Stall The Ball

Ordinarily I don't pay much attention to reviews in print or T.V.

Most of the time a reviewer's opinion of a book or film is just that, their opinion. I've read Twenty Major's "The Order of the Phoenix Park". I found it funny and a pretty good effort for someone's first book.

Twenty claims to be influenced by people like Douglas Adams and Tom Sharpe. I'd add a fair dose of Terry Pratchett in there as well. As a book it's not up there with any of those gents writing on top form. Those authors on top form are the pinnacle of humorous writing. Being better than them would be like walking into the next Olympics and winning gold in the hundred metre sprint.

But it's a good book, does what it says on the tin cover.

So why do our esteemed print journalists have such a bee in their bonnet about Twenty and his book. It's not the negative reviews that interest me; it's the volume of negative reviews. The latest in the Sunday Times by Colin Coyle is typical. Much more attention paid to the fact that Twenty is a blogger, that he has 1500 visitors a day to his site.

We'll ignore the punishing headline which is worthy of a tabloid sub editors efforts
"Blogger fails to click as novelist: Twenty Major has minor sales". (my emphasis on the puns)

The article makes much of the existing poor reviews. It makes me wonder did Colin even read the book or was the entire thrust of the article just to enforce the point put forward by other journalists that bloggers aren't proper writers.

Colin finishes with the old clichéd good point but bad point. If you've never met one of these it's where you have to say something good and then negate it by saying something bad.

As an example "Mother Theresa was a wonderful person but wasn't able to save everyone"

"Jesus performed miracles but died on the cross"

That "but" is wonderful.

Sets the person up as good and insinuates that they failed in some way

Eoin Purcell, a commissioning editor at Mercier, said good bloggers were "a publishers dream" because they had a ready-made audience, but their books needed "added value" to sell.

See how that works? It implies straight away that the books don't have added value.

The expression "The pen is mightier than the sword" has added value today in the mainstream versus blogging debate. The pens have been sharpened, drawn and are being thrust vigorously into any one prepared to crawl out of their pigeon hole and threaten the status quo.