I'm always looking for more good review sites. If something isn't here that should be, .
| Stephen Wu | Stephen Wu's review site is somewhat similar to mine, probably because it was my appreciation for his site that led me to make this one. You might find that odd, since we disagree almost as often as we agree, but while our tastes are often different I thought his reviews were well-written and the site's layout very clean. While he will go a few months without updating at times it's still an active site. |
| Inchoatus | This is structured a little differently than the booklog-style that most of the sites linked here have. If you can get by what is honestly some rather pretentious presentation, the reviews are very well-written. They make me feel guilty for not making more of an effort to write and edit mine, although they aspire to be a criticism site whereas this is supposed to be a quick booklog. Unlike most of the sites linked here, they have remarkably similar tastes to mine. |
| Evelyn Leeper | Extensive review site covering more than just science fiction. Very active. |
| Mike Kozlowski | Mike Kozlowski's book log has reviews going back to 2002 and even a capsule list of books he read prior. Despite the number of books he's reviewed, I'm slightly embarassed to say that I haven't really read enough of the same books to even try to evaluate how his tastes compare to mine. At any rate, the reviews are well written, the site design is clean, and there's a decent index. |
| Martin Wisse | Another excellent booklog. My first reaction was: this guy reads a lot. On second glance, he just reads slightly more than I do, but he's been writing reviews a lot longer. In fact he's got as many prose reviews as I have ratings, I believe. |
| David Dyer-Bennet | Booklog of SF with some mystery and mainstream thriller thrown in. I wish it were a little lighter on the spoilers, but he does warn you ahead of time, and hey, the index is sortable! This is another site where most of the books reviewed are ones I haven't read. |
| Trent Goulding | Another good booklog site centering on SF and fantasy. It's a nice site with a good index, but I wish it used a lest ostentatious font. If you can get past the font, the reviews are very good, which is what's important after all. |
| Chad Orzel | Good booklog of SF/F going back several years. Somewhat notable in that Chad often backs up his points with excerpts. Good reviews, design, etc. |
| Patrick's Fantasy Hotlist | Booklog covering, as you might expect, primarily fantasy. Unfortunately it is produced using blogspot like a regular blog and unless I missed it there's not an author/title index. At the time I added this link, his top post was a 10/10 review of Fool's Fate, so our tastes are not exactly in alignment. That's not a criticism, just an observation. Seems to have a bit more non-review posts mixed in than some of the other book logs I'm linking to here, which can be good or bad depending on what you are after. |
| Kate Nepveu | A sort of sister site to Chad Orzel's book log in that they are hosted on the same server and were apparently started at the same time. Covers some mystery in addition to science fiction and fantasy. |
| Nicholas Whyte | Nicholes Whyte has a interesting set of reviews...some are your typical reviews of books but his most interesting writing is on groups of like authors or books that have won awards. |
| Pam Korda | Not updated since September 2004, but I include it because of it has a pretty large number of reviews. Covers SF/F, mystery, mainstream, non-fiction, and comics/graphic novels almost equally. |
| Aaron Renn | Some interesting reviews here, although I have to say I disagree very strongly with most of his opinions. Last updated 2002. |
| The Internet Top 100 SF/F List | Not a review site per se but a list acquired through a long-running poll. It hasn't been updated in a year or so, there are a few choices that seem like ballot stuffing at work (Strugatski?), there are some really notable missing items, and the idea of putting seven book series against single novels against short stories is pretty wierd. All that said, it has been a useful resource for me, and is more or less directly responsible for me reading Guy Gavriel Kay and Zalazny for the first time. Just don't take it too seriously (C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy ahead of 1984...right) and it's very handy. |
I can't say I read these often, but in some cases perhaps I should.
| Science Fiction Weekly | Backed by the Sci-fi channel, this has nice content, but the real gem here is Clute's writing, which is excellent and as far as I know virtually unqiue in its sophistication (beware of spoilers, he writes criticism, not reviews). |
| Sci-Fiction | Another Sci-fi channel production, this brings you current and "classic" short stories. The best source of SF short stories on the net. It's almost enough to make you forgive the Sci-fi channel for their UFO investigation pandering. Almost. |
| Locus Online | One of the few sites that is actually updated daily. Production values higher than average. |
| Asimov's SF | They don't put most of their content online, but remember to check in during the awards season to get their nominees for free. |
| Analog SF | Like Asimov's in that they don't put most of their content online accept for award-nominated stories. |
| SF Site | Probably the leader in Internet SF content by quantity. They have some nice articles now and then and a lot of almost universally positive reviews. The books they review is kind of an odd cross-section of books encompassing really prominent authors and extremely obscure small-press books (perhaps because many of the reviewers are small-press authors themselves?). My problem with the reviews is that 19 out of 20 read like an amalgam of all the text the publisher puts on any book: a description of the basic setting, characters, and story with some generic positive quotes. The reviews are therefore useful if you'd like some basic information about a book, but for critical thinking look elsewhere. Unfortunately, a few of their reviews are also very spoiler-heavy, which means they don't serve as reviews or as criticism. If I'm sounding a bit harsh it's because they have the best production values of any site and it's a shame they aren't a little more discerning. All that said, the year-end top ten lists are quite valuable barometers of Internet SF opinion. |
More and more authors are joining the twenty-first century (albeit kicking and screaming). Some of these sites are actually maintained by the author himself/herself and some are publisher "official" sites. A very incomplete list for now.
Everything else.