Review: Handling the Undead

Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I was disappointed by Handling the Undead.

Unlike the author's other book Let the Right One In, I didn't feel any investment in the main characters. I didn't feel their suffering like I did Oskar's.

The author's twist on the zombie story also lacked horror.

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Review: Last Scene Alive

Last Scene Alive by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Found Last Scene Alive in the new book section of my local library. I generally like Charlaine Harris novels and have read other books in the Aurora Teagarden series.

It was not a bad book – but the ‘but’ is, I didn’t find it thrilling , gripping, or something that I’d label as enjoyable to recommend to others. Last Scene Alive is a formulaic murder mystery.

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Updates

Healthwise, I had a week of earache.  Better now.

After August 31st, I did not keep writing full steam ahead with Neferseshotep because there were some things bothering me in what I already wrote.  Part of what I rewrote is the excerpt I had up on the blog, so I've updated that (on the Neferseshotep tab, up on top).  More conflict - even though neither character is voicing it.   Would a good comparison be two guys giving each other fist-crushing hand shakes while exchanging pleasantries?

I plan to outline the sequel for The End of the World Sucks in October, then write it during November (National Novel Writing Month).  I have a couple of small ideas already, but I'm trying to concentrate on Neferseshotep, which may be published after the Sucks sequel because it's not as simple so editing may be more time consuming.  My Egyptian priest presents deeper problems than Vanna's quest to stay alive.

This weekend I had my first book signing at a golf outing for Summit Animal Rescue.  I was already signed up to volunteer for an indoor position, and another volunteer in the group has written a children's book about cats ... long story short ... I'll be working the sales table with magnets, t-shirts and the books for the day.  

Coincidentally, I only found out last week that one of my neighbors has also written her first book.  She is going the traditional publishing route, has a publisher, and is about to receive some cover art to look over.  I didn't get much more info than the proposed title and she's a member of the NJ chapter of Sisters in Crime.

I think it's fantastic that others are actually doing something rather than thinking - 'One day I'm going to write a book...'   I do need to get my act in gear so we can crosspost info.  I'm missing facts since I'm unable to come up with decent search results through Google.   Sorry - I was doing yard work, and unprepared for books to spring up in the conversation so didn't have 'I'm an author' business cards handy. 

Last week, I had been reading about authors paying for reviews.  From writing fan fiction for so long, I know the read -> review rate is low.  Less than one review for every hundred page views, and that includes troll reviews from sockpuppet accounts that seem to have a thing for me.   So I was thinking that four reviews on my book after only two months wasn't dreadful based on the quantity of sales because I was slightly ahead.   I was also pleased with them because they were reviews with substance.

As you can see from a previous blog post, I kept my costs low to self-publish.  I'm not at a breakeven point yet, but I'm creeping towards it. So I'm wondering if I could buy 50 5-star reviews on Amazon for $999 - what does that get me?  That's a lot more books that I would need to sell. Will 50 rave reviews sell them for me?  What are these reviews going to say, if the reviewer doesn't read the book? 

Anyone can come along and give it a poor review still.  Also, I would write an angrier review if I felt I was duped into buying a book.  The Amazon rating system might let the angry/disappointed review disappear off the page, but all anyone needs to do is click on 1 or 2 star reviews to find it. 

While downloading some free Kindle books, I succumbed to the temptation to search for my book.  One of my reviews was gone.  Since I hadn't taken a screen shot of it I have to rely on my memory, but I think it was a verified Amazon purchase.  Only having four, I did note that one was not a verified purchase, but that one's still listed. 

It might be that I have some sort of mental disorder, but I did wonder about the one review that was not an Amazon purchase.  It's not even about uncovering who it is, they can keep their anonymity.  I'm curious about how they read my book - the one Nook copy that was sold belongs to someone I know who does not have an Amazon account.  The paperback either needs to be purchased through Amazon or me, and they can't get one from me until I have a book signing.  Could someone have made a purchase through Amazon and thought so well of my book they loaned it to someone, and then that second person's so taken by it, they jumped on Amazon to leave a review?  That seems ridiculously optimistic of me.

So now that I've admitted I think about 'how'd that happen?'  over little things, I was curious what happened to that missing review.    Why would someone take the time to write a review, and then delete it a month later?  I emailed Amazon to see if it was Amazon or the customer that removed it.  Customers can do whatever they like, but if it was Amazon, I'd like to know why so I can dispute it if the reason is not sufficient.  I got a scripted reply back that Amazon can only discuss it with the reviewer.  That doesn't answer my question.

But then, I received a new four-star review.  It's a good review, and since it's four stars I have a little variety on the page.  Hooray for four stars.

Review: Demon's Night

Demon's Night by Guido Henkel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I enjoyed Demon’s Night very much – despite my Kindle app dropping the book from my library numerous times – I kept remembering to go back and pick it back up.

This is old school, black and white horror that isn’t trying to gross the reader out. I can go both ways with that, but Guido Henkel is working against the current trend of guts, disgust and foul language.

Fast paced with lots of action that doesn’t sacrifice the characters for the sake of action.



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Review: The Silver Collar

The Silver Collar by Kate Policani

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A very nice short story.

I thought of instances within it for possible violence, yet Kate avoided them all.





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Review: The Falcon and His Desert Rose

The Falcon and His Desert Rose by George R. Lasher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I’m going to give this four stars for the premise and parts of the plot.

At times the story moved too fast to get a feel for the characters. I do enjoy characters that are neither white hat or black hat. Though Horus/Horace’s moral compass was a late bloomer due to the restrictive environment he was raised in, I hoped for better. More time with any of the three main characters should have added depth, rather than shadowing a superhero/villain relationship origin story.

The not-too-distant future was not well received. It may be because I don't care about reminiscing about any Red Sox victory, or the exciting advancements regarding cell phones and cars.

I would not discount the stars based on minor details, but I'm an obsessive type so there were some trivial things that caught my attention that should have been caught in editing.  An average height woman does not weigh 78 pounds.  If it was a mistake between kg and lbs, 78kg = 172#.  I think the old adage should be adhered to - never inquire after a lady's weight.  I also recall the mention of Safeway supermarket near MIT (Boston MA).  I don't know why I focus on store names, but Safeway is not in the New England area, or even the mid-Atlantic.  Some people are fickle about their grocery stores - like Alec Baldwin's mom refusing to move away from Wegman's.



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Review: Speed Dating with the Dead

Speed Dating with the Dead by Scott Nicholson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Speed Dating with the Dead has a King/Shining feel to it, even though it’s during a ghost hunter convention. Besides set in a hotel, I think it’s because the main character is an alcoholic who falls off the wagon due to demonic stress.

Other than the reliance on the alcoholic trope, everything else about this novel was very nice. It takes the modern fascination with ghost spotting, along with the equipment and assorted people that are in ‘the biz’, and puts them somewhere that they can have real experiences so they can react based on their backgrounds and beliefs.




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Review: Atticus for the Undead

Atticus for the Undead by John Abramowitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A good genre blender that moves quickly. The legal bits don’t drag out the story.

Insertion of a mix of supernaturals in the real world is something I find enjoyable. The author does not waste time redefining how his vampires/zombies/witches are different. Where there’s differences, the readers are told up front, when they need to know it.

Characters have a trope feel (the boss blind to his assistant’s crush on him), but not overly so.




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Review: City of Ashes

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



An improvement over City of Bones which I did give 4 stars.

There were some plot tweaks that I would have preferred, but this series has books to go so nothing's written in stone yet.

There's drama, conflict, miscommunication, and more than one single-thread plot going on. All things I like.



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Review: Flesh Eaters

Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Just when I was thinking I was in a rut and getting snobbish over things I read, I picked up Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney. I’ve enjoyed Joe’s earlier books, and this one does not disappoint. 5 stars.

This is a story about tragedy and how people respond. It did fall short on having a populace of Houston act individually. It begins to explore the theme of individuality as people do whatever they like, despite the effect on the overall community, but too many faceless thousands were meekly going with the flow. Since the scope was on a few main characters, random people freaking out (besides zombies) and horning in on the action would have diluted the story. It’s also due to who the main characters are that the reader knows there are thousands of survivors gathering and queuing up for rescue/evacuation.

The book follows some full-fledged characters that Joe describes well. I may not have liked them, but I had a sense of who they are.

Joe does write zombies graphically, but every page doesn't have zombies. Joe's zombies are actually live people that are infected with a new infectious disease that turns them dumb, cannibal, and immune to feeling injury.




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Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Fantastic idea, and the use of old photographs adds to the overall package.

I'm sorry to say the story and characters did not particularly grab me. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood to read this story because I was expecting more creep-out factor, more gore and such. That's my fault because I knew this was in the Young Adult section, and it is a fine work for younger readers.



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Review: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading this author's work with The Infernal Devices series. From only reading the first book of Mortal Instruments, I have to say I prefer the second series. It may be the author has matured.


Overall, I liked the story. Clary's not my favorite type of heroine, but she doesn't annoy the crap out of me. That's actually meant as praise.

Like Clare's other series, I like the premise of the world and she does a good job of drawing the reader in.
The young members of the Shadowhunters don't catch my interest - perhaps because I've read a bit too much of this type of genre in the past.

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Review: Deadlocked

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I should have been suspicious when it was on the library shelf so soon after release. I had not enjoyed the last couple installments, and I suppose that is how others are feeling.


Deadlocked (#12) book is an improvement over Dead Reckoning (#11).


I'm hoping this series will go out with a bang rather than a whimper.


It seems the purpose of Deadlocked is to set up book 13 - the final chapter. The subplots I have an interest in did not move. I angle towards the vampire action - not the fairies or werewolves.
There is a mystery - Southern Vampire Mysteries - introduced which is solved.


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Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

9 out of 10.

I liked this novel better than The Clockwork Angel.

The Villain.

Though unseen, has become more villainous in this book.  He is no longer some random mundane who knows too much and full of ideas.  He’s had years of planning and is fueled by a vendetta.

The Love Triangle. 

Will is exposed (to the reader) as a person living with a dangerous secret which results in his behavior to keep anyone from getting close to him.  He’s not a bad boy; he’s really a good guy.

 Jem is still tragic, but he is now ready to stop being so self-sacrificing and use his remaining time with Tessa – if she’ll have him.

Will also reaches a similar sort of decision regarding Tessa.  He wants her – if she’ll have him, but will he tell her before Jem makes his intentions known? 

The problem for me is that I’m not too keen on books where all suitable males fall in love with the heroine.  It’s taken two novels to get here, and Tessa is ignorant enough to be unaware she’s in the midst of a triangle (hopefully not to grow into a bigger polygon) so I’ll resist putting Tessa in the Bella/Sookie mold.

Further plot/drama.

Other characters have lives outside of the love triangle, and their problems are not trivial.  I like that.

There were some plotpoints that I didn’t understand the relevance of, but they were minor.

Reviews of Self-Editing and First Five Pages

I do owe some reviews, so here are two on recent writing-help books I’ve read. 

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King

8 out of 10

I think I saw the recommendations, liked the title, yet the title set different expectations in me.  Not the authors’ fault.  It’s a good book.  They give clear examples of each chapter’s topic. 

The kind of book I was looking for was how do I make it easier to find my own mistakes?  When I reread something I wrote I usually know exactly what I meant to say.  I also don’t always see the little errors that like when I repeat words in the same sentence, I sometimes use a similar sounding word, when I know which the right one, or quirky little things that are based on the way I talk.

The First Five Pages, A Writer’s Guide to Staying out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman

9 out of 10

All good stuff in here, and I have to say anyone who enjoys Notes from the Underground by Dostoyevsky too certainly earns five stars from me :^)

What’s this book about?  It’s help to grab the attention of an agent, editor or reader on the first page to get them to turn it to the second, then the third.

And it’s about getting the right attention, not like the student who scribbled ‘don’t fale me’ smiley-face on their test as a note to the teacher.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Rather than rattling on about cats, even though I have a cute, little long-haired black foster kitten in my house right now who is quite the character – I’m going to make time to review books after I read or reread them.

I’m not going to review as many as some people do because I’m still working two jobs and got writing and editing to do in my spare time, but way back when, I used to read a book a day.

However, my memory is not so crisp that I can spout off why I liked particular books, so I’ll need to reread those.

While I was at my local library, I saw the second book of the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince, was available.  I recalled I liked Clockwork Angel, but didn’t remember the particulars so I borrowed that to reread.

Since I'm going to speak about tropes in my review, let me give a brief overview and refer you to a wonderful site - TV Tropes.  Sometimes, when you are reading or watching something, you'll notice there's something familiar, such as full amnesia, an evil twin, a girl dressing as a boy, or abusive/neglectful/alcoholic parents that allow a young character to have all sorts of adventures.  It's okay because no story is truly all-original, and it gives the reader/viewer something familiar.  That also allows the author a little room to not spell it all out (or they could possibly misdirect you).

So now that I’ve finished rereading it, here’s what I liked about Clockwork Angel – the Victorian gaslight/steampunk setting, the establishment of different races and their powers, the mystery elements of the plot, and the plot has multiple threads.

What I wasn’t sure about was there was not a lot of Victorian ambiance.  Maybe because I’ve read a lot of romance, I am used to more details glamorizing the time period.  This story is not about finding husbands, clothes, and polite society, so the basic elements were there, yet probably not necessary.

Some of the characters were clearly tropes, so I could appreciate them in the context of the story.  However, my comfort with having the characters labeled so clearly meant I knew a bit of what they were going to do before the plot got to the point where’d they do it.

Also, until I read more, I confess as a lover of villains that this villain didn't do much for me ... so far.

So much was left unanswered at the end of the first book that as a  reader who needed answers, I had to wait for the next book to find out more on various plots.  I believe that’s where I was left the last time I read it.

I’m going to say 8 out of 10.  I doubt I’m going to give many things a 10 because I’m thinking that’s got to be a darned perfect book.

I have not read the Mortal Instruments series yet, and I’m about to begin Clockwork Prince.