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July 2016 in Review

31 Jul, 2016

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22 books reviewed. 14 by women, 8 by men. F/T = 0.64

4 books by POC, or 18%.

Year to date

147 books read. 87 by women (0.59), 58 by men (0.39), 2 by authors who identifies as neither (0.01). 34 by POC (0.23). To put in context:

(I am not getting the same zing from ascending through the chart this year as I did in 2015, in part because I know I won't be able to outdo Locus' army of reviewers. Oh, well.)

Key: WNB stands for “women and non-binary genders”, while POC stands for “person of colour”. R/R stands for “reviews/reviewers”. Figures in brackets are percentages; for R/R the percentage represents the site’s R/R over my 2015 R/R.

Review source

Total

WNB (%)

POC (%)

Reviewers

R/R (%)

James Nicoll Reviews 2015

329

195 (59)

45 (14)

1

329 (1)

Locus

324

163 (50)

22 (7)

17

19 (5.7)

SFX

165

48 (29)

10 (6)

30

5.5 (1.5)

JNR 2016

147

89 (61)

34 (23)

1

147 (n/a)

Romantic Times

146

84 (57)

14 (10)

23

6.3 (1.9)

Tor

141

66 (47)

18 (13)

27

5.2 (1.7)

Strange Horizons

139

66 (48)

30 (22)

80

1.7 (0.5)

Rising Shadows

83

25 (30)

1 (1)

2

41.5 (12.6)

Interzone

67

21 (31)

7 (10)

19

3.5 (1)

F&SF

59

32 (54)

5 (9)

5

11.8 (3.6)

Analog

58

10 (17)

3 (4)

1

58 (17.6)

Io9

56

17 (30)

12 (21)

10

5.6 (1.7)

Asimov's

53

21 (23)

3 (6)

3

17.7 (5.4)

Vector

52

18 (35)

4 (8)

26

2 (0.6)

SFS

45

48 (21)

2 (4)

38

1.2 (0.3)

NYRSF

42

11 (26)

6 (13)

24

1.8 (0.5)

Foundation

38

9 (24)

1 (3)

27

1.4 (0.4)

LARB

35

11 (31)

7 (20)

28

1.3 (0.4)

Lightspeed

28

16? (57)

14 (50)

3

9.3 (2.8)

CSZ

23

19 (80)

8 (35)

17

1.4 (0.4)

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Stephanie Clarkson fundraiser sale

21 Jul, 2016

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I’ve known Stephanie Clarkson since she was a young teen hanging around my game store. I saw her grow up and find her place as an adult. Recently, she struggled with major health problems. Just as she seemed to have turned the corner on that, she was diagnosed with cancer. Stephanie died on July 19th, 2016.

Patricia Washburn is raising funds for Stephanie’s final expenses. To help her in this, I am running a seventy-two hour sales: commissions are half off ($50 a review) and all funds raised from reviews commissioned between now and 10 AM, July 24rd will be forwarded to Patricia.

Aside from price, the usual terms apply.

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June 2016 in Review

29 Jun, 2016

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This may seem like it is a day early but tomorrow is the day I set aside for the next Young People Review Old SFF post. I don’t want to dilute people’s attention so no JNR post tomorrow. 

20 books reviewed. 10 by women, 10 by men. F/T = 0.5

5 books by POC, or 25% 

My second least productive month this year and I am not entirely sure why, although reserving Thursday for YPROSFF is a factor. I didn’t feel like I was letting productive time slip away, like I did in February when I was dealing with the effects of incessant sabotage by FASS committee members I had thought were my friends and allies. May they have long, disappointing lives1. Anyway, doing stuff but not all of it shows up here. 

F/T is a bit low while %POC is a bit higher than usual for related reasons: I have been chewing my way through YKK, which is written by a POC who is a guy. I neglected to take into account what devoting one fifth of my reviews to one man’s series would do to F/T while being mindful of how it would affect %POC. Since I made the same oversight regarding F/T back when I was reviewing The Great Heinlein Juveniles (Plus the Other Two), I probably will make the same mistake in the future. 

Year to date

125 books read. 73 by women (0.58), 50 by men (0.4), 2 by authors who identifies as neither (0.02). 30 by POC (0.24). To put in context:

Key: WNB stands for ​“women and non-binary genders”, while POC stands for ​“person of colour”. R/R stands for ​“reviews/reviewers”. Figures in brackets are percentages; for R/R the percentage represents the site’s R/R over my 2015 R/R.

Review source

Total

WNB (%)

POC (%)

Reviewers

R/R (%)

James Nicoll Reviews 2015

329

195 (59)

45 (14)

1

329 (100)

Locus

324

163 (50)

22 (7)

17

19 (5.7)

SFX

165

48 (29)

10 (6)

30

5.5 (1,5)

Romantic Times

146

84 (57)

14 (10)

23

6.3 (1.9)

Tor

141

66 (47)

18 (13)

27

5.2 (1.7)

Strange Horizons

139

66 (48)

30 (22)

80

1.7 (0.5)

James Nicoll Reviews 2016

125

75 (60)

30 (24)

1

125 (38)

Rising Shadows

83

25 (30)

1 (1)

2

41.5 (12.6)

Interzone

67

21 (31)

7 (10)

19

3.5 (1)

F&SF

59

32 (54)

5 (9)

5

11.8 (3.6)

Analog

58

10 (17)

3 (4)

1

58 (17.6)

Io9

56

17 (30)

12 (21)

10

5.6 (1.7)

Asimov’s

53

21 (23)

3 (6)

3

17.7 (5.4)

Vector

52

18 (35)

4 (8)

26

2 (0.6)

SFS

45

48 (21)

2 (4)

38

1.2 (0.3)

NYRSF

42

11 (26)

6 (13)

24

1.8 (0.5)

Foundation

38

9 (24)

1 (3)

27

1.4 (0.4)

LARB

35

11 (31)

7 (20)

28

1.3 (0.4)

Lightspeed

28

16? (57)

14 (50)

3

9.3 (2.8)

CSZ

23

19 (80)

8 (35)

17

1.4 (0.4)


As it is, it looks like I will have about 250 reviews this year. One way of looking at it is ​“much lower than in 2015” but another way of looking at it is ​“on a reviews per reviewer basis, roughly forty-five times as productive as the median reviewer who Strange Horizons deigns to notice. 

Once I read one more book by a POC, I will have read more books by POC than any of the sites that made Strange Horizons annual round up, which once again my site did not. Not that I keep grudges. You ask anyone who knows what’s good for them and they will tell you I am a forgiving person. 

1: There was at least the hilarity of the main ringleader and her minion being publicly compared to Hinz’s Paratwa by someone who was not me. Personally, I think the comparison is pretty harsh. The moral here is never accept seemingly complementary comparisons based on books you have not read. Or googled, apparently. 

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Abusing the Strange Horizons 2015 Count for Personal Benefit

10 May, 2016

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Strange Horizons has just posted their sixth "SF count" of representation in SF reviewing. It's very interesting and I recommend you look at it. Sadly, they never have the space to include this site so I've helpfully created a table with entries for James Nicoll Reviews, both for the whole of 2015 and also for 2016 thus far.

Enjoy!


Key: WNB stands for "women and non-binary genders", while POC stands for "person of colour". R/R stands for "reviews/reviewers". Figures in brackets are percentages; for R/R the percentage represents the site's R/R over my 2015 R/R.


Review source

Total

WNB (%)

POC (%)

Reviewers

R/R (%)

James Nicoll Reviews 2015

329

195 (59)

45 (14)

1

329 (100)

Locus

324

163 (50)

22 (7)

17

19 (5.7)

SFX

165

48 (29)

10 (6)

30

5.5 (1.5)

Romantic Times

146

84 (57)

14 (10)

 23

6.3 (1.9)

Tor

141

66 (47)

18 (13)

27

5.2 (1.6)

Strange Horizons

139

66 (48)

30 (22)

80

1.7 (0.5)

James Nicoll Reviews 2016

88

57 (65)

21 (25)

1

88 (n/a)

Rising Shadows

83

25 (30)

1 (1)

2

41.5 (12.6)

Interzone

67

21 (31)

7 (10)

19

3.5 (1)

F&SF

59

32 (54)

5 (9)

5

11.8 (3.6)

Analog

58

10 (17)

3 (4)

1

58 (17.6)

Io9

56

17 (30)

12 (21)

10

5.6 (1.7)

Asimov's

53

21 (23)

3 (6)

3

17.7 (5.4)

Vector

52

18 (35)

4 (8)

26

2 (0.6)

SFS

45

48 (21)

2 (4)

38

1.2 (0.3)

NYRSF

42

11 (26)

6 (13)

24

1.8 (0.5)

Foundation

38

9 (24)

1 (3)

27

1.4 (0.4)

LARB

35

11 (31)

7 (20)

28

1.3 (0.4)

Lightspeed

28

16? (57)

14 (50)

3

9.3 (2.8)

CSZ

23

19 (80)

8 (35)

17

1.4 (0.4)

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April 2016 in Review

30 Apr, 2016

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21 books reviewed. 15 by women, 6 by men. F/T = 0.71

4 books by POC, or 19% 

Year to date

82 books read. 51 by women (0.62), 29 by men (0.35), 2 by authors who identifies as neither (0.02). 21 by POC (0.26)

One way to look at 21 books by POC is ​“a lot fewer than I wanted by this point”, but another way is to look at where I was this time last year:

MonthTotal 2015/ Total 2016POC 2015/ POC 2016% 2016/ %2016
January25/220/30/14
February24/182/88/44
March28/212/67/29
April26/210/40/19%
Total103/824/214/26

You have to squint to see the difference but it is there. 

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March 2016 in Review

1 Apr, 2016

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21 books reviewed. 12 by women, 8 by men. 1 by an author who identifies as neither. F/T = 0.57

6 books by POC, or 29% 

Year to date

61 books read. 36 by women (0.59), 23 by men (0.38), 2 by an author who identifies as neither (0.03). 17 by POC (0.28)

61 books in 91 days. I feel physically ill. My productivity is still crap

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February 2016 in review

2 Mar, 2016

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I’ve had savage beatings that affected my ability to work less than did FASS 2016. Oh, well.

18 books reviewed. 12 by women, 5 by men. 1 by an author who identifies as neither, which I am a bit embarrassed to admit is a first for me. F/T = 0.67

My Big Plan for February was to honour Black History month. Every book I read on my own time (non-sponsored, and not part of the Tanith Lee project) was to be by a black author. How well did I do, you ask? 8 books by POC, or 44% But 8 isn’t a big number: the only reason it’s 44% is because I basically read almost nothing in February. Worse, I read two books by Butler when it would have been trivial to avoid such a cliched choice of author to read twice in this context. But at least I have a long list of books to read. 

Year to date

40 books read. 24 by women (0.60), 15 by men (0.38), 1 by an author who identifies as neither (0.02). 11 by POC (0.28)

40 books in 60 days. I feel physically ill. 


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January 2016 in review

2 Mar, 2016

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I was involved in FASS 2016 in a fairly senior role. This ate into my ability to work a lot more seriously than I expected so these stats are going to be pretty ugly:

22 books read. 12 by women, ten by men. F/T = 0.54

3 books by POC1. POC/T = 14%. But I had a plan to make sure my February numbers would be better. More to come.…

1: I’ve been using ​“could be deported or worse by President Trump” as a litmus test. Given Trump’s now backed by Duke and Farrakhan, should I be counting Jews as POC? 


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