I woke up this morning much too early according to my eyes, which, if they could speak, would be demanding another couple of hours shut. But I can’t sleep. For one, I’m too pissed off. You see, I bought a book, paid 7.99 plus tax, and the thing is, to put it succinctly, a piece of crap. If I knew where to send it, I would do that and demand my money back … including the tax.
The publisher of this book is reputable (although they may want to take another look at their editors), and the writers (two of them) have excellent credentials. Each of the writers have other books to their credit, both of them have college degrees, and one of them even has a degree in English. The problem then, is not their inability to write, but a misguided attempt to write in what one would imagine could be considered a Steampunk or Victorian style. They are doing this by using not just bad grammar but a coy type of obfuscation that I can only imagine they achieve by putting a bunch of words in a bag, shaking it up, and then dumping them out and using them in whatever order they are in when they land, even if they make no sense at all.
How is this possible? Read the following quotes.
“Her gaze fixed on him and there was no relief in her expression.”
I know, that’s out of context, but then, so it the actual sentence … out of the context of the paragraph in which it appears. What is the writer trying to say? I read it a couple of times and I still have no idea.
“It appeared, thought, that this was not “any other day,” as the office’s decor seemed to pronounce the argument between (character’s name) and a tall, imposing man opposite of his desk.”
Wow. The office decor is talking. It’s pronouncing an argument … except exactly how do you do that? I have heard an argument, over heard an argument, and I have had an argument. I can even imagine pronouncing that this is an argument, but as it reads, the sentence makes no sense at all. And I love the part about the man being opposite of his desk … is he arguing with the desk? Why would one want to argue with a piece of furniture?
Now one awkward or obscure sentence in a book someone might be over looked by a writer or an editor, but the whole damned book is written this way.
“Walking into your place of work and being subject to a torture that you have control to end at any time?”
Well that’s just plain old bad grammar … and irritating if you have to stop the flow of reading and go back to be sure you understand what is being implied. I did wonder if the sentence had been translated from another language, but I checked and both of the writers are native English speakers.
“… his eyes watching the shards scatter across both their desks, some of them still moving from the impact.”
Scattering is a word that implies movement, but according to the sentence, some of the scattering shards are moving and some of them are not moving. Huh?
These are only a few samples. Actually, so far the whole book is written this way, and I’ve only reached page 42. Gack!
And it isn’t just the writing style. So far the characters’ behavior is illogical and based on no reality I know of. The writers’ aren’t really explaining anything these fictional people do or even following through with what happens in certain circumstances. For example; in the beginning our heroine rescues her soon-to-be-partner. She does this even though her real mission was to find and kill him because he had been captured by the enemy and had probably divulged all the agency’s secrets under torture. Does this make sense to you because it doesn’t make any sense to me. Okay, so when they get back to headquarters, do they debrief the rescued agent? No. They put him right back to work, where he prides himself on the fact that he is indispensable to the organization even though he is stuck in a dank basement somewhere cataloging field notes and artifacts from other agent’s missions. So far it reads like Adderly in Warehouse 13 meets X-Files vs. the X-Men. Actually those characters behave much more logically than the ones in this book.
Am I being petty? Not really. You see I’m dyslexic, and I cannot read … well, I can read, but when I do, I don’t see words, I see pictures. In fact, when I read a book, I actually watch a movie in my mind. A well written book flows, and the movie unravels smoothly as I look at the words. In a poorly written book, I have to stop and go back and re-read sections make sure I understand the writer’s meaning. That’s no fun. And there’s no reason for anyone to waste time with a badly written book because there are so many well written ones to enjoy.
Is it the archaic style of writing that is giving me trouble? No. I have read books written in the Victorian era. I have read and enjoyed many of the classics. I have even read Shakespeare and derived a great deal of pleasure from his stories. I have read since I figured out how to read, and I’m old enough that, when I was a child, they didn’t recognize all the learning disabilities we deal with today. Back then a child either learned or, like me, found a way to compensate. I have read since was eight-years-old and I found a book I wanted to read and figured out how to do it. I grew up pre-television, and surrounded by books and people who read them. Reading is a big part of my life and life is too short to read bad books, so I have giving myself permission to stop reading this piece of crap. Now if I could only figure out how to get my money back.
I’ve had my say. I feel much better now.
Oh, the title of the book? If you would like to know, drop me a note and I’ll tell you. I really hate to write such a negative review of another authors’ work, but I can’t imagine how this manuscript ever got published. I bought the book because the characters were intriguing. The idea behind the story is a bit hackneyed — a secret society (the bad guys) is trying to take over the world and a couple of agents from another secret society (the good guys) are trying to stop them despite the fact that their organization is, for some mysterious reason, trying to keep them from doing so. But, as I said, the characters were intriguing. And I trusted that the publisher, a reputable house, wasn’t going to foist a bad book on me. Boy was I mistaken!
