Wank of the SF book reviewing variety- which pretty much automatically means, "Pretentious genre debate and flashing-credentials variety."

Paul Kincaid, a British SF reviewer, writes a review of the non-SF novel The Wild Girls for the SFSite. The review is pretty tepid, and was essentially only done because the author, Pat Murphy, has also written SF novels.

Literaticat, an American on LJ, disagrees.

( It's a MIDDLE GRADE novel, people )

The SF Blog Torque Control reports on both the review and the response, and the blog editor gives his own opinion, which falls solidly on Kincaid's side. This inspires a comment thread in which people from both sides show up to argue about what "middle grade" (a US book categorization that does not exist in the UK) should mean, and whether a UK reviewer is obligated to be familiar with the US book market's labels before he reviews a book.

Kincaid then responds with a quiet but decisive takedown of Literaticat's opinion:

( This is patent balderdash )

Will there be further developments in the exciting saga of what we should call this marketing category? Stay tuned!