Introduction to the Reviews

So, I’m a reader who likes the product. I like my reading matter to be perfect bound and made of paper with ink and I don’t read things in hardback unless I can’t possibly avoid it. I’m the reading equivalent of a fussy eater.

At least in terms of the medium.

In terms of what I want the story to be like, well, I want it to be a story. You know, like one about a man called Arturo Gatwick whose grandfather had a secret which Arturo could only find out about after his grandpappy’s death. I want people to begin at the beginning and move through the middle to the end. That isn’t a chronological restriction, merely a conceptual one. And I like to read genre fiction.

So when I review a piece what am I looking for?

• I want it to be available as a paper and ink book that can be bought.
• As it is going to be self-published I would like to know about the product’s look-and-feel. Usually if the book’s any good the look and feel will be good too.
• I want it to be in the genres of fantasy, SF, horror, thriller (in which I include crime books and mystery books), adventure or at least in a genre although I’m not sure I’d be the one to appraise an aga saga, period romance or chick romance. Not that I’d have any problem reading the latter but I’m not the intended audience. If that doesn’t bother you then fine I’ll read it.
• I want it to have some sense of how a story works. Conceptual beginning, middle, end etc.

And that’s about it.

• I don’t care if there are more typos than would normally be acceptable as I can gloss right over them, but I will point out that others will want your guts on a spike for it.
• I’m not obsessed about the usage of any word such as ‘and’, ’said’ or, indeed, ‘was’ but I will point out that others will want your guts on a spike if they detect overusage.
• I don’t really mind if it’s a bit light or if the story isn’t fully developed as long as it *is* a story but I will point out that some people will want your guts on a spike because it’s just a little amateurish.

The fact is unless something is unreadable I will read it. If it is interesting in any way I will like it. Everyone else in the goddamn world may hate you and want your guts on a spike and I will tell you if I detect that this is the case. But I will be nice to you because I’d far rather be interested by something than impressed by how slick it is any day or night of the week.

So as a reader you may want to bear these factors in mind before we begin.

Shall we?

Bad Moods And Buys

The two broad boxes my shortlist of purchases come in are Buys and Bad Moods. The former for books I fully intend to buy and read properly, the latter for works which can be adequately reviewed from the preview alone and trust me, if this is possible, it ain’t a good book.

Within Buys books come under the sub-categories to be considered in the order: Priority, Roused Interest, Expensive, Barely. The reason for this is that I want to buy a book for under 8 of your English Pounds, and I want it to be interesting and if it has that something special then so much the better. Books that may be expensive and somewhat lacklustre teeter in the void of barely.

Basically, next time I buy from Lulu, which will be when I order a proof of Starfall I imagine, I can order two or three books. Authors beware. If I have something in my priority list it’s getting bought. If I’m done with all the things in my priority list then anything cheap that roused interest will go next. If I’m really pressed I’ll fork out for one expensive item and if I’ve really managed to slog through all that then I’ll look grudgingly in the barely folder.

Trust me, that’s what competition is like. So far I have two priority titles. Only because the three other titles that would have made it straight into priority with a bullet had been stupidly priced above 8 pounds. Don’t play a player dimwits. I know how cheap a book can be produced for none of mine even crest 7 pounds and nobody’s buying those. So you got bumped below very possibly less talented authors because they priced their wares more modestly.

Moving on to the bad moods pile.

These are subclassified: Nearly, Preview Only and Dear God Why?

Nearly books are books I had to read at least two pages of the preview of to decide that they were, in fact, dross. When I review these previews I will be kind but critical. I would never buy a bad mood book, but I will try to give the author encouragement that they could make the buy list in future if they tidy things up a bit.

Preview only books are deeply flawed with no rescue at all but they’re kind of mundanely bad. Nearly authors have some writing ability and I’m trying to get them to write better. Preview Only authors really need to take a good hard look at their work before showing the world anything else.

Lastly there’s the evil depths of “Dear God Why?!?” this is a pestilential category reserved for a) works so mind-bendingly incomprehensible you wonder how a human being could even have authored such a fractured jumble of linguistic spaghetti. And also b) for books that approached readable but had some deep and obvious flaw that made the work totally unreadable. These books may have sentences and structure and characters and all that jazz but you wonder how the author failed to notice the stinking conceptual offal that made the work utterly unapproachable.

Oh, and c) books which may even have made it into the buy pile but for some incomprehensible reason are not available to the buyer as a paperback. This is scummy behaviour. If I want to pay £7.99 or less for a paper printed copy of your book rather than £0.69 for an e-book that should be my choice. Not yours as the author. Or are you trying to send people away?

When I review these books, of which I have so far found only one example, it will be to encourage them to make the book available via tangible means. Whether it then goes into the Barely/Expensive/Roused Interest or Priority list will be reappraised at the time. In this case the title I’ve seen stands every chance of going into Roused Interest unless, of course, it’s too Expensive.

I shall be including in future reviews each work’s classification and sub-classification. For the record Mayhem at Grant-Williams high, had it been previewable at the time, would probably have been a Bad Mood Book in the Nearly Category. I hope my review reflects this.

Back soon with, unfortunately, another bad mood book review. Still waiting on the delivery of my first *Essential* purchase which I made by accident.