Cluster 01, containing 11 reviews overall, is dubbed the Science Fiction cluster. This is because more than half of the reviews it contains are Science Fiction reviews (6), which make up 25 percent of all Science Fiction reviews in the network. This is followed by Horror/ Thriller (3) and one review of Mystery and Romance respectively. In the network, we see ties to the Mystery (04), Horror/Thriller-Science Fiction (08) and Horror/Thriller Clusters (07). If we look at the words that characterize this cluster, “sci fi” is at the very top and the only genre description in this collection. Noticeably, the reviews of other genres in this cluster do not use this description, while there are Science Fiction reviews describing books as Horror, which leads to the assumption that there are overlaps in the Science Fiction sample.
While there are some unique content words inside this (“police”, “checkpoint”, “campus” and “camp”), we also see words that indicate reading experience (“feel”, “satisfying”, “enough”, “chill”, “able”, “terrifying” and “seat”). Also, there are some general descriptors (“half”, “random”, “really”, “main”, and “character”); as well as additional information: (“podcast”, “sequel”).
| Category | Keyword |
|---|---|
| Genre | sci, fi |
| Experience | feel, satisfying, enough, chill, able, terrifying, seat |
| General descriptors | half, random, really, main, character |
| Content | police, checkpoint, campus, camp |
| Additional information | podcast, sequel |
| Other | none |
Absorption-wise we see peaks in Anticipation, Anticipation Book Series, Sympathy and Emotional Connection. The most frequently used tag, Anticipation, is reflected in “seat”, which is exclusively used in the expression “I was on the edge of my seat”. The Emotional Engagement dimension is particularly surprising here, since it is quite underrepresented in Science Fiction reviews in general1 and all Science Fiction reviews that contain Emotional Engagement seem to be accumulated in this cluster.
This could be explained by the notion that the terms “character” and especially “main character” seem to play an important role in this cluster, appearing 23 times, eleven of which in absorption-statements. While 10 out of 11 reviews mention them, only two of them state their actual names. This could be the reason why this term doesn’t appear in the keywords of other clusters that show high Emotional Engagement such as cluster 11, as we will see further on. The reviews that mention the names of characters are the only Romance review, which presents the two main characters by name (Hopeless759745), and a Science Fiction review, which only argumentatively uses two of the side characters to criticize the author’s work: “Ruth Rae is in the book and then she’s not. Heather Hart is there and gone and there again. Every character has their own 20 page appearance before they are cast aside into the void again.” (FlowMyTearsThe13596533) The main character on the other hand, who is referred to several times, remains nameless. It could be argued that for the reviewers in this cluster characters mostly serve as an essential part to drive the plot that one can sympathize with rather than objects of affection one can profoundly relate to: “they were engaging and dynamic enough to carry the plot and for me to care what happened to them” (Contagion12842567); “Hoover is able to allow the readers to understand the characters like the back of their own hand, and it’s because of this full understanding that the reader is able to enjoy the book so much.” (Hopeless759745) As we can see in the keywords “chill” and “terrifying” describing the experience readers are looking for, they don’t attribute this to specific plot points or entities, but more to the atmosphere of the story-world and to narrative choices like point of view and pacing. Sometimes this is mentioned in a positive manner: “I personally could really feel the paranoia that this world he crafted was submerged in” (FlowMyTearsThe13596608); “The snippets from the pov of the ‘boy’ really added to the tension and the sense of danger that ran through the whole book.” (Contagion12842567); “it was paced really well and kept the tension throughout the whole novel.” (WelcomeToTheDa12795153) Other times it appears as criticism: “The bad parts were that he never uses much of this world!” (FlowMyTearsThe13596533); “it’s just not my favorite POV to read because I feel like it takes me longer to connect to the books” (WelcomeToTheDa12795153); “I can see where some people would have thought the first half of the book being slow” (AliceIsnTDead12815952).
The verb “feel” occurs 17 times in the cluster, eight times in seven of the 38 absorption-statements. Even though one would instinctively associate that with the expression of emotion (especially given that this cluster contains a lot of references to the Horror genre) having a closer look at the usage of this term in context paints a different picture. About half of the times “feel” comes up, it is used to describe the atmosphere or in relation to the characters. In the other half, however, “feel” is often used as a hedging-device2 to positively or negatively critique writing and plot while not claiming their stance to be read as objective truth, but as their subjective experience: “This whole book felt like it could be a short story that was bloated” (FlowMyTearsThe13596533).
Click to see concordance of "feel"
| docname | pre | key word | post |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atmosphere | |||
| WelcomeToTheDa12795153 | From the very beginning I could | feel | the tension |
| Contagion12842611 | The story was dark and intriguing and I | felt | like I was there with the crew on Achlys |
| FlowMyTearsThe13596608 | I really | felt | that this book captured the paranoid and mystical feel of |
| FlowMyTearsThe13596608 | the paranoid and mystical | feel | of P.K.D . While I still have yet to read |
| FlowMyTearsThe13596608 | I personally could really | feel | the paranoia that this world he crafted was submerged in |
| Writing | |||
| Contagion12842579 | I would call this book cinematic . Reading it | felt | like watching a movie in the best way possible . |
| WelcomeToTheDa12795153 | liked the characters , for the most part , and | felt | that there was enough given about each character to feel |
| AliceIsnTDead12815952 | I | felt | like the pacing of the story was good . |
| AliceIsnTDead12815952 | the book being slow but I didn’t | feel | that way . |
| FlowMyTearsThe13596533 | This whole book | felt | like it could be a short story that was bloated |
| FlowMyTearsThe13596533 | they just | feel | like padding . |
| WelcomeToTheDa12795153 | it’s just not my favorite POV to read because I | feel | like it takes me longer to connect to the books |
| Characters | |||
| WelcomeToTheDa12795153 | there was enough given about each character to | feel | something for them. |
| Contagion12842611 | Sometimes , while reading sci-fi , it | feels | difficult to connect with the characters and truly care |
| Contagion12842579 | The characters all | felt | real , their motivations clear but sometimes complicated . |
| Plot | |||
| FlowMyTearsThe13596533 | WHY the main character doesn’t exist . . . it | feels | . . . bizarre ? absurd ? not really satisfying |
| WelcomeToTheDa12795153 | it was setting up for the sequel , but I | felt | like I didn’t really get any closure with this book |
Lastly, it is noticeable that according to the keyness-analysis the word “author” is used significantly less frequently in this cluster (zero times) than in the overall corpus. Nevertheless, approximately half of the reviews do mention the author, albeit by name, which due to the data-cleaning is not reflected in that observation.
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It should be noted that the comparison drawn here and the following is between a ratio-measure, where we see the degree of representation of Absorption dimensions in the different genres and the absolute number of absorption statements in the clusters. ↩
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Hedges are linguistic devices that lower the epistemic status of a statement. They indicate that the statement is only a conjecture or a personal opinion (Hyland, 1998, p. 351). ↩