Well, it had to happen sooner or later

Today I got my first bad review. The online site SFRevu posted a pasting by Ernest Lilley. If you want to read it, click here.

Don't get me wrong - it's his opinion, and he's entitled to it. You can't please everybody, although he does offer (faint) praise, stating that "there's something about the author's characters that I find appealing."

At any rate, I will drop him a note thanking him for at least taking the time to read it.

On negative feedback

As I mentioned in a previous post, my book The Mars Run got a bad review. It prompted some thought on negative feedback.

Don't get me wrong. Negative feedback stings. However, having been told by career military men with combat experience that the world would be a better place if my parents hadn't met, in the grand scheme of things not liking my book is no big deal.

But more importantly, negative feedback is both rarer and more valuable then positive feedback. Rare, because most review sites, if they don't like your book, just say nothing. More valuable because negative reviews give you something to fix. If you tell me you like a certain shade of green, does that mean you'll like something five shades darker five times as much? Tell me you hate green and I've got useful information.

This doesn't mean that I will change everything that Lilley didn't like. For instance, he was down on space pirates. Without that, I have no story. So, I may have to assume I can't please him.

It doesn't mean that he's wrong, and I certainly won't ignore or discount his comments. In fact, I'm glad he said something.