Sibilant Fricaplug

It's been a while here since I've had a bookplug post for the Sibilant Fricative: Essays and Reviews book (available as an ebook for the low-low price of £3.42), and I'd hate to leave you missing that sort of naked marketing. So here is a link to The OF Blog's review of the collection. And here is that review!

Confession: I have a difficult time pronouncing "sibilant." I frequently confound it somehow with silibant, which would make for an odd pun if one were pondering the merits of (unintentionally) comic novels. Puns of course being something with which followers of Roberts' Twitter account would be familiar. That weakness being confessed, here's another: Roberts is one of the best lit critics writing today, especially for those who deign to treat topics as varied as Robert Browning, Gene Wolfe, Christopher Priest, Maurice Sendak and Robert Jordan. Yes, Roberts' essays run the gamut from breaking down complex fictions into interesting, illuminating reviews to bringing to the fore Jordan's unfortunate penchant for writing quasi-clothing and tea porn. There are times where I disagreed with his conclusions but admired the way he argued his points. Then there were the times that I wanted to laugh aloud at how adroitly he could skewer a plot that deserved to die the death of a thousand pinpricks. If this isn't a testimony to how good Roberts is as a reviewer, then perhaps I should just say go forth and buy a copy and find out for yourself.

Do what the man says, why don't you.