Saturday, February 24, 2007

Le Sigh

I'm sick of this review book. I'm sick of all the stinking typos, misspelt/misused words (no, you do NOT "role" onto your back, dammit!) and missing words. I'm sick of jumping between 654 characters' points of view and trying to remember whether or not I've met THIS guy yet, and if so, who the hell he might be. I'd like to try to pull a semi-positive review out of my ass, but it's going to have to really pick up before I can do that. To borrow from ~d, right now this is a "crap-ass" book. All I can think about when reading it at this point is "I have so many GOOD books waiting to be read." Le Sigh.

But it's still better than
that one book. (Not Peter and Beth, which was good, but the book from which I reprinted the paragraph in italics, which I choose not to name.) I'm not sure what to do at this point. I really try to take only books for which I'm pretty sure I'll be able to write an honest, positive review. When some place called this one of their "top ten sci-fi picks of the year" I truly did not expect it to be riddled with typos and annoying omissions. But at least the writing, in general, is decent. It needs help. It needs to be tightened up. There are whole pages that could go missing without harming the plot. I wonder if this book had an editor. At this point, I sincerely doubt it.

OK, well that's enough ranting. Plus, I want to check out Sylvia. Of course it can't have a happy ending, but it does have Bond. ^_^

15 comments:

Anais said...

i thought this was pretty funny =]

Jacob said...

So what your saying is that it wouldn't be two hard to right a book? Like maybe even eye could dew it? Maybe it just needs checked further. Well, rite now my kitchen needs cleaned. The lawn won't need mowed until another couple months I would guess.

tshsmom said...

Why do you HAVE to write a good review? If it's a "crap-ass" book, say so! It sounds like they need some constructive criticism.
Professional reviewers write just as many, if not more, scathing reviews, as they do complimentary reviews.

C said...

Anais - thank you. :)

Gawpo - I think I'm saying is some "authors" do seem feel that weigh ab,outit. Be cause. if you were to see sum of the crap Iv'e seen in this amazing-looking, profeshunly bound books, you would join me in weaping. ^_^

Mr. Fab - What can I say? It's a gift. And to think I used to just throw them away.

Has the gerbil written a book? Maybe I'm reading it now.

Tshsmom - TCM tries to give only positive reviews, though they can be constructive. If they can't give a positive review, they turn the book away. This one is rapidly approaching turn-away status. What a waste of time. The sad part is that bits of it really are interesting, which is more than I can say for That Other Book. ^_^ I bet I can pull a constructive review out of somewhere. If I can bring myself to finish it. Nothing is more annoying than to be reading merrily along and then having a string of big fat errors jerk me out of the story. :-P

Anonymous said...

Blogger is eating my comments today, damn it!

Well, I guess you must have the patience of Job for a job like yours...how does crap ass stuff like that get to the point of being published if it's so awful? I mean, are you reading to review before publishing, or after? I pity the fool (you) who has to read that crap ass crappy ass stuff.

C said...

After publication! Can you believe it?!? I can only imagine that this is self-published. It HAS to be. The only reason I thought otherwise was a thanks to his publisher for "believing in" his work. I suspected at the time that that might be meant to throw the reader off of the notion that this is a self-published work. Now I'm almost certain of it. I usually try not to check out the publishers ahead of time, because I don't want to bias myself against the work by finding out that it was published through a vanity press. :-P

I am now amusing myself by highlighting the errors I find as I go. There are a LOT of yellow marks. It's rare to go a page without one at this point, and most pages have multiple problems.

armalicious said...

How is the dialogue? Do they put the punctuation after the quotations like "this"? Because that drove me nuts on that one book I e-mailed you about. In addition to the typos and horrible, horrible grammar.

C said...

He's pretty good with the dialogue. And he's not a bad storyteller. But every page has crap like this:

"I have become a murderer," Thurm whispered and the thought of the innumerable dead that overwhelmed his senses. (in my best Tim Allen voice) Uh???? Next sentence:
Gritting his teeth, he place one foot after the other. . .

There is a LOT of confusion of verb tenses in the part I just hit. Other than that, it's mostly just dumb stuff like "thanthan" or "planed" instead of "planned."

At one point, though, some guy was "standing prostrate." ^_^

I just emailed the publisher (very nicely) that I feel that some sort of proofreading process would be beneficial. :-P

They take submissions. Their site doesn't say flat-out that they're a vanity press, though maybe they're a subsidy publishing house - I didn't really dig. I can't think why else there wouldn't be a proofreader.

Anonymous said...

Hello C.

A fine piece of dodgy dialogue you quote there. My favourite is;

"eff off," he hinted.
"no," she negated, contrarily.

:)

armalicious said...

Ok, the dialogue doesn't sound too bad, but I understand about the verb tense issues. Those errors usually make my head hurt because I have to actually read.

I came to the realization the other day that maybe I don't know how to really read. Because if I actually think about reading, it's really hard for me.

Logophile said...

Candace, oh mah stars, you poor brave soul, I am so sorry for your suffering at this time.
If I could do something for you, please know that I would.
The endurance you are showing, the selflessness, I am moved beyond words.

ldbug said...

Ugh, I hate suffering through a book to get to one I really want to read! Sadly, I'm one of those who has to finish a book once started.

robkroese said...

I'm sure I should know this, but why are you reviewing this book? Are you getting paid for it?

Also, Happy Inappropriate Card Day!

C said...

Barnes - I love that! From whence cometh it? I keep meaning to do a whole Tom Swifty post. Maybe today. ^_^

Amanda - That sounds like how I read. I get totally sucked in, until something comes up that derails the train. Then I get yanked out of the story by thoughts like "hey, that's not right!" and it becomes a real effort to get back into it, because at that point I'm proofing more than reading. Blargh!

Logo - thank you for your sympathy. If I was ever captured by an enemy (not that friends often capture me, so I guess that qualifier could have gone unsaid,) this is the kind of torture that would be sure to make me talk. ^_^

Ldbug - sadly, that's how I usually am, too. :-P

Diesel - because I'm a dork. Nope, I don't get paid. I think I'm going to go home and rethink my life.

OK, well, actually, because I get to keep the books (and some really have been good, like The Memory Keeper's Daughter) and because it's good writing practice doing the reviews. And who knows, maybe someday I will want to sign up for a paying review job and can cite this on my resume. I guess it's like an internship in that repsect. The other reason I decided to do this is that it stretches the genre boundaries of what I would normally pick up, and I figured I could use some horizon-broadening. ^_^ Oh, and because I was blogging too much and needed to read more. (A writer who doesn't read can hardly hope to become a better writer.)

But considering that I've brought this all on myself, I probably have no room to whine. :-P

~d said...

HAHAHAH
I am DYING!
Laughing dying!
I just wrote crap ass on some chick's comments, right? I decided to see who linked to her, bla bla, I found THIS post and I am like totally effing DYING!
(thank you for the best smile I have had...)

xxoo
d