The New Year is a few months old and we here at The Griffin or the Agate are finally getting around to making a few changes. No, not the site's makeover, which was done a few months ago and looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself, but a slight shift in our reviewing style. It's been our goal from the start to treat fantasy as a form of literature worthy of the same sort of respect garnered by any other genre, and that's not going to change a bit. What we are going to do, however, is allow a little more of our reviewers' voices to be heard, to make the pieces a bit more subjective. To boil it down to the simplest terms, we want to make them more enjoyable and more fun to read. We're not the New York Times Book Review, and we don't want to be. We're not professors fulfilling our 'publish or perish' quota, or editors or critics reviewing a book that seems fascinating to them but, when placed in a literary worldview, are often too narrowly focused to interest others. We're also cool with staying away from that whole 'Mr. Gibson' and 'Ms. Oates' thing.
     So where was I before I started taking swipes at the Old Gray Lady? Ah yes. Look for future reviews to be a little more offbeat, a little more quirky, but yet no less illuminating about the new releases in fantasy media. We're expanding to include websites of interest as well (check the Media section for these). And all this for free! How can you go wrong? Well, we've still managed to ruffle a few feathers. This arrived in my mailbox the other day. I deleted the author's name out of respect for her privacy. To wit:

     Subject: May his stories continue to inspire young readers! Power to Terry Goodkind!
"Hiss" and "boo" to any book reviewer who dares say Terry Goodkind's writing is anything short of entralling [sic] and enchanting. And shame on the administrator who allows such reviews to be posted. (In reference to http://www.thegriffin.com/ books/brust_issola.shtml, by C.L. Yona.)
At your service,

     I love this. This is what the Griffin and the Agate is all about, making contact with people who share a love for reading, a love of an oft-snubbed and sneered at genre, and offering a place for opinions to be shared. It's encouraging to see someone so passionate about their favorite author and for the joy of the written word. The email is admonishing but not a first shot of a flame war - and it invites me to think about what she has to say.
     It also doesn't force me to agree with her opinions, which is another good thing. An administrator who nixed a review because it was negative to an author's work would be more at shame, methinks. I've never been impressed with Goodkind's writing. The books seem to rehash one another, and a single exaggerated example can serve to summarize the three books I labored through:

     Kahlan (or however you spell her name, I'm not going to waste time tracking it down): "Richard, EVIL is coming!"
     Richard : Don't worry, I'll be able to face and defeat the EVIL by relying on the strength of our amazing love. And if that fails, we can just call for help from our wizard friend Gandal - err, Zed.

     Her subject line also intrigues me, since I've never really considered Goodkind as something for young readers, unless you're fine with an eleven year old drooling over the fairly graphic sexual passages in The Sword of Truth between Richard and that red-leather-wearing dominatrix Mord-Sith character. But hey, different strokes, right? Ahem.
     In any case, our hope is that your enjoy our new sassier tone of voice as much as you did our previous one and allow us to continue to provide you with quality, informative reviews of all things fantasy. Keep turning those pages!

C.L. Yona, editor.