Earlier this month I wrote about the frustration of receiving so many books that I do not want to review in place of books I have requested that never arrive. In response to that post I did hear from Jay Lake, whose book Escapement was one I had requested from Tor and was hoping to include in my June column. Jay sent an ARC my way and I finished reading it last night and was dutifully impressed both by his very original steampunk/clockwork world and his brave, smart and determined teen heroine. Escapement will be most positively reviewed by me in a couple of months.

So thank you Jay!

I also heard from Dutton on Gods of Manhattan which I had requested for my July column - and a copy was sent my way right away and from Tor which got a copy of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother right to me and promised to have all other Tor books I had requested months before (including Jay's) sent my way immediately. None of those have arrived but a second copy of Cory's book showed up today. I'm hoping this means that Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson and The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt might eventually arrive as well. (Oh and if anyone would like to read Little Brother and hopefully blog about it, please send me an email and I will happily pass this second copy along.)

I also heard from Mayra Lazara Dole whose Down to the Bone I requested from Harper Collins last September but never received. Mayra asked if she could send a copy and as I have a couple of different columns where that book would fit, (either at Bookslut or Eclectica) I was quite pleased to hear from her. So far, writing that post was looking like a stroke of genius; I am now up four books that I was planning to review and likely never would have seen otherwise.

And then today I received a package from Harper Collins and was hopeful that I was still on a roll and it might contain one of the titles I requested that is due out shortly (Me, the Missing and the Dead by Jenny Valentine or Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell) but no - what I had were six different books on the new Narnia movie.

Six different books on a movie.

I've got the original Prince Caspian in mass market with the new movie cover and movie images inside, the trade version of Caspian with new movie cover and slightly different movie images inside, "Prince Caspian: Fight for the Throne" - which is based on the new movie, "Prince Caspian: Lucy's Journey" and "Prince Caspian: This is Narnia" both in the "I Can Read" format (reading level 2) and the Prince Caspian Movie Storybook which proudly announces "Based on the New Movie!"

Now, not only do I not understand why I received these books to review, I don't understand why anyone would receive these books to review. No one buys these books based on a review - they buy them because their kid loves the movie and wants to read about it. It is beyond bizarre to me that anyone would send out a a new edition of a novel that was published decades ago just because it has a new cover. (And I have to say - the young star is no Viggo Mortensen that's for sure.)

Sending out these books to be reviewed makes as much sense as the Dora the Explorer titles I received from Simon & Schuster last week (I am not making this up) or the depressing string of Gossip Girl copycat series that come my way from every direction. Why would any publisher send out these books to reviewers? They are going to sell to their target markets regardless of reviews. Is this really what some publishers think the litblogosphere is good for?

Or is it just me? Am I the only one being targeted for movie tie-ins and cartoon characters? (Please God let it not just be me....)

I can not help but think that internet reviewers still feel so grateful to be taken seriously enough to review that as a group we accept wildly inappropriate titles as the price for getting the ones we actually want and hope to write about. But six books on Prince Caspian is the limit for me. If this is what Harper Collins thinks is most appropriate for my column at Bookslut (because as you know, Harper Collins does not send out lists for reviewer requests - they send out strictly what they think you should get) then I just don't see any reason to review Harper Collins titles anymore. This is a publisher that puts so little thought into marketing its books to internet reviewers that I feel like my valuable time is being wasted unpacking their boxes and then unloading the books they dump on me.

To be blunt, I don't need this.

The shame of it is that Harper Collins does publish some truly great books (Jenny Davidson's The Explosionist will be in my June column and I loved it - one of my favorite reads this year) but as a company, it is way behind the curve when it comes to the internet and I for one am running out of patience waiting for their PR department to catch up. HC YA authors should take note - if your books aren't being reviewed much there could be a very troubling reason for that - the PR folks are spending their time sending out movie tie-ins instead of novels and ignoring the whole point of what a review is for.

Looks like some of you are just going to have to do their work for them.