As those who followed my BBoS Exterminator thread --
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,75044.0.html -- know, I picked up some 32 books in July and August to celebrate my purchase of a Kindle. I picked books that had no recent sales—many having a bestseller ranking in the hundreds of thousands—in order to ‘exterminate’ that author’s Beige Bar of Shame (the bar that an author sees in his monthly sales record that says ‘no sales to report during this period). At present, I no longer have any idea what most of these books are about, other than what the title suggests. I wondered if I’d find the ‘tons of crap’ that people have talked about when discussing ‘indie/self-published authors’. Thus far, in the reading of these books—I didn’t just buy them, I promised to read all of them, or at least try—I haven’t found that to be the case. You might think that a book with an Amazon Bestseller ranking of 400,000 would likely be . . . um . . . odious. Not necessarily true. I haven’t found a truly bad book yet and some very, very good ones.
Samuel Thews --
A Place Beyond The Map This is a wonderful story about a young Irish boy, Phinnegan Qwyk, who meets up with a Fae, Periwinkle Lark, and, by dint of an accident, gets transported to his world. There, the boy becomes the object of a search by the forces of not-niceness in order to rule the world, a tool for others to use in order to battle the forces of not-niceness, and something else entirely that no one suspects.
Though primarily aimed at children, Thews has created a story that can equally well be enjoyed by adults—and this adult certainly enjoyed the story. Thews is another story-teller. His book brings forth a detailed world full of wonder, danger and some derring-do. This story is ripe to engage the imaginations of children everywhere, as Phinnegan runs into fairy-tale characters of one form or another, and tricks, bluffs or pushes his way past obstacles that might daunt the bravest among us.
Phinnegan does all this for he has one overriding purpose: to get home. If I were a parent, I’d gladly pick up this book to read to my children. Even though I’m not a parent and have no children to read this to, I’m glad I picked it up. Another winner!
Christian Winter—
Splatterism: The Tragic Recollections of A Minotaur Assailant (Pars Prima: Hellenistic Asskicking)I went into this book with no preconceptions, for I’ve long forgotten any descriptions of the books and I do not go back and look—I just dive right in. Splatterism is one of those books that I enjoy for the journey, not the destination. And that’s good, ’cause I was never quite sure what was happening and why and, when I got to the end, I wasn’t sure where I was.
However, that didn’t matter, as Splatterism allows the reader to take time to ponder things great and small. You can, of course, just gloss over the philosophical questions it poses and still enjoy it, but much of the power of this novella comes allowing yourself to pause here and there in order to delve into your own mind.
For the record, Splatterism is a tale of the last living minotaur, Evander, and his journey in search of meaning. It occurs after a terrible war that destroyed the world. It is a well-written tale that stretches the mind of the reader. It gave me many fine moments of introspection—which I appreciated. It has been a long time since I read a book that caused me to think in such a manner and that alone was worth the price. The good writing, the amazing scenery, the elaborate worlds that Evander passes through, and the interesting puzzles that Mr. Winter provides were a bonus.
Thank you, sir, for another very enjoyable read.
G.S. Johnston --
Consumption: A NovelOnce again I plunged into a book with only the title as a clue to what lay within. Quickly, I concluded that I had stumbled into a Romance novel. Soon thereafter I began to doubt my conclusion. In the end, I wasn’t sure exactly where this novel fits—genre-wise. Literary? I’m not really sure what literary is.
Anyway, Sara Sexton is on the run. She left Greece suddenly, heading back home to Australia, with a stop at Hong Kong, where childhood friend Martin Blake has an interior design business. She’s left Greece for very personal reasons and is returning to familiar climes. Martin is familiar. Martin, however, is a consumer—I should have paid more attention to the title of the novel during my reading—and he consumes people as well as things. But he’s a friend, her oldest friend, and she feels she owes it to him to help—which causes problems in her life as she tries to get it back on track.
I found myself feeling ambivalent towards this book. In conclusion, I’d have to say that I didn’t really like it. Perhaps it struck a little too close to home and its dark side resonated to make it even darker for me. On the other hand, the story kept me interested and I had no problems finishing it. Some of the twists I saw coming, some I didn’t. I find it difficult to say much about the plot. Almost anything I say will be a spoiler and we don’t want that.
Again, even though I’m not as fond of Consumption as of some others, I have to say that we have here a very well-written book, this time dealing with the personal ups and downs of the main character, Sara, and her relationships. As I find I am not in the author’s target audience—actually, quite far from it—it makes it difficult to review. Johnston has created well-rounded, complex characters, and one could well imagine them to be real. The situations in which they find themselves seem real as well, and their decisions are decisions that any of us could imagine making. Some of those decisions turn out well; others turn out not so well.
So, I can’t fault Johnston for his writing, his formatting, his attention to detail or his story-telling. But it just ain’t my kind of book. On the other hand, I think that this book should not be languishing in the rankings. I find the fact that it is languishing rather depressing. If it could find its audience I’m sure it would do very well.
John Waylon --
Naughty Cheerleaders: Something To Cheer AboutThis book contains graphic language and descriptions and is intended for adult readers only.
Well, I suppose it had to happen: I picked up an erotica tale. Since I originally made my offer, I’ve been wondering how I’d review one. Now, it seems, I’ve my chance to find out. There are many different categories of erotica and Naughty Cheerleaders falls into the one where plot is almost incidental to the story; action is the name of the game. The plot can be summed up as follows: The college football team lost their game and ‘there is no joy in Mudville’—especially not at the after-game party. So, Heather and Lacy, two of the cheerleaders—still in uniform—decide to liven up the party with some hanky-panky and give the team “something to cheer about”. They start by putting on a show, and then the action spreads.
I’d be disappointed if Naughty Cheerleaders pretended to be anything other than it is—but it doesn’t. If you’re looking for plot twists and character development, you’re looking in the wrong place—and obviously so. If, instead, you wish a hot read about cheerleaders and football players and, pardon the pun, screw any literary pretensions, you’ve come to the right place and you’ll find the welcome mat out.
For me, however, Mr Waylon has missed the mark. When I think of a hot, young babe, I’m imagining a woman in her 40s with an agile mind that can excite me. Alas, I’ve yet to hit my mid-life crisis where I buy a red convertible and start going out with 20-year-old women . . . maybe next year. If you, on the other hand, have a more youthful turn of mind and want something to relieve the misery of writing a term paper on ‘War and Peace’ or creating that power-point presentation, you might find yourself in Mr Waylon’s target audience and enjoy a short break from reality.
The story itself is fairly well written. The book has a few formatting problems where entire paragraphs are indented, but that has never bothered me and I doubt it would dissuade those in Mr. Waylon’s target audience. It is, after all, the tail . . . er, tale that counts.
Tracy Marchini --
Hot Ticket (Middle Grade Mystery)Here’s another book for the mid-grade market.
Juliet is in the sixth grade and she has a mystery to solve. Someone is giving ‘Hot Tickets’ to people ‘for doing something cool, saying something funny, or sometimes just wearing something the ticket dispenser liked,’ and no one knows who. That certain someone also dispenses ‘shame tickets’. Juliet, herself, has received neither and that propels her into trying to discover just who the mystery person is and why that person refuses to give her her very own ‘hot ticket’ to proudly display. After all, she has done things worthy of said ticket.
Juliet makes lots of mistakes in her quest, many of which made me cringe, though they will no doubt please mid-grade readers who make enough of their own mistakes to empathize with Juliet—or to revel in their superior knowledge that ‘this’ (whatever ‘this’ happens to be at the time) is going to turn out to be a bad idea. [Unnecessary disclaimer: Being in my mid 50s, I am so not in Ms Marchini’s target audience.] However I might cringe at the antics of Juliet, it proves one thing: the author has made me care enough for the character to want her to not make what I know will be a mistake.
Hot Ticket is a nice, easy read, with twists and turns that its audience will probably not see coming. It even has a little bit of romance thrown in for good measure and comes to a satisfying ending.
I would not hesitate in recommending Hot Ticket to parents of mid-graders.
Alan Edward Parkinson --
Get In Get Out and Get Away - Memoirs of a National ServicemanAlan Parkinson was born in 1938 and grew up in wartime and postwar England. He left school at the age of 15 and became an apprentice fitter at Vickers shipbuilding works. In 1960, upon completion of his apprenticeship, the Ministry of Defence called Parkinson up for National Service and he became a member of the Kings Own Royal Border Regiment, where he remained for his two-year term.
The Kings Own Royal Border Regiment trained him in the arts of a soldier, deployed him with the rest of the Regiment to British Cameroon in Africa, brought him back home, demobilized him and returned him to civilian life.
This is his story, told in his own words—in his own voice.
Enough about Alan for the moment.
I write Science Fiction and Fantasy. However, I read widely, and one of my interests is History. The one aids the other. Through history, we can see how wider plots develop and ultimately unfold. They tend to repeat through the years and centuries. By understanding a little of history, a SF&F writer—using the ever-popular 'What If?'—can develop his (or her) own plots with a assurance that they will interest readers. Below the plot level, we develop characters, often conglomerations of people we know or have read about, engaged in actions we've experienced, seen, or read about.
Alan Parkinson has written a history book. It is not a polished tome, but a living book in the voice of a man who left school early. We can fault it for its punctuation (and I surely did want to add a bunch of commas in various places), we can fault it for certain grammatical and stylistic shortcomings, but we cannot fault it for its voice. Its voice is true and it depicts young men in an environment that most today would not recognize, living, playing, growing and, at times, suffering.
More than that, it is a memorial to the men that Alan Parkinson knew. Parkinson possesses a very good memory and he bears witness to the men who worked, played and suffered along side of him. Arnie Marquis' sense of humour will live on due to this book, as will the names of Lt. Olsen, Les Lowther and others.
Parkinson's books says: "We lived, accomplished things, did things we were proud of and some, with reflection, of which we are not so proud. Here is our story.”
Some of what Parkinson wrote will eventually find its way into books of mine. Not his words of course, not his characters or his locals. But his descriptions of how men reacted in certain situations, as well as those situations will give fuel to my own imagination and when I put a character in somewhat similar circumstances, be it on land or in space, I'll have something further to inform it. And that's what we all hope for when we write: That our words will affect those who read them in one form or another. In this Mr. Parkinson has succeeded with me.
Get In Get Out and Get Away accompanied me on a red-eye flight from Vancouver to Toronto and kept me occupied for much of that time. For both this and for his descriptions of life and place, I thank Mr. Parkinson. I think that his book could well do with a proofer (especially with regards punctuation, and commas in particular) and perhaps an editor. Much would be gained, but something, also, would be lost—some of the Voice which makes this book what it is.
I've worked alongside men who have English as a second language—and although Mr. Parkinson doesn't suffer from that, his British colloquialisms give it a foreign flavour to those of us on this side of the Atlantic—and from them I learned it isn't the words, the grammar, or the turn of phrase that count, it's the story. Some of the strange (to me) expressions I could translate, while others went forever over my head. Nonetheless, I found Get In Get Out and Get Away an interesting and, yes, enjoyable read. I appreciate Mr. Parkinson's story, thank him for recording it for people like me to read, and I believe that he has done his duty to those who served with him.
So, another 6 books down and I’ve yet to find the dreck of which we hear so much. Eighteen books so far, and although I can find fault with a few, although some aren’t my cup of tea, I’ve found not one that I consider coming close to ‘dreck’, even though none of them were doing well in the rankings, even though all are by self-pubbed authors. My only regret is that I’m not going through them as quickly as I thought. My own work takes up a lot of my time and, I have to admit, I hate writing reviews. (I finished the last book of this group before the New Year and only now have I finished the reviews.) I find telling SF&F stories much easier. Anyway, I hope the above is of some help to both you, the readers, and the authors.
So 18 down and 13 to go. The next will have to wait a while for I MUST get my next work out. It’s almost ready and one last push should do it. Then I’ll start reading again.
Previous posts:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,77340.0.html 7 authors, 7 books, 7 reviews
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php?topic=89333.0 5 authors, 5 books, 5 reviews
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