Ever heard of the acronym "YMMV"? For me, there were some good insights in those reviews. For you, yes it may have been "crap," but then again, you aren't presuming to speak for others, are you? I know I'm only speaking for myself here.

But I note the awards only to point out that a) he is a novelist as well as a critic and professor and b) he is highly regarded by quite a few SF writers as well as by critics. Some things do hold greater weight than others, unfortunate as that may be in some cases.



Good for you. Won't offer you a cookie though, since it's past lunch and I'm starting to feel a bit hungry now.



For some people, it isn't the amount of books sold as long as you enjoy the work and make a decent living. I would imagine that Roberts would be more content with having written well-regarded novels and literary theory pieces on SF (his The History of Science Fiction is a worthy book for debate; I disagreed with several elements included in there, but saw it as a positive development in the emerging field of professional SF literary criticism) and teaching as an English professor than he would writing the sort of "mass extruded product" that tends to lower the estimation of genre fiction to that of the old pulps. But tastes vary and de gustibus non est disputandum, no?



You misread that, I see. Two nominations for two different books and that award being the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the UK fandom equivalent to the WorldCon's Hugo Award. It is considered to be one of the top four English-language genre awards a SF/F novel could receive. Now having read the Wiki for RJ, I fail to see these "12 nominations and 2 awards won." If such exist, it certainly isn't for any of the Big 4 (Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Arthur C. Clarke) with which I'm a bit familiar. The other information is extraneous and only serves to underscore the point that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing. Stop it.




Well, at least we share an appreciation for Mick Foley, I see