all this hard work should be recognized. 

Glad to hear you guys like the new lists!  I'm stoked about both of them.  The Pringle list because I want to balance out the content on the site a bit more.  Fantasy lags behind on the awards and lists and Horror is much farther behind but it's still a new addition to the site so I don't feel too bad about that right now.  I like having both Pringle lists now and I'm excited to be adding the new SF list that picks up where Pringle left off.  I wonder if there will be a continuation on his Modern Fantasy list too?  Anyway, when Jynnandtonnyx saw how close we were to completing another list he wasted no time. 

The books reviewed list is something we should have done long ago but never really thought of it.  The GMRC was the catylist.  We've been getting a ton of great reviews but, more importantly, it's brought in a bunch of new folks to our little community!  A lot of these new members are very generously sharing their old reviews too so the numbers just keep climbing.  When we passed 800 reviews(!) the other day we just had to do something.  Luckily the pages we built for the series list adapted easily for the reviews so we were able to turn that around really fast.  Credit to whargoul for the coding!

As for the reviews, I agree with Scott and Deven.  There's room for all kinds of reviews on WWEnd.  I like a big chunky review that I can sink my teeth into but I also appreciate the short reviews and what I call "opinion pieces" where you get "This book is over-rated.  You should read X instead."  Those are the kind you get from your buddies over beers and they're nice when you just want to get the straight dope or you don't have time to read somethig that long.

I know what you mean about being a little intimidated by some of the reviews around here.  Man, I can't write 'em like that either.  But here's the thing, if you've got something to say about a book, just get it out there!  Somebody will read it and glean somethig from it.  For example, Scott writes a bad ass review like for his Forays series and I just eat that up like a lot of other folks.  But some people will look at that 12 paragraph review and just be turned off by the length.  They'll skim through or look for something more like DivineNanny's reviews which are much shorter but still high quality.  It's all good as far as I'm concerned.  The more variety like that we have the happier everyone will be.

I'll say one more thing and then stop - I've already gone on too long.  It's an interesting exercise to put your thoughts down on "paper" for others to see.  It can really help you work out your own ideas and reactions to a book in a way that you can't get from just thinking about it by yourself.  You might be surprised at how it comes out if you give it a go!

Here are the missing books from those lists:

Science Fiction

• This Island Earth Jones, Raymond F. 1952
• Man in the Maze, The Silverberg, Robert 1969
• Other Days, Other Eyes Shaw, Bob 1972
• Best of John W. Campbell, The Campbell, John W. 1973
• Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, The Compton, D. G. 1974
• Garments of Caen, The Bayley, Barrington J. 1976
• Involution Ocean Sterling, Bruce 1977
• City Come A-Walkin' Shirley, John 1980
• Super-Cannes Ballard, J. G. 2000

FANTASY

• Wood Beyond the World, The Morris, William 1894
• Lilith MacDonald, George 1895
• Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Baum, L. Frank 1900
• Lost Continent, The Hyne, C. J. Cutcliffe 1900
• Wind in the Willows, The Grahame, Kenneth 1908
• Ship of Ishtar, The Merritt, A. 1924
• Lost Horizon Hilton, James 1933
• Circus of Dr. Lao, The Finney, Charles G. 1935
• Green Child, The Read, Sir Herbert 1935
• Islandia Wright, Austin Tappan 1942
• Comet in Moominland Jansson, Tove 1946
• Annotated Alice, The Carroll, Lewis [ed. Martin Gardner] 1960
• Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Garner, Alan 1960
• Serpent, The [Atlan] Gaskell, Jane 1963
• Over Sea, Under Stone [Dark Is Rising] Cooper, Susan 1965
• Anita Roberts, Keith 1970
• Kleinzeit Hoban, Russell 1974
• Book of Sand, The Borges, Jorge Luis 1975
• Great Victorian Collection, The Moore, Brian 1975
• Merlin Nye, Robert 1978
• Bloody Chamber, The Carter, Angela 1979
• Legend [Drenai] Gemmell, David 1984
• Wizard of the Pigeons Lindholm, Megan 1985
• Howl's Moving Castle Jones, Diana Wynne 1986
• Book of the Damned, The [Secret Book of Paradys] Lee, Tanith 1988
• Mercury Kavan, Anna 1994
• Across the Nightingale Floor [Tales of the Otori] Hearn, Lian 2002

Not too bad.

I'm glad to see you've posted some reviews now!  Very nice addtions to the site by the way - thanks!  That wasn't so bad was it?

Thank you for sticking in there and continuing to post in the forum!  You've singlehandedly jump started the whole shebang and we're just thrilled that folks have been responding to your efforts.  The ''What are you reading in June?'' thread was so obvious we just never thought to start one ourselves.  It's such a pleasure to see so many comments every day and all the great threads!  We're finally getting enough members to sustain the conversation in the forum and your arrival was the catalyst get things rolling.  Many thanks from the whole team and, indeed, I think I can say from the whole WWEnd community.

You are most welcome.  I really like the genre game thread too.  Easy enough for anybody to jump in.  Now we need to see about getting the Usual Suspects list to grow a bit longer.

@splunge52:  These are, indeed, some great ideas.  We've been kicking around the highest rated books list idea for some time.  The main issue is coming up with a suitable formula for determining the list.

@Deven Science:  Most read and most reviewed would be simple lists to build since that is just straight data.

I'll talk with the team and see what we can do about all these ideas.  It may be some time before we get to them as we're gearing up for next years reading challenge right now.

Hey Izzy4real,

Welcome to WWEnd!  I'm glad you like the site.  Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for the suggestion.  We have a long tradition of great suggestions from out members that turn into features on the site.

Translated work is something I'm very interested in highlighting on the site.  Awhile back I went looking for an award or list to add to the site but there was nothing out there that we could work with.  Now there's an award, Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award, but it's brand new so only has a few books in it thus far.  If you know of an extensive list from a credible source please point us to it.  The thing about these lists is they need to have a big name or organization behind them to get people to sit up and take notice.

I've added the Night Watch series to our overlooked books list in the mean time.  Cheers!