Why Lobsters?

Hello Dear Readers!

I can’t remember if I’ve ever talked about why we at Blacksteel Press rate things in Lobsters, so I figured it was worth bringing up again as I will be doing quite a few posts about reviews in the near future.

One time, several years ago, I had a dream that Dustin, Phil, and I made a board game. It was called “Hot Lobster” and we were all going to test play this game to make sure it was good before we moved on to production.

Of course when I told the guys about this all manner of ridiculousness ensued. There were many a lobster joke on the discord for weeks. I have no idea why but we all kind of latched onto the lobster and it became something of our unofficial mascot. We rate things in lobsters. It’s random and quirky and I think it suits us just fine. I suppose if you ever wanted to give something a .5 (half a star, or in our case, half a lobster) you could use a shrimp: 🦐. Ex) I give this book 3.5 Lobsters: 🦞🦞🦞🦐

I even went so far as to make a Hot Lobster logo as we briefly considered making that our name before we settled on Blacksteel Press. Who knows, maybe someday there will be a hot lobster board game.

But until next time dear reader, enjoy your books and your shellfish. Unless you’re allergic. Then stay far, far away. <3 Tiff

Tiff’s Lobster Rating Scale:

🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞 - A GREAT book, couldn’t put it down, still thinking about it after I’ve finished it, would read again, hit a lot of my ‘book sweet spots’.

🦞🦞🦞🦞 - A REALLY GOOD book, I genuinely enjoyed it.

🦞🦞🦞 - A GOOD book, not bad, but it didn’t leave me wanting more either.

🦞🦞 - Meh, JUST OK. I had serious problems with this book and did not enjoy it. I maybe didn’t finish it.

🦞 - This book was deplorable, and probably contained some highly inappropriate or questionable content.