- Why have you published a bad/condemnatory/unfavourable review?
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All our reviewers are free to express their opinions of the works sent to them for review.
We attempt, so far as possible, to send works to reviewers who are likely
to give the work a favourable review. We never knowingly send work to reviewers in the expectation
of them writing a bad review. We can readily empathise with writers and publishers
who feel a review is unfair or that the reviewer failed to understand the work, having been on the
receiving end of such reviews, but such is the nature of reviews.
Whilst you have a right to object, you do not have the right
to demand the review be replaced by a more favourable one. We will always correct any
factual errors or misquotes.
If we decide to remove reviews from the site, following strong objections to unfavourable comments,
we will probably remove the whole page,
including any favourable reviews of the author or magazine concerned.
- I sent you a book/magazine/record. Why hasn't it been reviewed yet?
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There could be a number of reasons:
- We may not have received it — things sometimes go astray
in the post so do enquire.
- It is probably with a reviewer or waiting to be assigned.
- Sometimes things go astray in the post here and the reviewer never gets a package.
- A reviewer may suddenly stop writing reviews without informing us or returning the works.
- Rarely, we may decide, before or after a review is written, not to publish a particular review
for any number of reasons.
- Why are there out-dated addresses and links on some reviews?
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We regularly check the links on the reviews and update them, but sometimes a change escapes us. We rely
on readers and publishers to inform us of out of date information or dead links. We try to
update pages quickly once we are aware of any errors.
- Can I request that a specific reviewer reviews my work?
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Whilst we may sometimes agree to this, we probably will not. In the case of magazines or individual authors, if
a reviewer has previously written about the same magazine or author, whether favourably or
unfavourably, subsequent issues or books by the same author will normally be sent to a different reviewer.
In this way, we try to avoid any bias and present a range of opinion.
- Why won't you review downloadable ebooks?
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Not all our reviewers have internet access. Most people in the UK, and elsewhere, still pay for
their time on-line and downloads are considered frustrating and inconvenient.
There are a number of sites that will review ebooks, and so we prefer to stick to
our role of reviewing only hard-copy items. We do, however, review ebooks
distributed on CD-ROM under the category of Software.
- My books are available from Amazon. Why don't you include a link to them?
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There are a number of on-line bookstores, and buyers should be free to use the one of their choice.
We always encourage people to deal directly with publishers, especially small press publishers
who often cannot afford the discounts
demanded by bookstores, some of which (not all) take a long time to pay their supplier.
Books carrying an ISBN can
normally be ordered through various online and other bookstores, but you will usually
find that the cost of delivery is considerable.
We always, where available, provide links to the publisher and/or author's website.
If you wish your readers to purchase from a specific supplier, then your own website should be the place
to put that information.
- I am looking for a particular review which was once on your site, but it is no longer there.
Is it gone forever?
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Old reviews are removed from time to time to make space for new ones. We try to keep reviews online
for as long as is reasonably possible, including some cases where the publication is no longer available.
If you cannot find a particular review, then do ask us about it as we may be able to locate it in our
private archives, especially if you can recall the date when you last saw it.
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