Five Rivers Publishing has sent me PDFs of no less than four novels for review. EDGE Publishing is promising me PDFs. On Spec Magazine likewise. Four authors have given me hard copies and/or mailed me PDFs. All of it I will review.

All you slacker publishers and authors who haven’t sent me anything yet, get cracking! It’s a race! You don’t want to be left behind, do you?

Seriously, I do appreciate any and all review copy “freebies” I can get. My fixed pension income severely limits my purchasing power. I will do my best to acquire works from other publishers and authors by dropping by my favourite book store, White Dwarf Books, and asking what’s new and cheap (a couple of pocket books and magazines every month is about what I can afford) but if I am to meet my mandate of promoting as wide a variety of Canadian SF&F genre literature as I possibly can I must rely on the generosity of publishers and authors to “fill in the gaps” of the works I review.

After all, it’s yet another promotional opportunity in a world filled with confusing jibber jabber. How refreshing to find a review zine with so narrow and precise a focus. Tailor-made for the Canadian literati. OBIR Magazine is a slave to your success. It exists only for you!

And if you believe that… I’ve got a few acres of muskeg to unload…

I admit OBIR doesn’t even measure up to old newspapers. You can use those to wrap fish. OBIR not at all.

Still, the initial response to OBIR has been encouraging. Some people seem to enjoy reading it. For instance, I enjoy reading it, savouring every word, chuckling aloud at unexpected points, nodding my head over confessions of sage wisdom, and generally gaping slack-jawed in awe at the magnificent prose, but some would say I am not the most unbiased of OBIR readers. Figure my opinion is just as good as anyone else so I don’t know what they’re complaining about.

In any event, costs nothing to send me a PDF. My ability to read is even slower than my ability to think, but I will get around to writing a review eventually.

By the way, I fully recognize advance review copies are for my eyes only and must not be shared. No problem. I can be quite adult and responsible when required, as opposed to my usual gibbering, drooling ten year old persona–which I prefer by the way, being much more fun than pretending to be an adult. I assume the combination of my two personalities makes me a versatile critic. Some kind of critic.

One sad note. A gentleman offered to send me a review copy of his novel. Unfortunately he was an American published in Britain. My mandate is to promote and celebrate Canadian genre fiction. I will review foreigners published in a Canadian anthology or magazine, or Canadian authors in a foreign anthology or magazine, but there has to be a Canadian connection. I assure you no prejudice is involved. Simply a matter of foreign publications by foreign authors falling outside the scope of OBIR.

Remember, OBIR promotes Canadian SpecFicLit. That be its mandate.

Cheers all!    The Graeme.