Hi. I’m Byron. I was that kid that really preferred staying indoors (where there was air conditioning) with a book instead of being outside playing with the other kids. As a grownup, I still prefer staying indoors (where there is air conditioning) with a book instead of doing whatever-the-hell grownups are supposed to be doing.
I am a self-described geek, but I don’t just stick to fantasy or science fiction. I get bored and burned out if I try to read only one genre. There’s so much cool stuff out there, why limit myself?
Here’s my review policy, such as it is:
- I won’t publish a review unless I have finished the book completely. I don’t think it’s fair otherwise. If I don’t like a book, I’m probably not likely to finish it because life is too short. Therefore, the reviews I do publish are going to have a fairly high average rating. The high ratings of my reviews aren’t due to super-positivity; it’s because what I finish tends to be good.
- If I do finish a book that I do not like, I might publish a negative review of it but I might not. Generally, I feel weird about telling people not to read something. Why spend time crapping on someone’s work that other readers might enjoy? However, if a book is a best-seller, an award-nominee/winner, on Oprah’s Book Club list, or otherwise is getting a lot of hype for being awesome, I do not feel bad putting out a contrary opinion that I might have because I feel like prospective customers need to be warned.
- While I won’t publish a full review without finishing a book, I also reserve the right to just make a statement of DNF (Did Not Finish) with a brief reason as to why. This will most likely come into play if the site is doing a series of reviews for particular award nominees or some other special occasion.
- I publish snippets of (or a version of) these reviews on goodreads and amazon.com. I also post links to these reviews on facebook and twitter.
- I read about 50 pages a day, more on weekends. Sometimes I get busy though, and the going will be slower. I make no guarantees on how fast I will read something. It takes me about three days to write a review after I finish reading a book, and my goal is to post one review every Saturday.
- I will not accept money (or other stuff) in exchange for a positive review. My reviews are mine. Not even my partner has any control over my reviews (and I don’t have any control over hers).
My ratings are:
- 5 stars: Loved it, very original, absolutely fantastic and/or well-done.
- 4 stars: Really liked it, it was a lot of fun, might have had one or two minor issues. Sometimes there might not be anything wrong with a book to get a 4 star vs a 5, it’s just missing that extra something to take it to that next level
- 3 stars: It was good. It had some flaws (or one big one) but it was a good read. Still glad I bought and/or read it.
- 2 stars: It was ok, but there were major flaws that impacted my enjoyment of this book. I’d urge extreme caution to anyone considering buying this.
- 1 star: I’ve actually never given one of these out because I doubt I’d bother finishing a book bad enough to warrant a one star. This is a really bad book.
- 0 stars: The existence of this book offends me.
I also have a category called “Byron’s Favorite Books.” The books I put into that are the extra-special ones.