This image was lost some time after publication.

Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs has garnered critical praise from the New York-based media. It's not Huck Finn, but it's a good read — better-written and deeper-thinking than the blog from which it sprang. So of course the Valley's local hacks hate it. Last week it was the SF Weekly. Now, CNET actively dis-recommends the book as a holiday gift. "Fake Steve's influence failed to reach very far outside Silicon Valley, and so the novelized version of the blog has a narrow potential audience indeed," claims the unsigned review (cough yellowbelly cough), in a clear break from reality. "Additionally, three CNET News.com reporters who read Options agreed that the book just isn't that good."

This is how they get you. When a reporter has a personal axe to grind, he or she goes out and finds three people who agree. In journalist-math, three's a trend. Here's my edit of CNET's take: I'm insanely greatly jealous that Dan Lyons has a book deal. Don't buy the book! I'm so tone-deaf to good writing that I can work at CNET all day. So are three other people. Namaste, Dan. I honor the place where your book and my rave review for The Wall Street Journal — have you heard of it? — become one.