I'm not stupid. Okay, not that stupid. I knew eReading technology meant opening the floodgates to anyone with the time or inclination to put fingers to keyboard. I knew 99% of those fingers, including mine, won't receive the benefit of a professional editor before they click 'Send' and their novel goes live on one of the many outlets now available.

Frankly, I don't mind if some indie writers aren't that good - wheat and chaff, right? There will be some bad stuff, but there'll also be some fantastic stuff coming through that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day. It makes the mediocre novels worth ploughing through if, now and again, I find an occasional nugget of gold. Thus, I'm all in favour.

So now I'm not just an indie writer, I'm an indie reader. Like Aladdin with his lamp, I have my eReader in my hot little hand ready to open the magic door to this treasure trove of wonders. But what to choose among so many sparkling jewels? Fake or flawless, you can only tell once you look more closely.

Thankfully, there's Amazon and its ranking system. If a book's any good, it should come up high on its system, right?

So I thought.

There's also Amazon's 'Look Inside' feature that gives you a preview. Gives you a taste of what's to come, right?

Hmmm. So I thought.

I'll explain.

Having offered a fairly damp review on Amazon about the uninspiring book I'd just purchased and read, I received a comment suggesting I must be too young to appreciate it, or that the plot must be over my head. 

That got my hackles up.  Made me dig deeper.  In nearly all the reviews I read on all the different books this particular author has written, the same 'customer' names cropped up, giving sparkling reviews and 5-star votes. Look deeper still, reviews reporting anything negative tended to have comments like the one I recieved (from these same 5-star reviewers, strangely enough) implying that the reviewer is 'not clever enough to understand the plot', or that they're 'young' or 'stupid'. Some were even taunted with baby speech. If that reviewer, or anyone else, then tried to defend their views, the option to vote the comment as 'unhelpful' was clicked by someone six or seven times, thus rendering it invisible to subsequent viewers.

The reason I think this is a deliberate system, rather than just a bunch of young people rushing in to support their mate, or even the author himself using a variety of alter-egos, is the way the books are written. I only read one - could only bear to read one - but looking at the more balanced reviews appearing against his work in general, his books all follow the same pattern.

They're all novellas, barely. Less than one hundred pages. Admittedly, they are only around a dollar (77p) to purchase. Not enough for any one person to kick up a fuss if they feel scammed. When you see this author has a dozen titles out, though, and that he ranks fairly high on Amazon Kindle, it makes you wonder how many people are buying them. 

His sales pitch?  Aside from managing to get his rank up by receiving lots of 5-star votes, it's the Look Inside feature.  In there, you'll find a fairly engaging piece of writing, full of ideas and imagination and comparatively well-written. Purchase the full piece and get past the sample, you'll discover the writing deteriorates rapidly, the plot becomes thin, the characters cardboard - at least in the one I read. Reviews I found on this writers' other books say the same thing.

So, what I find puzzling is, am I dealing with an author who's writing to the best of his ability and is truly passionate about his stories? Are his gang of supporters just that? Defending him when an outsider dares question his awesomeness?

Or is this deliberate manipulation? Is this writer churning out junk just to get people's 77p?  Face it, he's earning more per copy than he'd get from a publisher, and if enough people buy his books he could make himself a fair stash. Are his friends (unless he's using different Amazon accounts and managing it all himself) purposefully stomping on anyone who gives a more accurate review of his work, so the next schmuck to come along won't see the warnings?

No idea.  I'm bemused by the whole thing.  But I know something.  I won't be buying any more of that writer's ebooks.

Here's the artwork, back cover blurb and synopsis of my book, Blightspawn, which was originally published under the title, Flower Maiden.  It is now available at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/156499 for the bargain price/princely sum of $3.00. 

366 pages in length and available on any eReader.  Go on, treat yourself!

Back Cover Blurb

Bethany Sweet is dead. So no wonder she’s surprised to wake up again.

Only this isn’t Earth and the beautiful body she’s wearing isn’t hers.

And it’s been kidnapped.

It doesn’t take her long to discover that she’s wanted for a brutal and bloody sacrifice - one which will stop a monster from destroying the world.

Beth can save thousands of lives, prevent mass destruction, but to do it she has to die. And she’s done that once already.

She’s not in a hurry to do it again.

Synopsis
(Bear in mind this is intended as a summary, and is not an example of the writing)

BETH is dead. But she wakes up again on another world, SPLYNE, wearing an artificial body made from flowers. She’s rescued from kidnappers by JAREN, a Maigard soldier, and his men. She soon realises her rescuers have created her new body and summoned her to Splyne only to sacrifice her to prevent a monstrous creature, the BLIGHT, from devastating the world.

Fleeing, she joins forces with a tortured assassin, HAASCH, and a revolutionary, KOSKA. She learns the CAUL, who summoned her, have corrupted the FLOWER MAIDEN’s true purpose so they can retain power on this world. Pursued by the Caul, Beth, Haasch and Koska travel north, to the ancient city of LAGULA, where the Flower Maiden was originally designed to heal an inter-dimensional tear created by a long ago accident.

Jaren captures them before they arrive at Lagula, but Haasch manages to overpower him and takes him prisoner. They travel onwards to the city, only to discover the tear in the planet has grown too large for the Flower Maiden to heal. They are then confronted by the Blight, a creature born of KAZERITE technology, the same technology which produces theotics - Splyne’s chief source of power. The Blight mediates through Haasch, who it recruited thirty years earlier, and tells Beth the Kazerite is coming from the rift as living crystals which feed on Splyne’s life-force, slowly killing it. The Blight announces that it will destroy the rift, but it requires a sacrifice. When Haasch is chosen, Beth pleads for his life, offering herself instead. Jaren, who has been crippled on the way to the shrine, volunteers instead.

They make their escape while Jaren remains behind, his purpose to sacrifice both himself and the Blight in order to save the planet. Narrowly surviving the ensuing explosion, Beth, Haasch and Koska realise that the Kazerite crystals are now dying, leaving the planet without any source of power. The Caul’s reign is over. Theotics have vanished. A new dawn has arrived.

Indentured by Scot McElhenay

Declan Stringfellow's toddler son is an innocent bystander, killed when a drugs deal goes wrong. Devastated, Stringfellow embarks on a vigilante crusade, earning himself something of a hero status by the local population, a wanted status by the police, and a 'kill him' status by the crooks. When one of his vigilante escapades results in him getting shot, a routine MRI scan at the hospital has unexpected results. (Though I had to ask myself why scan someone's brain for a bullet that went into their shoulder.)

Up to this point, the book works fairly well. Sadly, since that was only the introduction. When Declan then wakes up three hundred years later in a cloned body aboard an interstellar starship, the plot becomes laboured, if not downright shaky - the introduction of characters that don't do anything; twists that have little or no point, conversations that confuse rather than clarify. There's a lot that fails to be said, and too much that shouldn't be.

While the core idea is interesting (an MRI scan of someone's brain, later used as a neurological map to recreate their memories inside a blank clone) the plot, science and characters seem somewhat thin. I get the impression the author felt so, too, as the entire thing concludes in less than 100 pages. Unsurprisingly then, the pace felt somewhat rushed, with the potential for building suspense and jeopardy completely ignored . There was scope for this story to go much further, and for the characters to become more rounded and 'lifelike'. A shame it didn't happen, since the writer's enthusiasm was clearly evident.

If this was McElhaney's first novel I think he did a good job, but the book needed more meat, and a more skilled hand.

This is a kindle ebook, and comes in at around a dollar on amazon, so the fact that it's short is no skin off anyone's nose. If you like a short, sharp read that doesn't require much ponderation, you might enjoy it. For me, it's a no.

Blood and Iron (A Tony Ballantyne Book)

The events follow directly on from Ballantyne's previous book, Twisted Metal. Thankfully, the author has provided a synopsis up front, for those who haven't yet read the first in the Penrose Series.

Most of the action in Twisted Metal took place on the continent of Shull, whose robots have little understanding or interest in anything organic. In Blood and Iron, the action is divided between Shull and Yukawa, a more verdant continent whose robots have an appreciation for aesthetics and who cultivate trees, plants and livestock. Yukawa has an ‘oriental' feel to it and the robots there seem more sophisticated.

There are five main characters, Kavan, Spoole, Karel and Susan (protagonists from the first book) are located in Shull where events continue from Twisted Metal, playing out the drama which was left somewhat unfinished. In Blood and Iron, we are also introduced to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do - a warrior-poet. Strikingly beautiful, his skill, prowess and speed, as well as his rank, are admired and feared by most other robots. His tragic story arc begins early in the book, where he is summoned to the Silent City for a direct audience with the Emperor. Ordered to Sangrel, an outlying province, he is told to liaise with Penrose's newest arrivals - animals. Animals who have arrived from the stars and who have powerful weapons and machinery at their disposal. You guessed it - humans.

Inevitably, the humans turn out to be less interested in learning about the robots than screwing them over. Their MO is to leave each robot city stripped of its precious, life-giving (to the robots) metal, moments before committing genocide on them. Despite their comparatively fragile existence, the ‘animals' turn out to be a lot tougher, and a lot more dangerous than they appear. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do is caught in a dangerous dilemma between his duty to the Emperor and his responsibility to the people of Sangrel. His indecision ultimately leads to his downfall and to a terrible fate, much worse than death.

Once again, this book is written entirely from the robots' perspective, and perhaps this is why their plight puts the reader's sympathy well and truly in their camp. There is also the uncomfortable feeling that the behaviour of the humans is, sadly, all too typical, especially when big business is involved. Against seemingly overwhelming odds, the five protagonists eventually converge, quickly learning from their enemy. They manage to achieve a moderate victory, enough to see off the humans, at least for the time being, but the episode has brought to light something no robot has considered until now - that while they believed themselves to be free-thinking, they are all governed and limited by the way their wire was twisted at birth.

Tony Ballantyne writes about Penrose with such unstinting confidence the reader is naturally drawn into the story. The characters are all very different and each has enough depth to be believable and likeable. The story itself is moves forward at just the right pace, particularly as the situation Wa-Ka-Mo-Do faces becomes increasingly impossible. It's one of those books you look up from and find it's 2 am and you should have been asleep hours ago.