Yeah, pretty much. As it happens, there's an Adam Roberts book (Yellow Blue Tibia) on my list of books to write reviews for. I like that book, but when he writes as a critic, he does stray into pseudish cockwaffle territory I'm afraid.
Example: "...an SF narrative so hard you'd need a sclerometer to measure it, but written with a sinuous, fin-de-siècle intensity".
I completely agree with you on the subject of spoilers. In fact, I try not to read any commercially published reviews until I've finished a book. That's partly to avoid spoilers and partly because I'd like to make up my own mind on whether it's any good or not. Obviously that's not always possible if you're reading books because they won an award or because they are an accepted classic. I promise that any review I write will be spoiler-free as far as possible, and if it isn't then I'll flag the spoilers above the cut.
no subject
Example:
"...an SF narrative so hard you'd need a sclerometer to measure it, but written with a sinuous, fin-de-siècle intensity".
I completely agree with you on the subject of spoilers. In fact, I try not to read any commercially published reviews until I've finished a book. That's partly to avoid spoilers and partly because I'd like to make up my own mind on whether it's any good or not. Obviously that's not always possible if you're reading books because they won an award or because they are an accepted classic. I promise that any review I write will be spoiler-free as far as possible, and if it isn't then I'll flag the spoilers above the cut.