Review of Evaporating Genres
Strange Horizons yesterday posted my review of Gary K. Wolfe's Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature.
That review begins by making a specific distinction between book reviews and a certain type of literary criticism, a distinction that Abigail Nussbaum considers in a blog post about the sorts of things she's looking for as Strange Horizons's reviews editor. I don't particularly disagree with the qualifications and complexities Abigail adds to what I wrote; the distinction I settled on was useful for that review, and seemed worth mentioning because it was absent from Wolfe's own taxonomy of reviews vs. criticism. As with so many things, in reality the distinctions are not hard and fast.
That review begins by making a specific distinction between book reviews and a certain type of literary criticism, a distinction that Abigail Nussbaum considers in a blog post about the sorts of things she's looking for as Strange Horizons's reviews editor. I don't particularly disagree with the qualifications and complexities Abigail adds to what I wrote; the distinction I settled on was useful for that review, and seemed worth mentioning because it was absent from Wolfe's own taxonomy of reviews vs. criticism. As with so many things, in reality the distinctions are not hard and fast.