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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Mar 10, 2021 15:08:40 GMT
 Hail and well met! I am Reynauld Le Vieux, Paladin of Rocheval, righter of wrongs and bringer of justice. The usual holder of this account is apparently busy 'handling his bloodbeast' at the moment and has kindly allowed me to make use of it [his account I mean]. Like my younger (more good-looking and less sarcastic) colleague Doré le Jeune I like nothing more than hanging around places like the Rift waiting for its evil denizens to sally forth and start a rumble with me and then slaughtering them like the worthless filth they are. Rather like Charles Bronson on the subway: In between purging Orb of all forms of wickedness, I sometimes like to take time out to read reviews of books I like and see what other people think of them. Sometimes the reviews are good and there are sensible things said both for or against the book and I learn from them. Other times I find myself laughing disbelievingly or even scornfully at what someone has taken the time and trouble to write and upload for all to see. As a Lawful Good Paladin, I tend to get more annoyed by people being unpleasant or rubbishing an author’s work than I do by reviews that lavish (sometimes undeserved) praise. Let’s start off with a non-FF book. Heart of Ice. By Dave Morris. Here’s an Amazon review in full: Its entertaining, but lacks a creative grasping story line. Its pretty bland. [3 stars]
Entertaining ... but bland. Bland ... and yet entertaining! Bland meaning a bit insipid and dull? Hmm. On the face of it a contradiction I feel. Maybe it’s like when I butcher the 50th orc in a row with my enchanted broadsword – it gets a bit samey but I still find it entertaining! The claim that Heart of Ice lacks creativity and a grasping [surely the word being grasped for here is ‘gripping’?] storyline of course has no evidence presented to prove it. That would require analysis and the time and effort needed to read, think, and write... and then come to the conclusion that apart from the first two words, what is written in that 'review' is utter bollocks. Here’s one for Joe Dever’s Fire on the Water (in full): I died 4 times before being able to finish the adventure. A lackluster ending though.
A fascinating first sentence there, and very much what I need to know. I (like you all, no doubt) of course keep a tally chart of "number of failures a given person on the internet has had when playing one of these books". I then average them out and do bar charts and pie charts and stuff. The ‘though’ at the end of the sentence interests me. To me it reads that the dying 4 times was good, in contrast to the lackluster ending. Perhaps they were very good deaths. Or maybe the critic is merely congratulating himself on having completed the book. In which case 'well done, have a gold star'.  Above is the illustration at the end of this book. The fantasy equivalent of the breaking of a siege by the dropping of an atom bomb on the enemy headquarters. Just prior to this, you had fought through an enemy navy crewed by the living dead in a massive sea battle. It just screams ‘lackluster’ doesn't it? Here are some reviews in their entirety for James Schannep's Click Your Poison book 1 Infected. Not very well written. Relies on dated pop culture references for humor and was filled with stock characters with no real personality.
Imagine that! A book written in 2012 which has pop culture references which are now 'dated'! I deliberately watched Bullseye on the telly the other night. I literally could not believe my eyes when they showed a picture of Nigel Lawson [Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher's government] in the 'Faces' category. The quiz questions were so out of date and based on things that happened in the 1980's that I put my foot through the television in a rage and sent the bill to ITV. Three more reviews below for the same book by potential Sith Lords letting out their hate, making themselves powerful, exerting themselves over their surroundings: Cleaning the bathroom would be more interesting. Thank god it was a free book. Not at all interesting and it was work to even try to read it. don't botherand This book is definItely not worth it. It was a free offer in the daily book bundle, thought it was a lot different. I would not recommended it unless you want to read what is. Thank you.Something not worth it, even if it's free? Wow. That really is not worth it! and Utter garbage. So Badly written, it almost feels like its been hurriedly written on a lunch break. It feels rushed, like the Author couldn't be bothered. Terrible storyline that barely describes anything and moves and jumps about so fast there is zero tension. Dull, lacklustre characters, no atmosphere at all. The relentless, sarcastic humour throughout this book is overused missplaced and puerile, it becomes tiresome.. There are far, far better books available in this genre for free. Literally one of my worst purchases from Amazon. I wouldnt read this for free. Can't believe I paid £4 for it. Save your money.I wondered if the random capital Letters spelled out A secret message, but they didn't. I am investigating the possibility that the author of the gamebook did some chinese burns or wedgies to the writer of this 'review' back when they were in school; or else he diddled his mrs after closing time in the carpark of the Rose and Crown in 2018. That's it for now. I've got more examples to come. For some reason the works of Paul Mason pound for pound attract more incoherent and illogical criticism than any other author.
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 10, 2021 15:30:15 GMT
For some reason the works of Paul Mason pound for pound attract more incoherent and illogical criticism than any other author. I have literally just come down to the computer after watching Stephen Merchant's Hello Ladies (Merchant went to Warwick 10 years after me), and this seems strangely appropriate. Actually, I lie, after watching Hello Ladies I watched the first episode of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which seems even more strangely appropriate. From now on, I insist that anyone who reads my books does so in the voice of Matt Berry. Failure to do so waives the right to write a review. Incidentally, why did Charles Bronson kill Frank Zappa? |
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Post by a moderator on Mar 10, 2021 16:13:20 GMT
For some reason the works of Paul Mason pound for pound attract more incoherent and illogical criticism than any other author. Absolutely. I remember a review of Slaves of the Abyss that might as well have read, 'I am incapable of grasping anything that's not blatantly spelled out on the page, and hate the authors for assuming that I'm not a moron.' |
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Post by The Count on Mar 10, 2021 16:23:11 GMT
Pop culture references can date a book, film or series if they are poorly implemented so that one could have a point. The first one is strange. The usual holder of this account is apparently busy 'handling his bloodbeast' at the moment A bit of an unusual euphemism... |
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Mar 10, 2021 16:32:20 GMT
The usual holder of this account is apparently busy 'handling his bloodbeast' at the moment A bit of an unusual euphemism... Indeed. He says it's been rearing up quite a bit lately. Smacking it on the head with a cold teaspoon normally does the trick - especially if you catch it on the eye. |
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Post by vastariner on Mar 10, 2021 21:15:15 GMT
The quiz questions were so out of date and based on things that happened in the 1980's that I put my foot through the television in a rage and sent the bill to ITV. Just want to draw attention to the genius of using a meme from 1977 to complain about the datedness of the 1980s. |
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Post by The Count on Mar 11, 2021 0:59:05 GMT
While waiting for BBH to come up with the next batch I had a quick look at the Amazon reviews of the excremental offering GoD hoping there would be a few. There are some good reviews that are funny - mostly because they are obviously fake. I would however like to point out that this was not me:
1.0 out of 5 stars Abysmal gamebook, clearly not play tested, Impossible to fail with any stats!!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 May 2018
Verified Purchase
Someone stated in an earlier review that Higson clearly struggled with the format, it's worse than that, the game system is completely broken. You cannot lose the game. Yep, that's right, it's impossible to fail! There are no instant deaths to my knowledge, and every single combat situation up to the last battle is avoidable. Simply throw one of your ten smoke vials at a demon and not only do you win the fight you get rewarded with yet another overpowered item that you won't even need!
In order to beat the 'final boss' you need a number of items and spells and such like, Livingstone at his worst style, well at least that will give some challenge, right? Wrong! If you get to the end without the correct items, you're simply told this and allowed to backtrack through the whole city until you find them! You read that correctly Johnathon Green fans, you are allowed to visit virtually any paragraph an infinite number of times until your addled brain can work out the laughablly easy 'clues' as to which location you need to go to get each item! And as there is no threat or combat, this is a pointless chore!
I haven't even commented on Higson's writing. Clearly he's a JH Brennan fan, because with 'bum faced monsters' and 'bier goggles' making an already joyless adventure even more insipid, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were reading a lost GrailQuest adventure without the good bits and an even more ludicrous plot. Come to think of it Brennan admitted he didn't play test his games and made the rules up as he went.....hmmm.
Needless to say this gamebook doesnt work as either and should not have been released as it doesn't work. Avoid please.
Not visceral enough for my liking
Anyway, back to BBH...
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Post by Reynauld Le Vieux on Mar 11, 2021 19:36:15 GMT
Well met, fellow adventurers. I, Reynauld Le Vieux, having just now finished my 24 hour prayer vigil held every tenday, am back to fight the good fight against the forces of unreason. Today’s reviews are merely for the most part misguided, rather than being the hate-filled rantings of spiteful halfwits as a few of the ones from the other day were. We will be focussing today on some of the reviews of books by a certain Mr. Mason, an individual who I suspect may be a follower of Beatan the Free (but let us not hold that against him too much).
Let us turn to the goodreads page for Slaves of the Abyss. Go now.
The following inanity by a Mr. Twinkie is a great example of the sort of rubbish I’m looking for. I’ve pointed it out before but it’s just too good not to repeat:
Quite annoying since you aren't aware that you might be on the wrong path before the end of the book
Mr. T is disappointed by the fact that you might not be aware you are on the wrong path until the end. Perhaps he doesn’t realise that’s the whole point of these books? I shouldn’t read any of the other books if I were him because there’s going to be a lot of that sort of thing. Ahh! Too late! I see he has read them, but seems to have gotten over this 'flaw' when reviewing the other books. Perhaps he suffers from the well-worn hackneyed clichéd trope of amnesia?
Here’s something (partial quote) Meh, pretty unimpressive story arc, with a predictable, underwhelming twist.
There’s no attempt to support the ‘unimpressive story arc’ comment in the whole of the paragraph, it merely gets repeated later on. But I think we can all agree that the end where we gain access to another dimension, slay the leader of the army of enslaved citizens then take his place as ruler of the Abyss and get all set to go on journeys throughout the multiverse.... We all of us saw that coming didn’t we? Mason telegraphed it more or less from the get-go. A predictable underwhelming twist indeed. I’m on the brink of asking the reviewer what next week’s Euromillions numbers are, because he must be that good at predicting things.
Onto the Crimson Tide...
Look at this [1star] review:
I didn't really like this one. It was slightly confusing (when I was younger) and its theme wasn't particularly good - vengeance/revenge. There are quite a few difficult puzzles in this one where you had to figure out what was the next entry or you can't continue (you could try to go through every single entry of course). The ending wasn't satisfying either.
In plain English it appears that your man here thinks that a theme as timeless and universal as ‘revenge’ isn’t very good. I feel sorry for him if that is so. He must hate films like Conan, Kill Bill, Get Carter and Gladiator. Hamlet and The Count of Monte Cristo too. The ending not satisfying? No? Which one? There are lots of different ones. Perhaps he did not bother to find them? Rescuing your enslaved mother and unmasking the abominable Pantu is unsatisfying apparently. Or maybe he just flicked to para 400 and read that one. I do hope so!
This review gets one star for effort.
Magehunter:
This book is quite possibly the nerdiest book I have ever read (played?). I will start and finish my review in the following sentence: You need a dice to read it.
The idea that this in any way constitutes a review is perhaps the most fascinating thing about it. The one giving us this fine piece of analysis seems rather bemused by the whole need for dice to randomly generate numbers. Two dice is ideal my friend, by the way. Two dice. Or I suppose you could keep rolling the same one twice and trying to remember what the previous roll was. Hint: you may need to use your fingers to help you keep count.
Here’s another one, not too bad though: Its also probably the gamebook with the least combat encounters or items of equipment in the entire series, and with little in the way of memorable scenes hard to recommend
One: If the first half of that sentence is meant as a criticism, don’t worry. There are books with stacks of combat encounters and inventories with backpacks filled with more bric-a-brac in them than a skip found out the back of an Oxfam charity shop.
Search Google for: Ian Livingstone.
Two: Few memorable scenes eh? Straight off the top of my head... Switching bodies, meeting the Riddling Reaver on an airship, a genie, a flying carpet ride possibly including a punch-up, buying and training a dog to hunt down the enemy, wandering through a strange city unable to even speak the language, encountering a god, shooting your arch-enemy through the head with a silver bullet or a diamond and the final showdown with Mencius in Rangor Tower. Yep. All very unmemorable I agree. Perhaps it's the old amnesia again.
Finally Black Vein Prophecy on goodreads. It was a couple of reviews from here that put me on to this whole thirst for ‘originality’ thing in the first place. I would normally be tolerant of their comments but the 1-star ratings mean I’m not really interested in giving the benefit of the doubt.
As has been said before, they didn’t like seeing the cliché or ‘trope’ of ‘amnesia’ in Fighting Fantasy books. It appeared only twice in well over 60 books as far as I recall. It’s not even a common thing in literature at large, is it? They also don’t like the apparent freedom of movement you have in this book. Why? I hope for pity’s sake they don’t go near the Fabled Lands series if that’s the case. Why not try persevering, folks, you might become ‘invested’ in the story. The harder you try, the more you find out. I think that looking for tropes in everything must damage the enjoyment of fiction and the more I read ‘goodreads’ the more I am determined to avoid the TVTropes website now.
Except for one or two more which I may share (and which might be a bit ‘off the wall’ more than anything else), that’s pretty much all I’ve got for now. I will be spending a bit more time on Amazon because that seems to have quite a few idiots on it. I urge you all to go out into the Internet and look for poorly-done reviews of our beloved books. Bring back here what you find worthy of our ridicule. In almost all instances I favour the builder over the unconstructive tearer-down; the creator and the writer over the critic who has never created something and put it on display for all to see and comment upon. Let the Eye of Sauron be turned on them for a change.
Godspeed to you all!
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Post by The Count on Mar 12, 2021 0:39:50 GMT
You need a dice to read it.  This one wins |
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Post by sleepyscholar on Mar 12, 2021 7:09:43 GMT
You need a dice to read it. This one wins And that's even without going anywhere near the singular/plural confusion... Die! Die! Die! Now, in my old age, it is finally clear to me that the true reason I wrote those books was so they could be so expertly reviewed on goodreads. |
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 12, 2021 11:17:33 GMT
To be fair, I'd guess that Magehunter was this person's first (and probably only) game book, so they probably aren't bemused by using dice to randomly generate numbers but rather find the very idea of having to use dice for reading a book ludicrous in the first place. Which, I wager, is a view many people would ascribe to, albeit not on this forum.
As for your expressed viewpoint on tropes, noble Rocheval  , I don't think it's the looking for tropes that's harmful but rather the attitude, that tropes are something to be entirely avoided by imaginative readers. With a healthier attitude towards them, being aware of the tropes in a story might even add to your enjoyment of it, depending on your personal taste. |
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Post by petch on Mar 12, 2021 11:21:51 GMT
You need a dice to read it. This one wins That one did make me belly laugh. It was clearly written by someone who had never seen a gamebook before and didn't understand the concept. I can only imagine their confusion at the second person perspective as well. I like to think that they stared at the book wondering why it was telling them that the events were happening to them, as if it were about to come true like in The Neverending Story or something. |
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,456
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Mar 12, 2021 11:28:31 GMT
Magehunter: This book is quite possibly the nerdiest book I have ever read (played?). I will start and finish my review in the following sentence: You need a dice to read it.In fairness to that reviewer, they seem to be completely unfamiliar with the genre (and I suppose gamebooks were becoming quite niche in 1995 when Magehunter was released) and I guess it's just not for them. I suppose they wanted to warn other people about how "nerdy" the book was in case they also bought it thinking it was a conventional novel. It is a bit sad though that there are so many die-hard fans who would love a copy of Magehunter and yet it's someone who completely doesn't understand gamebooks who gets a copy. Hopefully they sold it on rather than chucking it in a bin! Before I read Slaves of the Abyss, I had read a review complaining that the book had no slaves and no abyss. When I acquired a copy, I was all set to puzzle out the esoteric meaning of this apparently figurative title. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out the reason it's called "Slaves of the Abyss" is due to the presence of slaves in an abyss. I would wonder if the reviewer got past the background section except upon rereading the review in question (below) the reviewer seems to know a fair bit about the book: |
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Post by Reynauld Le Vieux on Mar 12, 2021 19:06:31 GMT
As for your expressed viewpoint on tropes, noble Rocheval , I don't think it's the looking for tropes that's harmful but rather the attitude, that tropes are something to be entirely avoided by imaginative readers. With a healthier attitude towards them, being aware of the tropes in a story might even add to your enjoyment of it, depending on your personal taste. Thank-you for your advice Sir Schlendrian de la Montagne, but Rocheval is the name of my patron deity, Whose deeds I hope to emulate. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_TigerWhat about this then, for The Rings of Kether (part of the review). It made me smile not get cross: Thinly disguised drug propaganda
...the feeling that I get from this book was that it was a part of Ronald Regan's war on drugs, namely a piece of propaganda.
Drugs are bad kids. Remember what they did to Zammo? |
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Post by Reynauld Le Vieux on Mar 12, 2021 19:23:20 GMT
I enjoyed this one for the Shamutanti Hills (entire review): A good first adventure in the epic quest by Ian Livingstone!
And the picture for the book on the page is literally this, one of those where the author's name is bigger than the title:  |
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Post by The Count on Mar 12, 2021 20:02:53 GMT
Ian does like taking credit for other peoples adventures though
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Post by schlendrian on Mar 13, 2021 13:18:50 GMT
Thinly disguised drug propaganda
...the feeling that I get from this book was that it was a part of Ronald Regan's war on drugs, namely a piece of propaganda.
It's so obvious  But they probably just did that to counter the thinly disguised commie propaganda that is Warlock of Firetop mountain - a person just hoarding his riches with no benefit for the community? Rise up adventurers! |
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Post by hynreck on Mar 24, 2021 13:16:17 GMT
Wonderful idea for a thread, quite funny. I now know where to post silly reviews!
And TVTropes is a really fun site that I enjoy often. Tropes are tools. They are not bad and some people need to be reminded about that. Some tropes might be overused or corny, but hating them systematically, well, you know what they say about living in a glass house.
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, I don't think it's the looking for tropes that's harmful but rather the attitude, that tropes are something to be entirely avoided by imaginative readers. With a healthier attitude towards them, being aware of the tropes in a story might even add to your enjoyment of it, depending on your personal taste. 
But they probably just did that to counter the thinly disguised commie propaganda that is Warlock of Firetop mountain - a person just hoarding his riches with no benefit for the community? Rise up adventurers!