After five years and 100+ pieces, I’ve reached a personal reviewing milestrone — one of my reviews has been quoted in a book from a mass-market publisher! The quote is inside the Virgin Books edition of Conrad Williams’ new novel, One, and is from my review of The Unblemished: “Williams’ threat emerges from the world like an optical illusion being revealed, then you find that society fell apart while you were looking somewhere else.” Unfortunately, this quote is not attributed to me by name (just to “SF Site” — but that can be the next milestone!

I’m particularly pleased to see this quote because I’ve often had the impression that my reviews don’t lend themselves easily to quotable soundbites (“A heart-stopping tour de force!” etc.) — and I think what the publishers have quoted bears this out. It’s not immediately apparent what it means, and the quote probably only makes full sense once you’ve read the book — yet it gets to the heart of how I think The Unblemished works.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I’m in a good mood.