Wordy first novel: time & money better spent elsewhere.
579662
A mediocre first novel, this wordy trilogy is desperately in need of editing down to a single book. The initially likeable teenage heroes rapidly transform into repulsive narcissists who fail to hold the reader's sympathy & had me longing to see them brought to ground by early in the second volume. Overall: short on literary & philosophical merit and a test of stamina rather than a welcomed journey, but a lot of words for your money.
85573
Galactic Vice, authored by Mr. Jake Bible, comes across as a proof of concept, and/or a writing exercise, more than a coherent short novel. It has the sense for this reader, of being written at a hyper speed, with minimal reflection by the author.

The story is first structured around an deep cover detective for the Galactic Vice, one of the multitude of law enforcement, intelligence, and military entities in the Galactic bureaucracy. His specialty is infiltrating crime syndicates via their gambling operations. Abruptly pulled along with his handler from an ongoing operation, he is thrown into an investigation on another planet, precipitated by the assassination of another Galactic Vice detective and members of a tactical team. The planet is a sordid veil of legit gambling and prostitution, kind of a hybrid of Las Vegas and the Cantina Bar from Star Wars. The real money is made by the criminal syndicates via illegal gambling, prostitution, and narcotics.

There are numerous issues with the novel. The writing is uneven, Mr. Bible at his best, but also at his worse. The whole inter-species breeding thing, just doesnt work for this reader. The jump that hundreds, thousands of sentient beings have sex organs and compatible DNA, is way too long a leap. The fact that a MC is suddenly removed from the storyline, to be replaced by a previously secondary character, is in artful. Less time should have been spent on the MC red herring, and more on his replacement.

The underlying story does have merit and entertains. Unfortunately, the somewhat goofy and graphic novel embellishments get in the way.

Galactic Vice, is recommended and was fully read via Kindle Unlimited.
2142407
This is not the first time I've read somebody's self-published "novel" that is actually just a narrative about something that happened in their life. There's no actual plot to this book; it's basically just the author rambling on about something that he (or someone he knows) experienced at one point in his life. They say "write what you know" and apparently the author took this WAY TOO MUCH to heart. There is no character or plot development and no real point to this book other than mental masturbation.

The author also has not mastered the simple mechanics of writing such as style, grammar, and spelling, which just makes the book all that much more painful to read. Fortunately it's short. I really hate to be so harsh, but I'm not going to lie and say this is an awesome book. On the other hand, at least it cost me only $.99 and some time.

I'd say take a class or two in character and plot development, and perhaps try writing a little bit less from direct experience. Maybe the next book will be better.
3658035
Anyone who steps up and does the work to create something deserves a lot of credit.  It is easy for someone who has not done the work to be creative to criticize.  This puts the whole activity of being a reviewer in question and is one reason some authors hate book reviewer.  Douglas Richards reads like an armature author who has published a novel in Kindle format.  I respect his work and his courage in writing his novels.

But on the other side, there are the readers who are spending money and time reading the book.  The prospective reader would like to know weather the book is worth reading.  Of course tastes differ.  Some readers liked this book.  After reading about half of it, I would tell a prospective reader not to waste their time.  This is a terrible novel, suffering from all of the faults of a poor novel.

The characters are wooden and stereotyped.  We have the ex-special forces guy and we have the computer hacker drawn from central casting.  The book starts out OK, but quickly goes down hill.  The plot becomes increasingly unbelievable and silly.  One of the themes is that with the right drugs intelligence can be ramped up almost infinitely.  This follows the ill informed trope that much of our brain power is unused (evolution does not produce significantly unused characteristics).  The plot is telegraphed far in advance and provides few surprises.

I bought the novel on the Kindle for $0.99, less than a cup of coffee.  I can live with that, but I wasted hours reading this, rather than something better.  I can't get that time back.
598466
First, I am only halfway through this...but I may not finish.  The premise of the story is
great, but the writing is at times poor to the point of distraction.  I'm especially
put off by the incessant use of exclamation points. (!!!!)

I felt like the first chapter was very well written, but then sections were perhaps
written by the author's teenage daughter.  I won't spoil the plot, but there are at times
multiple page descriptions of the wilderness surroundings, and then suddenly
a major bomb is dropped in a single paragraph, then suddenly we're back to the woods again like nothing happened.

Anyway, had I paid $3 for this I'd call it a worthwhile purchase...but $10 to me is overpriced.

Edit: I did finish this, and downgraded to one star.  I wish the whole book had been
Much more like the first chapter or two.
3864191
I review books and products as a hobby.  This author provided me with a copy of her book in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

I pride myself in choosing books that I enjoy; unfortunately, I missed the boat (no pun intended) on this one.

This book grabbed me with an intriguing beginning; however, it slowed into a thin, choppy, disjointed and less than believable storyline with by-and-large uninteresting, poorly developed characters and ended with a fizzle.

It piqued my interest intermittently; however, the novel felt like a forced story secondary to the authors agenda to promote her environmentalist efforts to protect ocean ecosystems.  Occasionally, the author stereotyped Vietnam veterans and denigrated a living President.  I read for therapeutic entertainment, yet found this novel lacking in my expectations.

I expected a solid action-packed mystery by a bestselling author, but this did not fit that bill.

The Emissary was my first exposure to bestselling author Patricia Cori, but it will be my last.

Caveat Emptor!
1461433
As a general rule, twin stories send me running for the nearest exit, quite possibly because I've read every conceivable "twin spin" in my work as a screenplay consultant and there is very little that's fresh and entertaining. I thought the curse might have been broken with this time-travel fantasy in which a wizened crone sends a sickly baby into the future so that the little girl will have a chance to live. I even liked the idea of a suit of armor that has bewitched Morgan from the moment she first saw it and made her curious about the 15th century knight that once wore it.

Time-travel obviously involves some suspension of belief and that's one of the reasons they're so popular. This book, however, has more than a few problems that a little research and much closer editing might have remedied. For one thing, much ado is made about what a giant of a fellow Derek is - the kind with such enormously broad shoulders that you wonder how he ever got through doorways without having to turn sideways. If we're really to believe that the suit of armor in the modern antique shop was once his, it would likely be considerably smaller. In 15th century England, men were much shorter. Even Henry VIII - whose armor is on display at the Tower of London - was not exactly a gigantor.

Secondly is the uneven nature of the language. It's as if the author keeps being reminded that she's supposed to be writing about historical themes and throws in a few "methinks," "verily" and "God's teeth" every few pages to try to sound authentic. This really doesn't work. Nor does the rose-colored Camelot view that ladies of the day dress in fabulous gowns, sumptuous feasts are a regular occurence, and every castle interior has been readied for a glam photo spread in Architectural Digest. I'll cut her some slack on this because I think there's a part of us that really doesn't want to envision what stinky, dirty, flea-bitten, desperate times these were. Even a little research, however, should have tipped her off that the bedrooms weren't replete with comfy mattresses and starched linens. That Derek has a nicely appointed study and does his own bookkeeping is another stretch. Literacy wasn't high on the list of manly credentials...

Lastly is the late entry of The Other Twin and an ending that feels weepily contrived. A better story, I think, would have been if she had given Morgan's twin sib a bigger presence in the story. As written, it's as if she has been tucked off into the woods, has the sense of a radish and only comes forth because the man she's in love with thinks it would be a good way to clear the air and solve the mystery.
3594930
This is the first chapter of a late night 3am off cable not made for profit movie. The premise sounds good but the good bits were used up in the intro and the adverts for it. This was probably an early attempt by the author written in meticulous detail by hand in a lined blue book while in high school to write her first romance that's not a romance with influences from television crime shows . A tedious read best not done.
478662
The knowledgeable literary folks are tearing this book to pieces in the reviews, and while I am certainly not among that crowd I can understand many of their their points.  The writing is simplistic ... at one point I stopped and looked back at the description on Amazon to see if this was intended to be a book for young teens ... characters are left in limbo, and the storyline is disjointed and inconsistent at times.

Having said that, most of us are not literary critics ... we're just looking for something to take our minds off our day-to-day issues for a few hours ... and if it costs three bucks or less, then so much the better.  I would present that this book accomplishes that task ... the setting presents an interesting backdrop, and some of the characters are intriguing, if you don't mind filling in some of the details with your own imagination.

Would I pay three bucks each for the whole set?  I doubt it, unless something in the story grabs me enough to continue.  But I've landed three of the first four for free so I'll probably read that far in the series anyway, then decide what to do from there.

It would be great if the author would take some of the money from these books, hire an editor, and release a series of updated "special edition" anthologies, each including, say, three or four books.  There's a lot of potential here, and I think something like that might sell much better.
4585461
two short stories (as the title suggests), but the US$ per page ratio is underwhelming. too expensive - I'd rather wait for the next book instead
4213683
** spoiler alert ** Boo. Hiss. I chose this book to read because it was mentioned on the Nook weekly contest that they're running this summer of 2012. I should have known it wasn't worth the $3.99 or whatever I paid for it. I was in the mood to read a compelling, well-written post-apocalyptic story and hoped this would fit the bill. Nope.

The story is at its heart a story written in the first person of a 20-something male protagonist named Jasper who travels around Georgia with a group of his friends that he calls his tribe. That's about the extent of the story. Yes, I was hoping for a plot too. When our story opens, it is approximately 20 years in the future and civilization is starting a slow decline, though that is never really adequately explained, and Jasper is in love with a married woman named Sophia. The first half of the book seems to be about Jasper and company traveling around, meeting new people, traveling some more, and then hooking up with an assortment of women, all while trying to avoid the questionable authority figures and gangsters. The second half of the book appears to try to develop a plot, but it is far too little, too late and I figure more than a few readers will have already been lost to attrition. I only stayed with this book because of a morbid need to know what happened to Jasper, in the same way that you slow down to look at a car-wreck in traffic.

Another critique mentioned that this book appears to try on themes from different books and I wholeheartedly agree. In one segment, it tries to be "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, another takes on a superhero stance and actually references "Batman," while another scene plays with "The Wizard of Oz," and yet another is reminiscent of Suzanne Collins' "Hunger Games." There's probably even more references in there that just went over my head, too. I did read that this novel is an expansion of an earlier award-winning short story based on the same characters. I'm sure the short story is great, but as a novel it just doesn't work.

Because I have a degree in creative writing, I feel compelled to point out this book's shortcomings. Firstly, the sentence structure is often awkward, unwieldy or just plain clumsy. Witness this gem: "I wanted to vanish the last bit of distance between us so we could face this together." Also? I could go the rest of my life without reading the lines "I jolted in surprise." It seems to be a favorite sentence of bad authors. Secondly, this book is dying from a lack of almost any sensory detail and the author's near constant glossing over of scene and telling us what happened instead of showing us. He tells us that a character delivers a baby, in just a few lines but never gets into any detail, though we know that Jasper is there front and center. The reader doesn't really know what any of the characters, including Jasper, look like. We don't know what the streets of Savannah look like in this new world. No one knows, or bothers to explain what has caused this apocalyptic collapse of civilization. There are frequent jumps in time, on a chapter basis, that don't make sense and appear to be only for the convenience of the author. Characters come and go also at the convenience of the author despite the fact that the chances of such coincidences occurring are exceedingly rare; yet it happens time and again. Finally, there are hugely gaping plot-holes that defy explanation. In one pivotal scene, several characters run out into a dark forest where they are being chased by the "bad guys," guns are blazing on both sides, and yet no one is hurt or killed, except for the bad guys, of course. Another scene has characters discussing fire, as an element that they haven't actually seen before (huh?) but then just a few pages later, the characters are acting out bits from "The Wizard of Oz." And don't even get me started on how everyone managed to magically survive a wildfire.

Just read this if you have a burning desire to find out about Jasper's life in post-apocalyptic Georgia. Don't read this if you're looking for quality fiction.
229470
With an interesting premise, characters who elicit sympathy and a romance included "Forbidden" should have everything it needs to be a well received novel in the YA genre. Unfortunately it misses due to lack of writing skill and flow.

The characters suffer from lack of insight into their motivation and lack of reader sympathy toward them. They are not well developed enough with believable back story to bring them forward with the plot. While the supernatural protagonists have more life to them the human characters are just flat and uninteresting.

However, this novelist shows the beginnings of a good talent if she can rein it in and keep the story intact and in check. The story flow is one of the biggest problems. Getting from point A to point B was a zigzag of tangents off into points not needed.

I will read the next in the series, however, because I do think the author is going to improve. The writing toward the end of the novel was much better than the beginning.

Read time: 3 hours

Karen Bryant Doering,
Parent's Little Black Book
3288674
The cover of this book caught my eye in the bookstore.  However its $9.99 asking price for a paperback was too steep so we got it from the library.  I am sure glad we didn't buy it!  The initial chapters are fast pace and full of good action.  I lost interest after 300 pages.  This book is plotted out like a cable-tv mini series on the Sci-fi channel - its best work is in the initial stages.  The fact the "heroine" is able to figure out who stole the decoding device from the museum after one paragraph of dialogue ruined the whole story for me.  In the end, I really didn't care enough to finish it.  My wife finished it and filled me in on the ending.
3351222
I don't normally write reviews; but this book is quite pricy for what it is and I thought I would take a gamble based on the fact that  sometimes price belies quality (for example, I took a similar gamble on 'Prince of Thorns' which I didn't regret in the slightest).

Sadly that's not the case here. I rarely abandon books, but I'm afraid I've given up on this one.

In this 'epic' the initial story is somewhat standard - young boy doesn't know secret of his lineage, trains as part of the enemy guard etc etc - but unfortunately a promising tale is both let down by a few things.

First, the bad sentence structure and editing (the phrasing, spelling, etc) goes beyond the distractingly bad we tend to find in the dollar novels, and into 'very irritating, in fact so irritating I'll write an amazon review' as you're often wondering "why is that apostrophe there?" or "when he says 'there' does he mean 'there' or 'their'".

However, worse still, and secondly, is the rather simplistic attention paid to the main character, whist the 'world' is lavished with page after page of dry historical recounting, none of the main character's actions or torment seem to last for more than a page or two - he just carries on like an action hero on fast forward. I get the impression that the author probably enjoyed the Lord of the Rings saga, but feels it'd be improved 'without all those hobbits and elves and their lectures on morality'.

Thirdly, I don't mind a scene-setting, or the occasional montage scene, and what would high fantasy be without a good 'ancient god forged weapon' plot devices, but when I'm turning pages every so often because the ancient history of the world of blah blah gets repeated *again*, and every now and then I'm treated to a montage where  'he spent the next three years training with the old man of the mountain who taught him 17 ninja skills' .... I'm wondering how much of the 300 pages is going to be like this.

Some folks might think this review was harsh - but at least hopefully constructive - if the book was $0.99, I'd laugh at the first time mistakes and enjoy my way to the end, but at $5 I expect quality. The author's priced himself into a league in which professional writers often are found, and unfortunately I've read an awful lot better for a lot less. Which is a shame, because when buying it I was hoping for a decent 'world sized' fantasy epic in the vein of Erikson, Feist et al.

Nice try sir, for your first attempt, but please re-edit your book and fix the grammar, spelling and the overall flow - try to give your main character some depth, drop your price and then maybe I'll pick it up again.
3114202
The world building was good with just enough information to anchor and still allow the reader to fill in the blanks.  The storyline was interesting with a nice little twist that isn't a cheat because the clues were there.  It could be 30-40 pages shorter due to repetitive introspection.  I wasn't invested in the characters much; their angst was a bit drawn out and they switched gears at the drop of a hat, but the story and other characters pulled them along well enough.

Heres where it all falls apart:  the editing is HORRID.  Scenes are switched rapid fire without even a blank line in between, and its jarring.  It throws you out of the story as you pause to try to figure what just happened, and it becomes a chore.  This is inexcusable.  Then there are the typos.  *Hint* theres something called spell check and even one pass would have cured a lot.  Example:  his armst.  There are some words used that may or may not have been in use in the 12th century, my dictionary tells me that two of them in particular originated in the  15th and 16th century.  I didn't bother to do extensive research because, quite frankly, I was sick of the whole thing.

When I see USA Today bestselling author, and award-winning, I expect a lot more of a book that was originally published in 2010  there have been seven years in which to discover errors.  Whats even more confusing is that, since this book is a freebie, I assume its purpose is akin to advertising.  If you're asking for my time, and eventually my money, to explore other titles, you're out of luck.

Note:  the man on the cover has dark hair, the hero of the novel is blonde
996490
A friend recommended this book to me, and knowing nothing of this author, I took her recommendation and purchased the book. I am torn about whether or not I regret that purchase. Would I recommend the book to a friend? No. Here's why. Had the book been free, I may be less harsh in my criticisms, but with money in the game, I will review it as such. The author acknowledges in the post credits that he knows the book isn't going to be a classic, and I agree. It reminds me of a made for TV drama. It is not an intellectual piece as I had hoped, but the author did have knowledge of the physical area the story took place in. Having lived in the area, I reminisced about the traffic, construction and cities mentioned. Unfortunately, there were multiple spelling errors, maybe a dozen, that made me cringe. I would have hoped the author's daughter (his editor) would have caught these blatant errors. He even misspelled a main character's name in a chapter title. The story, being about a scientific experiment gone wrong, had very little science in it at all. It was more like a cheap detective novel. I granted him the excessive use of 'be' verbs due to either the author trying to create a certain vibe or because he thought his readers wouldn't notice. I noticed. Aside from the lack of depth, the spelling errors, and simple use of the English language, I had one more problem. The author failed to realize that he gave away his age by the inappropriate use of labels. At one point, the author is talking about a teenage boy who delivers a note to a reporter. He is quick to label him "the black boy." My grandmother makes similar remarks without realizing she is racist. One time when I mentioned it to her, she exclaimed, "I'm not racist, just this morning I hugged a black lady." I think both the author and my grandmother don't realize how they label people. I am sure the author would argue that he had to establish the boy was related to the girl who gave birth to the black baby, he just didn't do much to build a character description beyond his skin color. Ironically, the baby had a caucasian father, and would have had a mixed ethnic heritage. Despite that detail, the baby was simply referred to as "the black baby." Another indicator of the author's age.
I did finish the story, hoping the ending would be worth the time. The author had the opportunity to really delve into the box he had opened in relation to the scientific and ethical questions the story raised, but he did not, or at best, did so in a strictly superficial way. The book did not leave me to ponder questions raised. It simply left me. By tomorrow, I doubt I will even remember the names of the characters. The author got his money, but he did not get a repeat customer.
3381625
Disagree with the author's use of factual names & places in a fictional context.  Story was told at the speed of a 78 rpm record complete with scratches & flaws.  Anachronisms threw me as did just plain period correctness.  Author could complement her creative style and provide a sense of depth by narrowing character list, then developing them further.  I read for relaxation.  Completely exhausted.