Policies and Disclaimers
For These Pages
By Michael H. Payne
I'm the guy who co-ordinates the SFWA Circulating Book Plan. The CBP,
if you're not familiar with it, is a service SFWA provides to its members
whereby you get lotsa books sent to you for no cost as long as you agree to
box them up and mail them to the next person in your group when you're done
with 'em. It's part of the Nebula process, a way for members to get a look
at a large percentage of the new SF coming out these days.
That said, here's the policies and disclaimers:
- I'm just writing these reviews as a
guy who reads lotsa books, not as any official representative of the SFWA
Ruling Council--or Circle of Elders or Board of Directors or what have
you. All opinions are mine and mine alone, so if you disagree, please
write up a one paragraph review and e-mail
it to me. I'll try not to edit it too ruthlessly and will put it up as
another precinct heard from. Also, please e-mail me if anything on these
pages strikes you as blatantly incorrect. I'm always looking to make
improvements.
- If you've ever read any of my short
stories, my book
The Blood Jaguar, or my comic strips Terebinth and Daily Grind, you'll know that I write light, vaguely sentimental adventure fiction most of which features talking animals. I write that sorta stuff 'cause I like to read that sorta stuff.
- I won't pretend to be an expert in
things I know nothing about, though I do know a gerund from a
participle and have written my share of essays on the structural elements
of Greek tragedy and ancient Roman epic, both of which, oddly enough, I've
found very helpful as a reader and in what I laughingly refer to as my
writing career.
- When I get a box of books from a
publisher--as I do about once a week--I first look at the copyright page of
each book. If it's a reprint, into the outgoing stack it goes. If not, I
read the first three or four pages. If the intro doesn't grab me, into the
outgoing stack it goes. If it grabs me a little, the book goes into a
stack with any other books that have the same month of publication. I try
to read the older books first, but if a new one grabs me a lot, I'm
likely to keep going. If I get to the end of a book, I'll put up a little
capsule review of it. Otherwise, I'll just list the author and title and
move on.
- A click on the author and title of
each book here will take you to that book's page on Amazon.com. If you buy
the book from Amazon after using this link, SFWA will get a couple pennies.
These pennies, I'm told, go to defray costs associated with the web site's
upkeep, and any extra after that are donated to the SFWA Emergency Medical
Fund. So buy a book and help out.
- The Main
Page has the newest stuff, so you can go back there now if you wanna.
Earlier reviews are filed on the Back Pages by the book's month of
publication:
[Aug 07] [Sep 07] [Oct 07] [Nov 07] [Dec 07]
[Jan 08] [Feb 08] [Mar 08] [Apr 08]
[May 08] [Jun 08] [Jul 08] [Aug 08] [Sep 08]
Or if none of the above links appeal to you, feel free to use the box below to wander through the wonderland that is the SFWA web site.
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