But I stopped myself. You and I have a good rapport online when it comes to historical fiction; no, we don’t always agree on everything in fandom or outside of it – but that doesn’t make us enemies in my book. ^_^ You have a great historical blog – it made sense to solicit you for a review. I guess in the commentators mind, if I speak to you online or comment at your LJ – all reviews of my work from you are tainted. Oy.

You reviewed Gadarene fairly as well, pointed out both the good and the bad – and that came on the heels of the very big accuracy/crit kerfluffle at Torquere between my co-author and a friend of yours. It didn’t matter to you, you just reviewed the work because your professional enough to do that.

You knew my views on the whole Lambda thing – we agreed to disagree; but you still took Games in and gave it a review. Your aces. I don’t care what any one else thinks. ^_^v

i don’t like the writer
i don’t like the publisher
I’m jealous of the competition

Some people have said that I shouldn’t be reviewing because I’m an author.

Some people have said that reviewers aren’t readers.(!)

Some people say I shouldn’t give unfavourable reviews at all – particularly if I’m trying to promote historical fiction. And I’m quite sure that You Know Who considers that certain writers tend to get a higher score because I’m considered to be their friend.

The logic burns me.

It makes me cast wider for reviewers–I’ll ask Hayden Thorne to review my own books for example, because I trust her implicitly to mark me down if I don’t come up to scratch (she gave Transgressions a 4) and she’s not bothered that it’s my site. And I now try and avoid reviewing Charlie or Lee or Alex for those reasons.

To that detractor I say – if you’ve read “Games” then you should see what a damned good–and brave–book it was. It’s impossible to judge a graphic novel under the same conditions as a novel, there’s no “deathless prose” for example, but judging on the criteria we use: the history, the writing, the GAY history – and the fact that it had everything a good story needed, characters that flew off the page, it was a no brainer that it was going to get a good mark, and a highly recommended stamp.

^_^v