I’ve never actually bought or read one of your books, but you’ve made it onto my list of authors to investigate from the thoughtful tone of your writings here.

That sounds like a less than enthusiastic response I know, and maybe a bit arrogant, but my point isn’t my deigning to take notice, it’s that posting interesting stuff here has made it happen, it’s good advertising.

Whether a reviewer liked or disliked the book (or film or anything else) is largely irrelevent to me, there’s many times when a well written review by someone saying they disliked something has been a reason for me to buy something, because the reasons they gave for disliking it made it clear (or led me to hope) that it would be something that I liked.

Regarding writers reviewing other writers: I’m highly sceptical, it falls into the same category as the “best thing since lord of the rings!!!!” (or the sci-fi equivilent “the UK’s greatest living sci-fi author!!!”) cover-quotes by some random other best-selling author. Without knowing the neutrality of the person in question or what vested interests they have, I’m just inclined to dismiss it.

That said, if reasons are given, or you’re familiar enough with the taste of the reviewing author in question, you can still glean useful information from one, or try to get a feel for the authenticity of the review (as opposed to it being “hey, say something nice about this other author” that gets dressed up as a review by the marketing department.)

Also it quickly becomes obvious when some authors are either being fairly mercenary in their recommendations, or just have extremely low standards, because they tend to turn up on the cover of every single “next big thing” author for a year or two, absolutely regardless of quality.

(1) Helping me find books I might enjoy, or avoid books I might dislike. On Amazon, I read the synopsis, the editorial/professional review snippets, and the negative customer reviews. The positive ones tend to be more generic and therefore less helpful to me, although there are exceptions.

(2) Helping me find things in the book, and appreciate deeper subtleties, that I would otherwise have missed. The better professional reviews do this. The less-good professional reviews come off as pretentious wankery.

(3) Spurring fan discussion on message boards and the blogosphere. Reviews that stake out contrary or unusual opinions, and support them with citations to the text and well-reasoned arguments, do this. Superficial “I love it!!!” or “This book sux!!!” reactions do not.

There is also a lesser purpose (4) Helping me see flaws and virtues that I might wish to avoid or try to achieve in my own work. Clearly there are limits to how much an analysis of someone else’s work can be relevant or helpful to your own, but it’s good to know what readers like and what techniques don’t work or what plot devices they reject. Reading with a writer’s eye, and then seeing how normal readers react to the same text, can be a useful reality check.

I think that there is a great deal of value that a writer can say about another writer’s work, but when I do it — and it’s uncommon that I do, since I’m more a lurker than a talker — I usually veil my opinions behind a cloak of anonymity. The Internet makes that easy, and personally I think it’s more useful to let the message stand on its own, without whatever slant the reader might bring to it if the speaker were known.

Of course there are potential abuses in that (Robert Stanek’s notorious misuse of Amazon’s review system, for one), but that’s the way it goes with everything.

I want honesty from a reviewer. I want them to be skilled enough to give reasons why they did or didn’t like a book, what worked for them and what didn’t, what the book’s strengths and weaknesses are. I don’t want hype or hyperbole, and I’d much rather see a writer say ‘this book was really not for me’ if they hated it than to mumble something about ‘decently written, interesting setting’ that might be taken at face value.

I’ve always thought, though, that any author has to be careful about making too much of a good or a poor review (poor in the “I didn’t like it” sense), because in the end it is just one person’s opinion and there is no way on earth that any author is going to please everyone.

In the end what I try to get out of a review of a book I haven’t read but am thinking of buying is the idea of whether I would like it, not whether the reviewer liked it. Pretty much what Tom said above.

With regards to what I personally enjoy, the only opinion that matters is my own, and to a lesser extent those of friends who tend to share my opinions on what is entertaining.