Review: I read this book for my radio show review with Dawn Tevy on Angels and Warriors. I must admit, when I finished it, I had a three page long insult for this guy. But then I spoke with his mother on the radio and got his story and now... well, I feel bad giving him a negative review. But, I cannot lie to Linda's readers, so here is the truth. I did not like this book at all. (And that says a lot for a woman who cannot talk politics because they make her so angry!) Generally I try to find something good about a book, but I could not find it here. There were a lot of grammatical errors, the characters were flat. The massive contradiction in the story just rub me the wrong way. (One example: the internet hacking group, M.O.D., is fighting to get back to the constitutional rights of citizens; but has stolen money, weapons and other equipment from the U.S. for this purpose. Their members live in an Utopian society where people set their own work hours, choose what they want to do and get paid whatever they need to live. Very, socialist/communist society! And how does this jive with the Constitution?!?!?) The whole story is surreal and science fiction, at best. Which would be fine if it were not set in 2009! Hmm... but you get it, I don't like it at all!
Author: And here is why I am not totally bombing this book. The guy who wrote it is in jail, for a crime he claims he did not commit. He says his ex-wife set him up to keep him from getting custody of their two daughters. Now, I am not gonna weigh in on whether or not I think he is innocent or guilty, but the guy wrote this book (and about 20 others) on an old-school type writer. He does not have the same capabilities of research that are at the fingertips of most writers. And given that pens and pencils can be used as weapons in prison, I'm guessing he doesn't have a whole lot of access to those either. Which seriously limits the pre-planning phase most authors go through. Could I have done better under his circumstances? Mmmm... don't know, don't want to find out!
Rating ** Two Stars
2 comments:
You're being a bit too nice in my opinion, while the author may be in jail for reasons of his fault or not, while he may be limited on his abilities to plan and research, and any other hoops he may have jumped through to write and publish this novel there is a quality expected of a finished novel, this book does not meet it on any level. While I appreciate that you're honest about the quality and that you offer compassion to not completely "bomb" the book in reality the book is horrible. The points I want to make are simple 1. While the author may not have the research tools available to him in prison, know what you want to write about. As readers if we read the book and find conflicts in the content usually we're not doing research to find that its wrong; you just know its wrong. If you don't know what a socialist or communist is, don't write a story involving them. In my opinion the old saying it is better to appear a fool in silence then to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. Simply if you don't know don't pretend too, cause it comes off bad to those who do. 2. While brain storming is a handy way to concisely put all of your thoughts together on where you want the story to go and how you want it to flow, if you skip that step that's what rough, 1st, and 2nd drafts are for. Before you reach final draft you should have read your own story a dozen times, and corrected errors. Whether they be grammar, timeline, or storyline. If he was aware their were errors he shouldn't have published. If he wasn't aware then he didn't proof read it enough. I can understand feeling for a persons position, I also offer my sympathies as prison isn't the place I would want to try and write a book. As for a review of this Novel, 2 stars is too high.
Thanks for the comment! You aren't that far off ;) But I tried to separate my writer's feelings with a general reviewer's feelings! It was tough!
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