The ubiquitous Harriet Klausner is omnipresent on the web, reviewing books for roughly 37,000 different sites. She's the #1 book reviewer at Amazon, runs a couple of her own review sites, and does reviews for magazines such as Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. I'm not sure how many reviews she posts each week, but it's several--maybe even a couple dozen.

Because of this, Harriet Klausner has become something of a mythical enigma--the online equivalent of a Bigfoot or UFO conspiracy. Some have suggested she doesn't read all of her books, but cobbles together reviews from back cover synopses and press materials. Others have accused her of being a borg-like entity: an amalgam of several different reviewers, reading and posting under a single pseudonym.

In any case, it's something of a thrill for me to be reviewed by Ms. Klausner; just a few days ago, I found, she posted a review at her SciFi/Fantasy/Horror review site "Alternative Worlds." Even better, she was very kind to my work, saying:

It is hard to believe this is T.L. Hines’ debut novel because it is so well written and the characters populating the storyline are believable. Visionary fiction is hard to write well but Mr. [Hines] does a great job of doing just that.

Okay, so she actually calls me "Mr. Holmes," but let's give her a break; surely such a prolific reviewer has earned more than a few of them.

As for the Klausner controversies: I can't be much help. I do feel, based on her comments, that she read the book. She mentions plot developments she wouldn't have gleaned from cover copy or any other existing press materials. I like to think Ms. Klausner is real, the literary equivalent of John Henry, pounding away at a sheer mountain of books in front of her.

And I thank her for picking my book out of that mountain.