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  1. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Jack Asher Reads "Handbook For Mortals" So You Don't Have To

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Jack Asher, Aug 27, 2017.

    You've all heard that there was this book that scammed it's way to the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list a little bit ago. If you haven't heard that, go here to this link from the website that was second to break the story will explain the case in vigorous detail.
    http://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/did-this-book-buy-its-way-onto-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list.php

    I was told that this book was awful, and their method of garnering fame was despicable, so I knew I had to read it as fast as possible.

    So here is Jack, doing that thing that Jack did that time, to another terrible book. Lets see how this goes.
     
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  2. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Foreword

    Reading:
    Of course there is a foreword, and I vowed to read this whole fucking book, so I'll read this too. The first word is great because it's also the first sentence. "Magic." End of thought/New thought. The new thought is a description of what magic is that sounds like it came out of Wicca for Sixth Graders. I think the foreword lady really gave a lot of thought into describing what magic is, and means, and that's a little sad.

    The second paragraph abandons that premise entirely, to start a description of the author, who is not the person who is writing the foreword. The foreword lady tells us in the second sentence of that paragraph how to say Lani's name. She definitely was not specifically told by Lani to do this, because Lani is absolutely not pissed when anyone mispronounces her weird ass name that she spells wrong.
    I hope you will join me in never ever pronouncing this woman's name the way she would like you to. If for no other reason than that, if she wanted it pronounced that way, she shouldn't spell it like the Hindi name that is pronounced another way. By the way, I didn't omit any commas that were supposed to be in that sentence. That's the way that sentence appears in the text. So foreword lady isn't doing herself any more favors.

    (I mean, she wrote the foreword for a scam novel, that ((to use pajiba's words)) way over-shot it's mark.)

    Foreword lady (at least I assume it's a lady) goes on about what a deep soul Laannee is, and what a special person. She can't see my face reading her work, and thinking that I care about the way this conversation is going, she then goes on about how the two of them met.

    It's an incredible story, guys. Really interesting. In fact "unprecedented". It's not me saying that, here's the text:
    Believe me now? You won't when I tell you what it is. Foreword lady ran a facebook fansite for Twilight while they were shooting in Luisiana. And Laannee was in that facebook group! I know! Right?!

    Laannee was in the facebook group because she repped the band that one of the dipshit Twilight actors was trying to get off the ground. You may have heard of them, but I find it unlikely. I find it unlikely because the actor who was in the band, as well as the name of the band, in fact the name of the movie they were shooting, are all never mentioned. Laannee is so good at being a band manager, she let her foreword lady omit the name of the band she was repping in her foreword. Pretty obvious why she's trying to break into publishing here.

    Forward lady then pushes herself into the narrative, to tell us that she then decided to become an author, and asked Laannee for some advice on the music industry. And got it. And they are such BFFs you guys!

    Apparently that book became an international bestseller within a week of it's release. It's title is... also never mentioned but hang on and I'll be back.

    Okay, I believe that book is Alluring Turmoil: Book 1 Bayou Stix. I can understand why she didn't mention the title because the first line in the Amazon blurb space is: ***Contains graphic sex and language. Not for young readers.*** It's also going for $0.99 on Amazon, so she's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaally stretching her terms here.

    Oh, wait, this makes sense.
    Reading it the first time I had no idea why that was in quotes, but now I get it! He novels aren't about music at all! They're about fucking. Okay sure. But still... why would you put that in quotes? Unless people know who you are and what you write, it won't make any sense. You write smut, you're writing a foreword for a young adult novel. There is demographic overlap, but not nearly in the way you're hoping.

    Then foreword lady tells us that one thing she's learned about Laannee, over the years is that she writes screenplays. Not really a deep insight there, I would say. Most people who write screenplays will tell you that they do before you've even been introduced. Go to Hollywood and wear a suit, and they'll scream it at you from the bus windows.

    Laannee asked foreword lady to read her screenplay, and she tells us this in two very short paragraphs. That she read it. She then spends more paragraphs to tell us that it was good. Then she spends a few more paragraphs sucking Laannee's cock over the way she travels all over the country, and still managed to write a book. Unless she drives the band bus herself, or emits a field that bricks laptops, the secret isn't that hard to reveal.

    Then she outlines the plot a little bit. The only part of that I'll spoil for you is that she adds the word magick to the text. I always pronounce that "magic'k, and I hope you will from now on as well. It's like we're in a club together. I'm Beardo. You can be Sparky.

    So anyway, foreword lady really liked the book, and you will too, yadda-yadda. Foreword lady doesn't really love books. As an author herself she tolerates the existence of other authors (we've all been there) but doesn't really concede so far as to "loving" their work.

    But this book? This book she loved. And she can't wait for me to read it. Again I wish she could see my face as she talks to me with this book, so she can know just how exhausting I've found our conversation, and how much I hope she suffers a prolonged and near fatal, illness for her part in the scheme.

    She concludes
    I added the apostrophe, but she ended a question with an ellipsis. I didn't start this war.

    And she signs it

    -Sky Turner
    I didn't have any idea who she was until I ran a google search, and I have no idea what young adult reader is also neck deep in obscure cajun-centric-lady-wank-reads to enjoy that foreword.

    Take-away:
    So far, just the foreword is a literary, if not technical, fiasco. Laannee found the person with the most interesting story about writing her book and that story goes "We met online (which no one has ever done before)(she said it, I didn't), and I read her screenplay after she helped me out with some details. Then I read her novel too. It was good."

    Of course the real story here is that Laannee was caught gaming the system so that her book would be offered a movie deal, in which she herself would star. I think that's a more interesting story, but I'm not an internationally bestselling author of Amazon penny erotica, so what do I know.

    When I get to the parts that Laannee herself wrote, things might pick up a bit. I've read reports about that, and it seems unlikely.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2017
  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Interesting. I looked it up on Amazon UK ...where it has a 2-star rating, based on one 5-star (obviously fake) review and four 1-star reviews from people who have discovered the scam. Apparently it's no longer on the NY Times Bestseller list ...q'elle domage. What a bizarre setup. They should make a movie of the scam, rather than the book.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074R73FKC/?tag=writingfor07a-20
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2017
  4. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    The plot fails to start, we over-meet the main character, and a one minute conversation takes 20 pages.
    Chapter 0: The Fool

    Synopsis:
    The first thing we know about the main character, is not her name, or her features, or what she's doing; but that she wishes she has a normal life. She wishes that because nothing in her life has ever been normal at all. Nothing at all. Never ever. Sure some normal things have happened to her, but she wishes that more normal things had happened to her. But they haven't because she's just too special.

    That being said, it's time for a story to start, so the speaker says she's going to tell us about the time she left home. She then does not do that until three more paragraphs, because she has to mention her belief in destiny. The tone that she uses implies that she is special because of this belief. This will become an exhausting theme. Her belief in destiny mentioned we need a brief primer in what destiny is. I found this useful because I had forgotten that:
    Miriam Webster could learn a lot from Sarem.

    This is a place where some story could happen, but it won't, because the narrator has to describe her bangs on this particular day. Then she has to talk about the smell of rain. Then she has to talk about how much she likes thunderstorms. She likes thunderstorms, unlike other people who prefer "sunny days and puffy white clouds." This is because nothing about her is normal. Not even liking things that other people might like. She's too not normal for that kind of liking. (Again, this is a huge feature.)

    At this point you might think that the things that happened on that day that is at the start of the story you're reading would get described. They don't though. Instead the town she lived in is described. It's a small town, because there are only two types of places in America, rural or urban, and nothing else. She describes some of the history of the town. Her mother's profession is given a mention (tarot card reader), as a way of illustrating what a backwoods town this is. See some people think tarot cards are from the devil.

    Better defend tarot card readers for a paragraph. That is her mother after all. See it's hard growing up in this town, and being really not normal, despite how tediously fucking normal this story seems to be. All her school friends thought she was a freak. Because she's not normal, you see?

    Then something happens! The narrator takes a breath and gets up off the porch. This action takes a 44 word sentence, which contains 6 verbs. Of those six verbs, only two pertain to an action that she is taking at that moment.
    The rest of this paragraph is spent on a description of what the narrator is wearing. I won't count the adjectives, beyond to tell you that there are way too many. There are 3 brand names, carefully capitalized like one of Trump's cabinet is fishing for endorsements on instagram. I feel like the little editing done to this book included deleting all of the hash tags.

    Now it's time to describe the house. I'd like to point out that we know what this character thinks about destiny, thunderstorms, her hair, her mother's profession, her town, and her house. But we have no idea what she is doing, because in the last 20 paragraphs she got up off the porch steps. And that's it.

    Wup! Spoke too soon! She pushes her hair out of her face and throws her luggage into her car. The next sentence she sees herself in the mirror and has to use up the rest of the paragraph describing herself. She's not pretty you see. Everyone tells her that she's pretty, but she doesn't think she is. Only everyone says it. But she doesn't see it. Maybe it's the way she's so different from everyone that makes her pretty?

    Then her mom shows up, and we know her mom's name, Dela. We don't know her name yet, and we won't for another page. Her mom looks young but is also old. I just did a better job of describing that than Sarem did.

    Her mom doesn't want her to leave, and she does want to leave, and we'll talk about why this drama fails to land at all in a second. And we know that her name is Zade now, so that only took 22 pages to get to. Zade is conflicted about going, because going is harder than staying. She mentions this after name dropping her designer dufflebag, in a single sentence of action. Then it's back the the ephemeral while she looks at her name in the sidewalk, and tells us all about that. See she's so not normal that she wrote backwards as a child. Because of dyslexia, only dyslexia doesn't make you do that at all. Then she thinks about things some more. Then she fires off a retort to her mother.

    We are really going to talk about this.

    See, Zade wants to go where she'll be normal, because everything in the normal town is bor--no--because she isn't normal in this normal town. So it's time for another story about how her mom used to tell her this Dr. Seuss quote, and then she would fire back a paragraph retort at her mom when she used that quote. We're neck deep in text here, and there's no land in sight.

    There's no indent, but I gather it's supposed to be a new sentence where her mother asks what she'll do instead.

    She thinks of lying, so we have to get another long story about how she can't lie to her mother, and she says that she has an audition, and her mother is pissed about it. Her mother knows what show she's auditioning for, but we don't and the ambiguity is aggravating, instead of suspenseful.

    So she turns on her mother and says, "Yes, Mom. You know what? I don’t know how you ever got away with keeping me out here for so long, anyway." Her mom is all, "I had my ways," and then they talk around whatever those ways are. Zade possibly angry about this. I'm not sure because she tells us about how your parents protect you when you're younger. Look, I have to just past the whole paragraph here because this is insanity.
    But Zade actually does know how here mother was keeping here, and she's aggroed about it. And her mother is embarrassed, and Zade is angry, and there's something that is nearly dialogue going on for a bit as they argue.

    Zade's mom almost cries, so they hug, and then the trade "love yous" and Zade get in her car. She gets in her car, puts it in drive, then turns the radio on, the text is quite clear on that; and she hears a song by the Dixie Chicks (Wide Open Spaces). That's a sign she's doing the right thing. So she drives off towards Vegas.

    Critique:
    Well this is certainly bad, and I'm going to talk about why it's bad. Zade's first complaint is that she isn't normal
    Then she goes on to talk about what a plain boring town she's in, and how she has to leave on a quest to find meani--normalcy? Not really the heroes journey arc going on here.

    There's some really condescending tone here, that just shoots out at you from the text:
    It's clear that Sarem thinks this character is weird and quirky, without knowing anything about weird or quirky people. I'll let you in on a little secret. Weird people like things that normal people don't like, that much is true. But weird people like things that they shouldn't like. Deviant behavior. People who like thunderstorms aren't weird. Cloppers are weird. Dying your hair doesn't make you different. Eating bugs makes you different.

    I can't tell you if it's intentional or not, but there's stuff like this

    See, her weird hair is weird, but completely perfect. So far this had made a character who seems like a broiling vat of unmitigated gall.

    Technical:
    There's a lot that is very wrong here. There's a lot of, I don't know a word for it. "Self contradictions" seems right. Sarem is constantly using superlatives, and then undercutting them a few words later.
    I was reading this to my wife who had no idea what Sarem was trying to say there.
    Sometime it's two sentences which might work okay, if there were some kind of thought to space them out
    This all turns the text into a mess. You not just unsure you understand what you read, you don't know if Sarem understood what she wrote.

    There is the fact that it took 20 pages for a minute long conversation to happen, or that we're on page 20 when a description of physical action takes place, but I'm pretty sure I beat that horse to death in the first couple of paragraphs.

    Lets talk about the dialogue, and a problem that I'm sure will become maddening. Sarem doesn't understand written dialogue at all. I don't just mean that she doesn't understand how it's supposed to be formatted, and she doesn't. At least two times the speaker changes without a new paragraph, and that's bad enough. I mean, she doesn't understand anything about it. Here's how optimal dialogue should look:
    Here is how Sarem writes dialogue:
    It's agonizing to read. Sarem puts down one sentence, jams some quotes on it, and then goes chasing butterfly tangents for a paragraph, before finishing the characters thought!

    At other times Sarem will put a line describing the dialogue in, and then shoot the shit for (I counted) 70 words, before describing the words that are said.

    This leads to a set up where you aren't sure who is saying what, because to find out, you have to track back through the interesting story of how Zade can write backwards, to remember who was speaking last and what they said.

    This turns what should be a tense conversation into a quagmire. We should be getting the heat from the characters from the words they're using. Failing that, we should be getting some kind of emotional anchor between how they feel and what they say. Instead we get a line of dialogue, a tretise on parents protective backfires, and then a different person is speaking. I have no idea what tone anyone is using, or how they are saying anything. Sometimes Sarem mentions it, sometimes she relies on context. Context that she has destroyed writing instead about small town values in the middle of an argument about running away.

    I can't wait to see what it's like when more than two people are talking!
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2017
  5. Sclavus

    Sclavus Active Member

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    I couldn't get past six paragraphs of "throat clearing," at which point she clears her throat again, and again. Whether the author conned her way onto the "Best Seller List" or not, I'd be willing to say it's at least a good story, if it was. But it's not. Your review thus far has been spot on, because it really is that bad.

    It's a shame, because I presume she put some kind of effort into the book. It's like carving Pinocchio and then feeding him nose-first into a wood chipper before he has a chance to be a real boy. The story looked like it had potential, but was in desperate need of a developmental editor and the touch of a good formatting expert.
     
  6. mashers

    mashers Contributor Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I tried to read the sample out of interest, and didn’t get very far. If the author’s goal was to create a MC who is a whiny, self-absorbed teenager, then it’s a masterpiece. If her goal was anything else, it’s dire. Either way, it’s really not an enjoyable read.
     
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  7. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    I'm getting completely side-tracked and feel kinda bad about focusing on the irrelevant, but.. Has her picture been crudely photo-shopped on the official site so she too would look like she has the hourglass figure of the totally not self-insert protagonist? :ohno:

    At least she's gotten publicity and created a buzz, so I guess she's doing that right... And she published a book (albeit with a ripped-off cover) which is more than I can say for myself.

    ETA: Also, if people were wondering what Mary Sue looks like (a lot of threads pertaining to that subject have popped up on the forum lately), I guess they need not look any further.
     
  8. mashers

    mashers Contributor Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Oh blimey, it’s a self-insert? That makes it even worse. Not that there’s anything wrong with that necessarily, but I had assumed a character this obnoxious had to have been made up.
     
  9. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    She looks nice.
     
  10. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    allegedly the author is going to play her in the film....
     
  11. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Hence my assumption the protagonist is a self-insert character (or author surrogate, whatever it's called) that gets to realize the author's dreams in a fictional world. :whistle:
     
  12. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Zade is bad at keeping secrets, Sarem doesn't know a fucking thing about stagecraft, the baby is asleep, and I have some time to write.

    Chapter 1: The Magician

    Story:

    Zade is at her audition suddenly, so she must have gotten to Vegas okay. I could go either way on missing that piece of story, but what the fuck ever, here we are.

    I guess she's done with... something, and she opens up the door of the stage, and all the cast and crew are there, and she thinks things about them. She tells us it's easy to see what they do by how they're dressed, because this is a show. Then she tells us that a bunch of them are dress in black, because they're stage hands. She's special because she likes men dressed in black. No one else likes men dressed in black, and Johnny Cash and Jimmy Dean don't exist I guess.

    One of the guys is handsome, and she tells us about how he shouldn't be handsome, but there's something about him that is--Jesus I don't care. Love interest 01 identified anyway.

    There are a bunch of cast around, and I don't understand that at all. It's a magic show. Have you seen a magic show? There's a cast of: The Magician. The Magicians Assistant. End of list.

    But whatever she's doing she's ready, and they're all supposed to go somewhere I guess, 'cause she's kept them waiting, and we are going to talk about what motherfucking bullshit this entire chapter is in a second.

    Head magician guy steps forward. He's Charles Spellman, and we get this wonderful description of him:
    So... however you would describe Harrison Ford. I would describe Ford as a slowly melting wax sculpture, desolving in the role of arrogant crumudgeon as his best roles disappear behind him. Sarem doesn't offer an alternative to this. I guess I could describe Ford as a sentient space slug, eager to claim this world for the Muggoo-glaugh people, and Sarem would be okay with that too. "It's not the author's job to make shit up. That stuff is for the loser reader." -Lani Sarem

    Charles is a super famous magician. The most famous one in fact. Who is the most famous magician you know? Did you say Houdini? Well you're wrong, because this guy that Sarem made up is more famous than him. He's performing in Vegas now because that's not the pit of irrelevance for performing. The theater was designed to his specifications, and Spellman, a magician, specified that he wanted a theater in the round.

    Sarem then explains to us what a theater in the round is, like we're children.

    They do two shows a night and a matinee, in the round. I'm going to talk about this. At length.

    There's some lady on Spellman's arm, and she looks stuck up. Instead of describing her in a way that would allow us to come to our own conclusion about her arrogance, Sarem simply says "she also looked extremely stuck up." Thanks Sarem. I like my character traits spoon fed to me. I do like the character who thinks she's special, because she like men in black, telling me that anyone else is stuck up though.

    Spellman greats this auditioning nobody by name, and tells her that he's excited to see her performance, which is 50 tons of ill bred bull shit. We will talk about that. She word vomits on him, and then tells us that babbling at people when she's nervous is something she does, and meeting important people makes her nervous. Yeah, Sarem. I am a person (despite what you've heard), and I've have experiences. Everyone gets nervous meeting important people. Everyone babbles at them. Why are you telling us that this is something you do?

    He tells this babbling fan to call him by his first name (!), and then introduces his arm candy. Arm Candy is Sophia. Sophia is Spellman's girlfriend, and clearly the magicians assistant in the show and she's mean to this auditioning non-act, and...

    Lets talk about this now. Sophia is young. She's in show business as a magician's assistant. She got that job because the only criterion for being a magicians assistant is looking incredible while you stand in a box and get stabbed with swords. Sophia knows that she has to work on a back up plan, and fast, because this is show business. In five years her tits will need a bra to stay perky in her skin tight leotards, and that's it. Some younger assistant is going to get hired, and her one marketable job skill is gone. She has two options, get really skilled at call center work, or rope this schmuck into a marriage with a prenup, wait for his inevitable infidelity, and take him for half.

    I want to be clear, I'm on Sophia's side here. She's working in the most chauvinistic industry in the developed world. Everyone around, the magicians, the crew, the producers, the audience, sees her as a space saving pair of tits, convenient for handing stuff to the main act, and getting knives thrown at. When Zade McNobody shows up, and immediately pops a tent in the pants of her retirement plan, she's staring down the wood chipper of age, way sooner than she thought.

    Yeah, I'd be fucking mean to this new bitch too.

    It gets awkward, and then some tech that she'll find out later is named Tad, but doesn't know that now, but I guess it's important to name him during this trivial act; opens up the door, and everyone files inside. Zade feels judged as everyone walks by, and Sarem spends a paragraph talking about the way people look at you and judge you and it's wrong and shit. Sarem doesn't realize that she's writing a book, and her job is to describe people. Judgement or not, it would be kind of nice to hear some things about them, instead of a goddamn sermon.

    One of the handsome techs is there, and Zade pops her own lady tent thinking about him. Turns out he's the technical director. Only she doesn't know that because she'll find out in a second. There's a lot of this.

    Now there's way too many introductions going on. Zade looks at a guy, and he has red hair and is unhappy. She'll learn his name in a second, so (like with that TD thing) she could tell us now, because time is a flat circle, and continuity has no meaning; but she doesn't. There's a guy with "Trig" written on her radio. Nothing happens with him, Sarem just wanted to mention that she sees one guy, and his name must be Trig, and that's the entire purpose of that sentence.

    The handsome TD is Mac, and he's in his late 20s. He's been working with Spellman for 11 years, and worked his way up to technical director. Only no fucking way in hell he did. Red hair guy gets introduced. He's Zeb, head illusion technician. He's cold to Zade too, and she's unhappy about this.

    Look, they do 11 shows a week. Either everyone has come in on their day off, or they've stopped every fucking thing they need to do that day, so that some dipshit audition can take place. Yeah, Zade, everyone is pissed at you. Stop working the crowd and get this shit started.

    Trig comes over and introduces himself, so it was really important that she saw him in a crowd and figured out his name before he came up and simply told her his name. He greets her with this stellar line of dialogue:

    "Sounds like a dead horse." That is definitely an idiom that a human, English speaking person would use. It's something I say all the time. Dead horses are known for making the sound "trig". It's just something they do.

    (Maybe Trig sound like the name of a dead horse? But then, that horse was alive once, and presumably had the same name in life. Shouldn't Trig just sound like a horse then? Or do people come across horse corpses and say, "That horse, which is dead, is now named Trig.")

    Then he explains, to an auditioner who better already know; what a stage director is. It's transparent exposition, but goddamn is it condescending.

    Then this happens:
    Sarem has absolutely no problem when people mispronounce her name, she'd like you to know. No problem at all. It's definitely doesn't sit in the back of her mind and drive her crazy every night.

    Mac is the only voice of actual reason, and point out that he has no idea what she is about to do, and doesn't know if she's going to be safe. Later I'll talk about what a huge fucking deal safety is in the theater world, and how irresponsible this whole thing is. Let's just say right now that a snowball under a space heater in hell is more likely to survive than this is to actually happen. Zeb also thinks this is dumb as hell, but doesn't call the entire thing off, and threaten to report it straight to every guild on Earth, because Spellman has made up his mind. Who fucking cares if this girl dies a grisly death, and the whole theater is shut down, and none of them work in the industry again. A two-bit magician wants to go through with it, and Zeb's stash of fucks is empty.

    Then love interest 02 shows up, and he's the most beautifullest man Zade has ever seen. Only she's not in to good looking guys. She doesn't like things that other people like. I mean, she kinda gets all wet over him, only not really, because that would be a normal thing to do, and she's not normal.

    Beautiful guy is Cam, and Cam is the head of rigging. This will be bullshit in a hot second, because Cam is incredibly crap at his job.

    Then Sophia is (rightfully) upset with Spellman, who remembered Zade's name. The reply is priceless jackassery, “Most people’s names aren’t worth remembering.” Dickhole.

    Then this great thing happens:
    Weird isn't it?!

    Then Zade notices this assistant who is mousy, and has glasses, and "who looked to be an assistant of some kind." Thanks Sarem. It's not enough that you wrote a cliche, you have to spell it out for us too. Charles who has not seen this act, from some backwater chick, who needs "Stage Manager" explained to her; starts telling his assistant how he wants to incorporate her act into his show. Zade is all happy about this and does not notice how fucking strange it is.

    She goes up the catwalk with Cam, and more condescension from the text:
    Everyone wants to live in a tree house Sarem. There's three shows about it on TLC.

    Then Cam broadcasts his complete ineptitude by just... watching, as this chick, without a harness, with out cables, without rigging of any kind, and without checking and double checking any standard safety measures, just dives off the edge of the platform. If anyone of any authority say what he didn't do, he would be shit canned and black listed for life. He couldn't get a job as an usher in a dinner theater.

    The text for the next couple of paragraphs is hopelessly convoluted. Best I can figure it goes like this. Zade drops a rose to the stage. Zade dives off a rail and falls toward the stage in a dive. Sparks shoot out of her hands and catch the stage on fire. She falls through the fire and disappears like she fell into water. Then she pops out of a pool that has never before been mentioned with the rose in her teeth.

    Instead of rushing to put the fire, that Zade did not tell them was going to happen, everyone leaps to their feet and applauds their hands off. The next ten paragraphs are everyone applauding, coming up to meet Zade, and offering to get on their knees and suck her cock. Mac is upset, and she doesn't know why, and it's really fucking obvious why. She did something that he knew was impossible. How did she do something that was impossible:
    Hey do you think that doing actual magic that real and not fake in front of a bunch of people that know magic might be a really bad idea?! This is a great time to come to that conclusion.

    Some point around here Zade meets Tad, and then spends 500 words talking about how she'll come to know what a great guy he is. I'm glad this is all laid out for us now, so I'll have to try and remember it every time he appears in the text. It would be silly to think that a character should develop over the course of a story, or that a reader should see their actions as they happen. Conveniently we're told about all his character quirks up front so we don't have to read about it organically. Sarem wants to protect you from having your own opinions about things. It's better this way.

    Then the assistant who is named Beth, in case everything about her wasn't Sarem's attempt to nail into your brain that she's no one special, comes over, and I love this bit.
    Yeah Zade, no attorney will find fault with your contract. I mean, get one, whatever, but you don't really need to. Trust me, I'm in show business, and we don't even know how to make exploitative contracts. That's not something you've ever heard of us doing.

    Zade thinks that this is great and now she'll have "A somewhat normal life." As she works in a magic show, hiding the fact that she's a wizard from people, while she makes money hand over fist, and works harder than she ever has in her life.

    Chapter ends.

    Problems:
    It's time to talk a little about the thespian world here, because Sarem, for all of her music industry savvy, knows fuck all about theater.

    Lets start off with the way everyone shuts things down to watch her audition. Bullshit. They have tons of auditions to go through and 101 out of 100 will be crap. Auditioners come on stage, introduce themselves like the people watching give a crap, do their routine, get a thank you, and get the fuck off the stage so the next one can set up their act. Why in gods fucking name would anyone go out of their way for an unheard of name, from nowhere Kentucky? This is stuff that does not happen.

    Everyone is lax about her safety. Bullshit. She takes so many risks here. As I said above, if anyone reported to the guild, any guild, what was happening at this audition, no one would ever work again. People have died with bad equipment. People have died from bad rigging. This is not shit you take chances with. The guidlines for rigging a person doing a fall is, I shit you in no way, 200 pages thick. No one seems to care that, if the slightest thing goes wrong, they are all criminally culpable for her death.

    No one freaks out about the fire. Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit.Bullshit. Theaters do not take chances with fire. To do any pyro at all you need a license, for that state. Getting that license can take anywhere from 10 to 20 years of experience working pyro which you cannot do without a license. It's a catch-22 designed to weed out the freaks.

    If there is so much as a lit cigarette on stage, you need someone in the wings, ready with a fire extinguisher. And I don't mean, ready to set up the fire extinguisher. In mean the pin is out, one hand is on the handle, and one hand is holding the hose. I have seen 100 people on fire extinguishers, and never has a single one not dropped into a crouch. I've done it, and I stayed ready to bolt on stage in a second. Knees bent, shoulders set.

    Zade would not just be thrown out for throwing out that fire without warning. I can't stress this enough, but you fuck with rules like this, and everyone will know your name. A community theater in Wyoming would throw you into the street if you set foot backstage.

    I have to mention that this magician has build a theater in the round. Can you think of a good reason a magician wouldn't want people to be close to his show? Like, seeing things up close is bad for fooling people? Maybe he wouldn't want people behind him, because he's trying to hid stuff from them? Sure, maybe he's doing it because he's so good at (stage) magic. But how many acts can you think of where the magician would have to have his back to half the audience. "Sure would be nice to see him cut that woman in half, but I guess we get to stare at his ass as he does it instead. This was worth waiting three months for tickets."

    Technical:
    Again, there's a lot wrong here. It's disappointingly not as bad a Saccoccio though. But that's a bar so low it's under the turf.

    The condescension is back with a vengance. This time it's not just directed to the normal people, whom Zade is definitely not. It's directed at the reader. Sarem mentions that the crew are in stage blacks, and explains that. I'm fine with that, not everyone has worked tech. But then she goes out of her way to mention that their wearing it, every time a new crew is introduced. And where she's been careful to document the brands and clothes everyone is wearing, she doesn't mention anything other than that their in black. In case you didn't notice the first 20 times she pointed it out, techs wear black.

    She has to mention names of people who don't need to be named at that time, and with a weird non-linear sense. Like she mentions that she would find out that a stage hand was named Tad, at some later time. Then Sarem write the part where she's introduced to Tad. It's the strangest thing to reverse, and it means we learn all the information twice, for no reason that I can discern.

    And this whole chapter is lousy with names. In twenty pages we meet: Charles, Sophia, Mac, Zeb, Tad, Cam, Beth, Trig, and Riely. It's a confusing mess, especially when they all start talking to each other. Then you have to go back and try to figure out who did what, and which incredible handsome man Cam was. He's super handsome by the way. But Zade isn't into that. Except she is. Only she's not.

    I'm sure that won't get boring fast.

    The problems with dialogue are still there. Now they're compounded as someone says something, we get a description of the character, and then they finish their thought. As a result I just re-read this chapter to write this, and I still have no idea what Tad does. Animal wrangler maybe? That seems likely.

    I have to talk here about story arc, because there seems to be none. Let's use Harry Potter as a parable. In the first chapter we know that something terrible has happened to Harry, and that some kind of magic exists perhaps. By the third chapter we know that Harry is a wizard, and that he's going to learn about magic. We will learn about magic, and the wizard world as we go, because Harry is our stand in. We don't know anything, Harry doesn't know anything. When Harry is stumped, we are told what's going on. This dynamic is old, and has been used in everything from Doctor Who to Futurama.

    But what do we have in this book? Zade already knows approximately all of the magic. She can shoot fire and teleport. What more does she need to learn? This sets the reader up for two things, and none of them look good. The first is pages of info dump, as Zade explains to the reader what's happening every time she needs to do magic. She has to stop the story dead in it's track to catch you up to what's happening or about to happen. This can be done organically, Harry Dresden does it all the time. I have no faith that Sarem will not fuck this up in the worst way.

    The second is that Zade will have to explain out loud everything she's doing to some schmuck. Given that she's soooooooooooooo not normal, I don't expect this to do anything other than canvas her feeling of superiority as hard as Sarem can.

    This isn't the worst thing I've read (thanks Saccoccio), but it's really hard to get into. The dumbassery of the stage hands, and the hamhanded way the writing is handled get in the way of a story I might have enjoyed.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2017
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  13. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Wow...um...just wow.

    This has been thoroughly eye opening.
    And it is shocking that someone sat down
    read this and thought: Yep this should hit
    the printing press post haste!

    What a slice of self indulgence from a clueless ditz.
     
  14. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I R disapoint that Jack gave up after chapter one, (which was actually chapter 2 because chapter zero was chapter one, obvs) but I appreciate his problem, it is hard to go on writing a review when your eyeballs have melted from the true terribleness of the book, and your brain is hiding behind the sofa chanting I can't I can't I can't
     
  15. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Your critiques crack me up @Jack Asher.
     
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  16. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    This is epic. Love it.
     
  17. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    You know what... I just gotta like this lady who with the worst book ever climbs the New York Times Bestseller List. I tip my head to her.
    Perhaps I'm getting softer with age, but I won't kick a person who's down. She's been thoroughly savaged... check the reviews on goodreads if you think she hasn't been punished enough. Let the woman alone.
     
  18. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    omg, I just read the "look inside" sample on Amazon and it made my head hurt. It is painfully bad. The amount of telling is off the chain. She literally shows us something then painfully explains it for the next 3-10 sentences. Ugh. I'm not gonna post any bashing reviews outside of here, as @Iain Sparrow says, that's been done to death. But...wow.
     
  19. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    Indeed.
    I will say though, pretty nice cover art so far as these kind of books go. It does show you one thing for certain, that we're still attracted by flash and fire more than substance. Oh how many times I've purchased a book, reviews unseen, simply because I liked the cover art and the intriguing blurb in the liner notes. There are some lessons to learned here.:)
     
  20. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Adding to the scandal, there has been controversy over accusations that the cover art was ripped off without permission from Knife Thrower by Gil Del-Mace:

    [​IMG]
     
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  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    tricky one - clearly its ripped, but since you can't copyruight an idea and there's nothing revolutionary about girl sits in front of target, I guess they'll argue that its different enough not to be an IP violation
     
  22. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    Oh my god!
    There's no accusation about it. What was she thinking? Like no one would notice that it's a poorly reworked version of another cover. Wow.
     
  23. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Wow! The plot thickens, so to speak.
    Now what exactly does a girl getting
    knives getting thrown out her have to
    do with, well whatever the hell the book
    is about?
    But yeah the covers look way to similar
    for it to be a mere coincidence. Maybe
    the overall story is just a crummy fan-fic
    like another series we are all none to fond
    of. Would not surprise me in the least. Though
    I have not read Knife Thrower, makes one
    wonder if the two share a few odd common
    elements.

    Moral of the story, don't judge a book by it's
    fancy cover art and back blurb alone.
    Know a bit about what you are getting into. (SMH)
     
  24. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I doubt it. The pose is also identical, and there's nothing "of course a girl in front of a target would sit and would sit exactly that way; how else could she possibly be posed?" about it.
     
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  25. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    apart the things shes sitting on being different, the girl in the cover in question holding the knives, and her arm being different , and the clothing being different... I mean yeah its patently a pale imitation of the idea, but I'm not sure there's a particularly strong case for an IP suit.

    Ive come across this a lot in photography - one wedding photographer comes up with a good idea for a unique couple shot, and subsequrntly three or four others copy it down to the last detail except with different B&Gs .... theres nothing photographer 1 can do about it except call photographer 2,4 and 4 out on social media
     

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