Wednesday evening just before I slipped off to bed, I got a Google alert of a new review of Vulcan’s Forge. Yes, I have an alert set up over at Google to keep me informed of when people post things about my debut novel. The review came from a person in the United Kingdom which makes sense as the publisher is a UK entity.

It was my first unqualified negative review.

I say ‘negative’ and not ‘bad’ because I do not want there to be the slightest suggestion that I imply that the review itself is poor. As I have said often in my writers group meetings no honest critique or review can be wrong. It is how that person reacted to that piece on that day. It is the underlying assumption upon which is build the critique phrase ‘Your mileage may vary.’ What is wonderful for one person is terrible to another.

How did I react to my first truly ‘I did not like this book’ review?

Shrug.

It is part of the gig. Now, I am not suggesting that anyone else is wrong is they feeling more strongly when that get a negative review. Authors are people and people differ wildly but for me I can accept that someone really did not like by work and not feel any real emotional distress. If fact I read the review and then went off to bed and slept quite well.

If it didn’t matter to me then why did I read the review? why seek them out?

Well, taking criticism is a skill and it requires practice. It’s good to get hit and learnt that you do survive it.

I’m also curious. It is fascinating to see the wildly different interpretations people have about the work. This applies to positive reviews as well as negative ones. Everyone bring their own lenses to their reading and so the exact same text will never be interpreted the same way by any two people. I love seeing the various internal codebooks through which this is deciphered. (Of course, I bring my own to the reading of these reviews and not matter how diligently I try I can never fully escape them, but still I do try.)

Perhaps for other it is very good advice to never read reviews but for me it is a fascinating glimpse into the inner working of another person’s mind.