Why I Am Not Buying Your Book

[telophase]

From the excerpt:

1. The bad guy in the excerpt is named Shadye. Shadye. He's also a monologuer. But Shadye.

2. The main character is ripped from our world into a fantasy world because they think she is a Child of Destiny. Her mother's name is Destiny. I would find a case of mistaken identity amusing and worth reading on for the meta-commentary, but as far as I can tell from other clues in the excerpt, we're meant to take the Child of Destiny stuff seriously instead of getting meta.

3. Her rescuer says "Take my hand if you want to live...Come with me or die!" I've seen too many things in the Terminator franchise to accept that it's anything but a reworded reference to "Come with me if you want to live", and it throws me out.

4. The rescuer's name is Void. Void. He's also a monologuer.

edit to add this point, because I forgot 4.5 It needs a good editor. Witness this selection:

Somehow, she knew that the dragon was old. The magic field surrounding the creature bombarded her with impressions and sensations, piling them into her mind. It was old enough to have seen eons pass while it drifted through the skies, heedless of the scurrying humans on the world below.

Allow me to edit that for you. Ahem.

Somehow, she knew that the dragon was old. The magic field surrounding the creature bombarded her with impressions and sensations, piling them into her mind. It was old enough to have seen eons pass while it drifted through the skies, heedless of the scurrying humans on the world below.

5. But really, you lost me at Shadye.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is too bad. It would be near Pratchett-level hilarious to haul in a child of Destiny whose mom was... Destiny. (Actually, not Pratchett: Holt.) Even better if you throw in Destiny's Child jokes.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

That's what kept me reading after Void appeared, but I couldn't take it after a while and quit.

While the author has self-published a lot, apparently, this one is published by a small press who, I assume, didn't bother with an editor. The point at which I bailed has the main character meeting a dragon, and the narrative goes "Somehow, she knew that the dragon was old." And then spends the rest of the paragraph explaining how she knew (info from the magic field that she's sensitive to), rendering the first sentence pointless.

I forgot to put that into my post. I'll go add it now.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Pronounced Shad-yee, I presume.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I can't pronounce it as anything other than "Shady." Presumably the character selected it for himself, as Void explains to Emily (the MC) that names have power, etc. etc., so you have a use-name, and it would be amusing to find out that everyone's stuck with the names they picked for themselves when they were angsty teenagers. At least, that's how I'm explaining "Void." But I fear that's a more interesting book than this excerpt shows.

What's annoying is that I downloaded another sample from this author, and that one shows much more promise (and seems to have been published before the one above). It's from a different small press, so I'm wondering if it's down to editing.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I'd also cut 'piling them into her mind' since we already got that in bombarded.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

True! I didn't notice that because I was just too flabbergasted at the text saying the really bland (the italics don't show in the LJ post) "somehow she knew..." and then immediately restating that in a more descriptive way.

I've read another sample from the author which shows much more promise, but if the publication dates reflect the dates of being written, it was done before this one, which makes me side-eye it a bit.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that isn't Shad'ye.