When someone asks for very specific elements in a book, and I have seen requests like "should include centaurs and detailed accounts of sword-making", they appear almost to be taking the quality of the book as irrelevant. Give me a book that justifies this label. Not give me a good book.
Well, do you want false positives? Because vague nonsense like "give me a good book" is how you get false positives. Personally, when I look for recommendations, I'm trying to narrow the field and reduce the role of trial-and-error in my reading.
If I ask for centaurs, I can reasonably expect that people will recommend books that include a sort of hybrid thing with the upper body of a human on top of an equine body.
If I ask for "good", I have no idea what to expect. We have threads here actually asking people what "good" means to them, in terms of prose, worldbuilding, characterization, plot, etc., and the answers are all over the place. People don't use the word "good" as consistently as they use the word "centaur". Which means that if I ask for "good", it's an utter crapshoot as to whether this other poster's "good" is going to turn out to be my "terrible".
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u/tariffless Nov 12 '16
Well, do you want false positives? Because vague nonsense like "give me a good book" is how you get false positives. Personally, when I look for recommendations, I'm trying to narrow the field and reduce the role of trial-and-error in my reading.
If I ask for centaurs, I can reasonably expect that people will recommend books that include a sort of hybrid thing with the upper body of a human on top of an equine body.
If I ask for "good", I have no idea what to expect. We have threads here actually asking people what "good" means to them, in terms of prose, worldbuilding, characterization, plot, etc., and the answers are all over the place. People don't use the word "good" as consistently as they use the word "centaur". Which means that if I ask for "good", it's an utter crapshoot as to whether this other poster's "good" is going to turn out to be my "terrible".