Herringwood Messiah Blurb

It's blurbing time again.
The story is called Herringwood Messiah and it's all very light-hearted. Even the bit where it gets pretty grim. It's a sequel to As Far As Souls Go, which is out, even if nobody knows about it. The blurb doesn't really assume you've read the first one, but it could, if need be.
Anyway, I've got a bunch of attempts already, and I'm kinda getting sick of trying, so I'm just throwing this one out for review.

Here we go:


For a guy who’s able to drive to the Underworld on a whim, Eddie Sterling is living a fairly regular life. Rosalie is now his girlfriend, and the Vindicator is still his car.
Of course, when you die and come back with an awesome explosion, people will quickly start assuming you are some kind of special. Cue the Current Day Saints, who believe their promised land is a physical place they can fly to, and that Eddie is the Messiah who can get them there.
So… an average Herringwood day, really.
Until Fate intervenes with the shot of a gun, and Eddie now finds himself befriending a brand new hobo, meeting blues legends, and figuring out how to avoid becoming a mechanic’s assistant.
(123)

For a guy who is able to drive to the Underworld and back on a whim, Eddie Sterling is living a fairly regular life. The girl he was pining for is now his girlfriend, and the car of his dreams is now… well, it’s his car.
Of course, when you die and come back with an awesome explosion, people will quickly start assuming you are some kind of special. Cue the Current Day Saints, who believe their promised land is a physical place they can fly to, and that Eddie is the Messiah who can do it.
Meanwhile, Eddie is blissfully unaware and busy with his best friend Rooney’s birthday, until Fate intervenes. Now he finds himself befriending a brand new hobo, meeting blues legends, and figuring out how to avoid becoming a mechanic’s assistant.
So… an average Herringwood day, really.
(141)

I'm kinda thinking "the girl" should be named, as Rosalie was a pretty big part of the first story, but that kinda screws with the car part.

 

At first glace it sounds pretty good to me (I know, that's some kind of weird oxymoron or something—how can a glance be associated with sound?), but the paragraphs deserve to be more firmly separated. I know, just a formating thing. I got thrown for a moment by the Current Day Saints, until I realized it's a play on Latter Day Saints. Pretty good actually. Maybe I'm just not feeling up to the task, or I just like the personality infused into the whole thing, but I don't see any major problems with it. I'm sure if I look at it enough I could find all kinds of nitpicks, but not today. At least not right now—who knows how I'll be feeling after breakfast?

 

Oops—spoke too soon. I just realized no big story problem is set up here. It all sounds like nothing special is going on, and he's enjoying life. And I still haven't even had breakfast. Of course, that might be the tone you're going for—the whole thing seems like a sort of non-heroic quest (as opposed to anti-heroic) done in a Terry Pratchett style. I think he tended toward very minor story problems and sort of ordinary days rather than big powerful problems to be solved (or am I wrong?).

 

No, I get the Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett references all the time from beta readers. And it's something I'm quite proud of, if you'll forgive me the ego-diddling.
I like the minor stuff being a big story. The first book, Eddie is mostly disgruntled about the insurance agency calling it an act of God when the car he just won gets destroyed, leading him to try and get a meeting with God.

This book does have a "big story problem", but I'm kinda dancing around it because I don't want to spoil it in the blurb.
Eddie's friend gets shot (which, in the context of the Accidental Universe, is actually not that big a deal), because the Current Day Saints want him to perform a miracle for proof.

But I think I've got something... I'll be back.

Edit: New Blurb (also in first post now)

For a guy who’s able to drive to the Underworld on a whim, Eddie Sterling is living a fairly regular life. Rosalie is now his girlfriend, and the Vindicator is still his car.
Of course, when you die and come back with an awesome explosion, people will quickly start assuming you are some kind of special. Cue the Current Day Saints, who believe their promised land is a physical place they can fly to, and that Eddie is the Messiah who can get them there.
So… an average Herringwood day, really.
Until Fate intervenes with the shot of a gun, and Eddie now finds himself befriending a brand new hobo, meeting blues legends, and figuring out how to avoid becoming a mechanic’s assistant.
(123)

 

Aww man, don't change the original one. That invalidates my critique and might make it just look stupid. You should keep the originals the way they were to preserve the integrity of the conversation. But it's probably too late now to recover the original. I'll check the new one in a bit.

 

The purpose of the blurb is to get people interested in reading the book, maybe even buying it, but that's obviously a secondary consideration. This meets its brief, sounds like something worth reading. I expect the blues legends includes Robert Johnson and am curious as to what he might have to say, plus which other legends feature. I might suggest your blurb could sharpen in a couple of spots and have included tentative suggestions above.

 

Ok, I looked up at the OP now. I see you've left the original but crossed it out. That works better (I thought you had just deleted it). I still think these threads work better if you don't tamper with what was originally there. Now I kinda feel like I should add a new critique to my post and cross out my old one.

 

I think the matter of avoiding the mechanic assistant position leaves out whatever impulse(s) is driving him towards and away from it, so it's hard to tell what exactly the stake/significance/conflict of it is. Is it that he's a layabout and doesn't want any job, or that he dislikes that work in particular, or the mechanic is a middle-aged dominatrix and he's not into that?

It's probably something I would know the meaning of if I had read the first book. At face value it's so neutral of a factor that it seems like something implicit is zipping right over my head, leaving me with: "So?"

 

It's just the one. Robert Johnson. The whole crossroads thing is basically the foundation of book one.
But the sentence feels better in plural, so I kinda just went with it.

I actually agree, but there's a slight rush on this blurb, and I also a lot of people don't go through a whole thread. Figured I could away with this particular alteration.

Good point. I shall Google that in a minute.

I can see that. It's the truth. The Vindicator is definitely a mighty machine. But it's also confusing, because it's a fake car. I initially envisioned the Dodge Challenger (preferably the original 1970 RT, but for technical reasons I had to make it the '14 RT) in that role, but couldn't get a hold of Dodge for permission. Since it was an integral part of the story, I went with a fictional model, planning to change it later. Never happened, obviously. All the Challenger-specific spec references are in there, though. Gearheads will know what it's supposed to be.
Anyway, for that reason I feel leaving out the adjective is the better option, because it's too easy to assume the Vindicator is a character.
It does have character, though.

No. But that is now the story line for book three.

Yeah, both readers of the first book will know who the mechanic is. Though I'll admit that I'm not sure it stuck with my mother.
Those last three things are basically just trivialities anyway. The gunshot is the real issue, but it's kinda "in style" to make a point of trivialities.

Anyway, thanks everybody. I'm gonna punch up a final version and get that over to the designer in the near future.

 

Here, FWIW, are my suggestions:

Eddie Sterling lives a fairly regular life forFor a guy who’s able to drive to the Underworld on a whim. Eddie Sterling is living a fairly regular life. Rosalie is now his girlfriend, and the Vindicator is still his car. [These references to "now" and "remains" imply this is part of a series, but it leaves me, as someone who might be picking up this particular one, sort of feeling at sea -- you might consider putting in something about,"followers of Eddie's exploits might be surprised to see that Rosalie is now his girlfriend, but relieved to see that the Vindicator is still his car." ] Of course, when you die and then come back with an in an awesome explosion, people will quickly start assuming assume you are some kind of special. Cue the Current Day Saints, who believe their promised land is a physical place they can fly to, and that Eddie is the Messiah who can get them there.
So… aAn average Herringwood day, really.

Until Fate intervenes with the shot of a gun, and Eddie now finds himself befriending a brand new [I don't know who the "old" hobo was] hobo, meeting hanging out with blues legends, and figuring out how trying to avoid becoming a mechanic’s assistant.

As is probably obvious, I know nothing about any special rules for writing a blurb -- I simply approached it from a writing angle, striking unnecessary words and suggesting more active ones. Hope it helps.

BTW, I agree that it's best to introduce any revised versions in their own entries -- less confusion that way about what you are wanting to be reviewed.

 

Then to avoid further confusion I should state that the blurb has already gone to "print."
Thanks for your efforts, though. ;o)

 

Yup.