autumn’s Reviews > Super Stories of Heroes & Villains > Status Update

21. Phillip José Farmer's Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke by Win Scott Eckert - the inclusion of this piece in the anthology REALLY tilts the bean can for me. we've already had stories that really stretch the definition of the word "superhero", but here we have a 5 page advertisement for another anthology that literally isn't even SLIGHTLY about superheroes. it's an essay extolling the virtues of another author and his oh so fascinating books and stories (an essay which was originally the preface to one of these books, which is exactly how it reads - a preface to a book you're not reading). what's even more obnoxious is that under other circumstances, they WOULD sound really interesting (a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-esque massive crossover of dozens of pop culture figures and how they're all actually related to Tarzan, but more scholarly), but because it's been brought up in this context it's just galling! (not to mention that all 5 pages are neatly summed up in the 3 sentence introduction written by the editor - making the actual essay seem redundant to me!) in an anthology like Nerdtastic, it would have been perfectly appropriate, but here the choice to include it is insufferable. people should really let authors/editors know that not every book has to be 500 pages! if you only have enough material for 300, 200 even, that's okay! it's not a page length competition! a quality/relevance vs quantity assessment would have REALLY done this book a service

TLDR: a 5 page ad for another anthology that literally isn't even about superheroes