Dense book in search of an editor
340230
Gutstein's premise -- that people on the spectrum need to learn emotional sharing -- is quite a different approach from the standard therapies. Most therapies work on functional skills, whereas Gutstein works on functional motivation. The two go hand-in-hand, and that's where his book has value. However, it's not a very readable book, and it needs extensive editing to be accessible to its preferred audience of parents and therapists. Look instead for one of his two follow-up books, which give an overview of RDI and also provide specific exercises.
1440604
There is the backbone of a very good novel here, but the author really needed a good editor. Not a proofreader or amateur advisor. An editor. Could sell a million if properly shaped. Suggest repackaging under an experienced hand and reissuing.
1418132
Needs an editor and perhaps some reference books. Wrote it from seat of his pants.
588863
fascinating and comprehensive, but needed a better editor
3822812
The info in this book is anecdotal, which is fine, but it's so dense it's hard to read.  I'm a white-space kind of reader, and bullet points and call-outs are what I usually need to absorb info.
3192231
This book had complex ideas that needed further explanation. Who ever did the editing should be the one under review here. This editor let colloquialism and inappropriate POV shifts and malignant subject matter go without questions. The editor also needed to ask the question, "Why." In the end, I admire what this author tried to do.
2183862
Thus book is a good first effort, but the lack of a professional editor is clear. Some outside expert advice would go a long way.
708890
Approximate Lexile: 730

I really wanted to like this book, but the author made it very difficult. Looking at the high ratings on Goodreads, Amazon, etc., I frequently wondered if I was reading the same book. The writing is often stilted, with an emphasis on telling rather than showing, and the author lacks a fundamental understanding of how to use commas. I wondered how it got past an editor in its comma-less condition. After a little research, it appears that this book and its sequels are self-published. Any author who self-publishes should invest in a GOOD editor, not just one who got an A in English that one time.

So many things that bothered me the neighbors name appears to be Old Farmer Johnson. Likewise, Airman Buzz. Is Buzz his last name? How trite can we be? And does the author really think an airman whose job is to monitor the skies for incoming threats would be playing games on his smart phone while on duty? That seems to me like a one-way ticket to court martial.

Aoleon is the only real female character in the book, and she comes off as a little bit irresponsible.

The book says its aimed at middle grades; the simple language and straightforward plot make it more suited to grades 2-4. Then the author throws in a lot of science-speak that brings it back up to middle gradesor even high school. I get the impression that maybe he doesnt hang out with many kids, so hes not sure how they talk or think.

The illustrations are prettyespecially the ones of the planets as Aoleon is inbound toward earth.

Its sadthis book had potential, but it remains untapped.

Who would like this book: Kids grades 2-5 who like stories about space.

Possible objectionable material: Sneaking out a night. General mischief.

(I received an advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for a review. As you can see, its an honest review!)
3199670
This huge 500 + pages of this reformers life is in deep and detail. It seems however to jump around somewhat and is difficult to follow for example he dies on page 307,talks about a ton of other stuff going on in england at the time and again he dies on page 521. This book uses older style english (originally published 1904) so it is harder to follow than most books this size. This book tells you in excruciating detail about whats going on in Hugh,s life,his letters,his sermons,his gradual shift from baby christian to standing tall for God.--Everything--I did.nt need this type of detail so buying this was my error.---The physical book binding fell apart in short order and I needed a rubber band to keep all the pages intact.
3087315
Because the core of the book - the emphasis on 'thinking probabilistically', and on banishing both fear and euphoria: on the system rather than on individual trades - is excellent and worth the cover price alone.

However there is a wearying amount of padding - most of it in the 'obviousness' category. The author spends pages at a time, for example, telling us that:

1. We have beliefs

2. Those beliefs cause us to act certain ways

3. We can change those beliefs

4. Therefore causing us to act in different ways.

(etc etc etc)

We knew all this.

Chief problem is that Douglas isn't a writer: doesn't know how to pare and refine material; reduce to essence; delete the unnecessary. Likes the sound of his own voice.

This also shows in the frequent spelling and grammatical mistakes, and the poor punctuation - which tends to throw one's attention all over the page, trying to discern a meaning. I'd have hoped the publisher - Prentice Hall - could have afforded an editor.

Douglas also affects, at times, knowledge of things he knows nothing about. E.g. equating negative ions with negative emotions - i.e. an electrical charge with a metaphor (!) Even a bit of school science would have prevented this one.

Hard to know whether to recommend this book or not, as reading it will waste much of your time: as you proceed from gem to gem (and there are many) via a wilderness of excess, often meaningless, verbiage.

Advice to wealthy readers: Pay someone to rip out the time-wasting pages, and chapters, and salvage for you the worthwhile bits - most of them in the first half.

Advice to Prentice Hall: Employ editors; you'll find it cost-effective in the long run. For example, people will recommend more of your books to other people.

Advice to Mark Douglas: cut this book in half, or less.

John Macgregor
1594353
Disclaimer: I only read the first five chapters of this book and decided to put it back on the shelf because I was finding it very difficult to read.

This book covers a lot of very interesting and current topics, and i have no doubt that the overall tools and processes are sound. I gave this book two stars because it was edited so poorly. I get the impression that the book was not edited professionally, which is usually fine if the book is fairly short and inexpensive. However, this book is ~$30, so I expected it to be edited by a professional.

Here are some ways in which editing would have made the book better:

- Grammatical errors - There are some pretty large ones on nearly every page, and they're large enough to make you read them 3 or 4 times to understand them.
- Scope - This book covers way too many topics. I think a good editor would have pared the list of topics down or made the book 3 times as long.
- Duplication - Many points are repeated numerous times without any additional insight.
- Structure - The chapters jumped around quite a bit.
- Example complexity - I code samples that the author provides seem to be needlessly complex. For example, I had some issues running one of the containers, and this container was comprised of something like 15 Docker layers. The same processes and tools could have been used with simpler containers that the average technologist could actually troubleshoot.
2298389
Poorly written, brilliant analysis.  To bad the publisher didn't hire an editor to clean up his grammar and sentence structure.  Lots of double negatives, double and triple qualifiers and sentences without an easily identifiable subject.  Over all it is worth the effort, strictly for the history. I would hate to take a class from him.
3626292
Too many books, magazines and newspapers seem to be attempting their efforts with as few editors as possible. It's a shame that the latest Vampire Earth novel has fallen to this latest fad. This book features a sympathetic character in a world made recognizable by the author's other books, and it could have been a better book than it is - with judicious (or any) editing.

The book normally flows reasonably well early on, given the sedate pace of its first person narrative, but too often continuity problems emerge later. There are scenes that begin but do not end, and others that end without having begun. If you set the scene for an ambush, you should probably describe the ambush, for instance. If you find a compelling weapon and begin to consider its use, you should probably not jump into the middle of a conversation with a Kurian you do not meet until the final pages. The discontinuity in this scene is quite bleak. Finally, an author owes his readers descriptions of important events, not merely some version of The Perils of Pauline, in which "Pauline, having fainted while tied to the train tracks awakens alone and unharmed, and never thinks about it again."

Maybe it's time to crowd source editing, or at least ask for volunteers. I'd volunteer to help a favored author like Knight.

Regretfully, this will be the first book I return to Amazon for being "faulty," and I will await the second edition in which such editing issues may be addressed. It won't be this edition that sits on my bookshelf next to all of the  other Vampire Earth books.
4754730
I liked this book and I _really_ enjoy its subject matter, but as a reader (and a fellow author) I was surprised by its poor editing.  It almost feels like a doctoral dissertation--meaning a book in which every fact is stated, no matter how trivial, in order to demonstrate (almost defensively) the author's mastery of his subject.  It's no exaggeration to say that _Empire of Shadows_ could be cut down to a third of its current length without losing anything crucial to its narrative--and such paring-down might even improve the power of Black's (already powerful) writing.  (Do I really need a full list of the contents of this-or-that explorer's luggage?)  Someone ought to distill this book into a more concise and readable tale of Yellowstone in the 19th century.

That said, a very informative read, and definitely worth at least a good skim.  I'd just add that it's a book for people who already know the park and its environs.  Doubt it would be worthwhile for someone who can't visualize the places mentioned.
3022971
Tons of writing in the book, making it distracting to read
724160
Grammar and spelling errors by an "expert?" in what can just barely be described as a "book" abound.
921802
I am a grad student and purchased this book in order to prepare for my preliminary exams.  The book provides an acceptable overview of foodborne bacterial pathogenic mechanisms, but the grammatical errors are distracting from it's message.  The author frequently (on every page) omits conjunctions or confuses singular/plural combinations.  I found this to be irritating after extensive reading.  References are not provided for stated facts that are obviously controversial. This book has a wealth of information, but someone needs to edit it.