Don’t Let All the Pretty Days Get By - A Review

Author: Bruce Hoppe
Publisher: Back-To-One Books
ISBN: 978-0-9777-6110-4
Pages: 216

Having decided to put the brakes on a promising career in L.A., Teddy Gibbs returns to her family’s New Mexico ranch to care for her ailing mother, but she soon discovers that her mother’s health isn’t her only concern. The book opens with a vivid scene that has a few members of the New Mexico chapter of COHAB (Clothing Optional Hot Air Ballooning) pulling an unscheduled balloon landing on her family’s horse pasture, and the balloon’s passengers emerge in the buff, to Teddy’s disdain. This awkward moment not only sets the book’s tone, it also provides us with a taste of the author’s expert hand, as he writes with a gentle, lyrical style that is both fitting and engrossing.

Things quickly come to a head, and Teddy, trying her hand at local politics, eventually challenges a proposed amendment that stands to benefit the Balloon Lollapalooza Committee—and, “If passed, the revision would tweak an obscure state law regulating hot air balloon flights. A clause would be added reducing the liability for damages resulting from balloon landings made on private property.” Teddy is also ready to act as amateur defense counsel in a pending criminal suit brought on by the nudist balloonists, which will determine the fate of the Gibbs’ two part-time ranch hands, nicknamed Song and Dance—then there is the threat of a possible civil suit that may eventually decide the fate of the family’s ranch altogether.

A lot happens in the book, and over the course of it, we, like the central character herself, are taken through the exquisite New West, with its “browning countryside” and “[t]he rolling swales of pale short-grass” that give “way to the mesa cliffs in the distance, their rusty iron-laden rock ledges carved in relief by the low-angled rays of morning sun.” We are given a tour of this vast landscape, where politicos with shady ambitions run amuck, and Indian gaming casinos take center stage. We are greeted with colorful characters, and we hear tell of others, like the scientist who had “been testing the use of electro magnetic force fields to power medical equipment at a teaching hospital when patients mysteriously began levitating above the examination table during MRI scans.” Yes, the book, on a whole, makes for a delightful and interesting reading experience.

Hoppe’s descriptions are cinematic; his dialogue, etched from life, as characters talk like real people, their speech patterns, vernaculars, and argots delivered with surprising authenticity. And though the book is slow going at the outset, Hoppe picks up the pace before long, successfully blending action, humor, political rhetoric, and unique insights. He delivers a Neo-Western with aplomb, affording his readers a ringside seat at a thrilling prize fight that pits a gaming magnate against a brave little alliance of anarchistic locals bent on exposing political subterfuge and restoring a semblance of order to their community.

Reciprocation and The Three-Day-A-Week Rule

Well, the long weekend is over, and for most of us it is back to work, back to the grind. I have a few big projects on my plate that I must attend to, as a deadline is looming, so my attention will be divided for the most part—that, unfortunately, means less time on the blog. The next review will be posted soon enough, and more editorials will pour forth when they formulate in my head, but the posts will come three days a week now, instead of five (we’re aiming for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), and if multiple posts occur on any of these days, then so be it, but the three-day-a-week rule will be enforced, if I can help it.

I appreciate all those who are regulars on this blog; your frequent visits and comments keep me going. I thrive on reciprocal action—that includes feedback by way of comments from visitors to the site. If the interaction bar begins to slide toward zero, I will, in effect, begin a steady slide in the same direction where my interest is concerned. Editing is already a thankless job, but at least it pays; blogging, on the other hand, should be fun, and rewarding. The gratitude expressed by some of you writers and readers out there has meant a lot to me, and that is better than monetary payment as far as I’m concerned.

The reciprocation I’m referring to, however, isn’t limited to expressed gratitude, nor is it demanded. You can shake your fist at me for giving you an unfavorable review (but do get over it); or you can disagree with any or all points of a given post until you’re blue in the face—we’re only human, and entitled to our own opinions. But reciprocation, however it comes, is welcome here. This by no means implies that you have to force a response to a given post; if you have nothing to say, don’t say anything—I prefer silence to drivel, as much as you prefer engaging and stimulating posts to fodder.

Literary Voices

I know many of you out there have your favorites when it comes to established authors. I have my own, of course. One thing is certain though, of the many beloved authors out there, quite a few of them have garnered the large followings they currently enjoy because of their exceptional skill at delivering tales, whether fictional or not. If you can’t deliver a good story, your career is pretty much cooked (even some authors who can deliver the goods have a hard time catching on, for varying reasons).

One thing an author needs to establish him or herself in the literary arena, and thus attract a following, is a unique voice, and a consistent one if he or she can manage it. Now there have been many articles and such written on this subject—the “How to Find Your Literary Voice” items—which I’m sure you can Google if you’re game, but I won’t be getting into that sort of thing on this blog, as this, as I’ve said in times past, is not a workshop.

At any rate, any good and dedicated author will eventually, by way of accident or design, acquire a voice, a literary style that is unique to him or her, and by which that author can be readily identified by their current flock of readers. That voice will also be the signature of that author—his or her distinctive characteristic or mark, if you will—which a reader will come to expect. For instance, after reading one Raymond Chandler book, realizing that his was a voice unique to him—a voice that I found refreshing and appealing—I didn’t bother to read the blurbs or reviews of his books anymore, but bought them on spec, partly knowing what I was in for based solely on the man’s voice. The same goes for Kerouac, Fitzgerald, Hammett, and even many contemporaries.

The reclusive J. D. Salinger, though he published one book and too few short stories and novellas, displayed a unique and timeless voice himself. With Salinger in mind, the one thing that has to be associated with your voice is theme. Recurring themes must accompany your tales; themes that readers will view as little threads running through all your works, as we will also come to expect these things. Chandler had them, Kerouac had them, Hammett had them, and Salinger certainly had them. These themes can involve bravery, friendship, betrayal, redemption, or anything you desire, or can identify with, so long as it is executed well. A theme is best delivered when it is something you strongly identify with, or else believe in (again, write what you know).

I know that some of you writers out there like to experiment, and some of you will even attempt to write a new unexplored work each time you publish, but bear this in mind: you will attract a different set of readers with each of those works. Writing with a distinctive voice, however, and offering recurring themes in your various works will not cause you to alienate your current fan base. If readers really respond to your writing in one novel, why abandon them by jettisoning everything that made that book work? If you must experiment, however, do so under a pen name, or names, like every wise writer. But continue writing your signature material under one name. That way everyone wins.

Films I took in This Weekend

Birth (Good)

After a boy sneaks into a birthday party held in a ritzy Manhattan duplex, he convinces a pretty woman named Anna to step aside for a private conversation. The boy tells Anna that he is Sean, implying that this is not only in the name he bears, but also in the sense that he is in fact her dead husband come back to life. This bizarre revelation is explored through the duration of the film.

An experiment in what some would consider “the ridiculous,” Birth forces one to suspend disbelief early on, and when the moviegoer finally fails to keep his or her disbelief fully suspended, which he or she will fail to do, eventually, and inevitably—and this before the first act is even over—the only thing that will maintain interest in the film is plain ol’ curiosity—in this case, to see where the film will go, and what will become of the characters. This is a major credit to the filmmakers, especially director Jonathan Glazer, whose eye toward atmosphere and pacing is particularly keen. In lesser hands the film would have fallen apart, but Glazer, despite the movie’s farfetched premise, manages to hold our interest by delivering on suspense. Each of his scenes moves the story marginally closer to what we long for: to learn whether the 10-year-old boy, named Sean, is truly the Sean who was married to Anna (Nicole Kidman) before dying during a routine jog in Central Park 10 years earlier; and, if it is him, what will become of the relationship between him and Anna?

We’re essentially talking about reincarnation here. Sean certainly gives us enough to go on, revealing intimate knowledge of past experiences only the real Sean could know, but when the film decides to take a sharp turn towards the end, everything that led up to “the truth” we’d decided to embrace is suddenly thrown into confusion, allowing our doubt to resurface—as well as Anna’s.

Beyond this, there are moments in the film that will cause some audience members to literally cringe, given the awkward pairing of a boy and a woman, and the adult situations they are placed in (situations that are handled tastefully, I might add). For instance, there is a scene in the film that has the supposedly reincarnated Sean (Cameron Bright) stripping down to his briefs in Anna’s bathroom, while Anna is waiting in her bathtub, watching him. Sean eventually climbs in, and the tense moment of silence between them reverberates well beyond the screen.

There is another scene prior to the one above that places the pair in what appears to be a café, and they hold an interesting discussion over two cups of ice cream. “A man has to support his wife,” Anna says. “He has to feed her, defend her, take care of her. How’re you gonna feed me, defend me . . . take care of me? How’re you gonna do that?” Without hesitating, Sean replies: “I’ll get a job.” And after a long pause, Anna asks: “How’re you gonna fulfill my needs?” Sean swallows, and, without returning her gaze, he says, “I know what you’re talking about.” Anna continues: “You ready for them?” When Sean offers no response, Anna continues: “You ever made love to a girl?” At this, he finally sets eyes on her, and licking his spoon for the umpteenth time, he says, in all seriousness, “You’d be the first.”

This awkward relationship, and the brilliant performances by Kidman and Bright that give rise to it, is what makes the film work for the most part. And it is also why I would recommend that you give the movie a try, if your sensibilities will allow you to stomach a few demanding scenes.

View the trailer now.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Author: Pearl S. Buck
Publisher: Washington Square Press
ISBN: 978-0-7432-7293-3
Pages: 368

With the POD Critic blog going, along with the added demands of work—not to mention the wonderful time I spend with my family—I haven’t been able to read very many traditionally published books of late. The few I do read have to be rather spectacular then to absorb the little time I can spare to devote to them. One of those books, which was mentioned somewhere on this blog—albeit in passing—is The Good Earth­, by Pearl S. Buck (the first in a spectacular trilogy). The book affected me in ways that I will not go into on this blog, though my wife and I have had protracted discussions surrounding the book’s theme and overall message.

Buck wrote with a complex simplicity, in that her prose was undemanding to the reader, yet it conveyed a wealth of insight and was concerned with various spheres of knowledge. The book delves into business, traditional mores, Chinese philosophy; it explores life in pre-revolutionary China and successfully exposes the culture to the Western mind, eschewing the familiar stereotypes and misconceptions of the day, which Hollywood had already made prevalent. I cannot express my love and appreciation for this book in words, and how it opened up my eyes to things I was not previously aware of. To read it is to experience the magnum opus of a writer working at the insurmountable height of her creativity—and this was among the first of her many works.

To fully experience the novel, one would have to read it with purpose, for the author wrote it thus. There is wisdom contained in the book that will resonate with the right reader, and that reader will appreciate every word, every phrase, and each disclosure—those that are concerned with the plot, as well as those that are concerned with the broader scope of pre-revolutionary China and its colorful, wonderful people.

The language of the book should be familiar to many, as it is surprisingly biblical. Parts of the prose read like they were culled from the King James Bible itself. Note the following, taken from the first paragraph of Chapter 5:

The New Year approached and in every house in the village there were preparations. Wang Lung went into the town to the candlemaker's shop and he bought squares of red paper on which were brushed in gilt ink the letter for happiness and some with the letter for riches, and these squares he pasted upon his farm utensils to bring him luck in the new year. Upon his plow and upon the ox's yoke and upon the two buckets in which he carried his fertilizer and his water, upon each of these things he pasted a square. And then upon the doors of his house he pasted long strips of red paper brushed with mottoes of good luck, and over his doorway he pasted a fringe of red paper cunningly cut into a flower pattern and very finely cut. And he bought red paper to make new dresses for the gods, and this the old man did cleverly enough for his old shaking hands, and Wang Lung took them and put them upon the two small gods in the temple to the earth and he burned a little incense before them for the sake of the New Year. And for his house he bought also two red candles to burn on the eve of the year upon the table under the picture of a god, which was pasted on the wall of the middle room above where the table stood.

Now consider the following, taken from Haggai Chapter 1:

¹⁰Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. ¹¹And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.

The book also explores something that every culture experiences: the sharp divide between rich and poor, and this it does from both sides of that spectrum, through the eyes of the same man at that, Wang Lung—who we meet as a peasant farmer on his “marriage day.” Though the story is told mainly from Wang Lung’s perspective, we do get a little bit of the omniscient voice, as we are privy to everything each character is thinking. The book also gives us some of the greatest character arcs I have every witnessed; and the plot contains elements that result in a full-circle sweep, especially as concerns the destiny of the great House of Hwang. (You’ll notice that I’m giving very little away here, as I intend to guard the intricacies of the plot with care.)

The characters and situations detailed in the book are unforgettable; the imagery is among the richest and most vivid I have ever experienced in literature; and the language is altogether brilliant. The book was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932; but that, as far as I’m concerned, is no great surprise.

Ciao! Miami - A Review

Author: Fawzy Zablah
Publisher: Little Havana Press/Lulu.com
ISBN: 978-1-8472-8732-8
Pages: 98

Ciao! Miami is many things, but what it is not is a winning collection of short stories. The author attempts to draw his characters from life, particularly, life in the seedy sections of Miami, Florida. By the author’s own account, the book is “[a]n uncompromising look at lower class Miami in the late 90s,” and in this he or she succeeds, as all Fawzy Zablah affords us is “a look,” and nothing more. We are presented with mere situations, where characters engage each other in everyday dialogue—and we’re talking drug addicts, dealers, whores, gang bangers, transsexuals, you name it—but these situations are not full-blown stories, which would involve some measure of plotting.

After completing some of the stories, I came away empty, having gained nothing by reading them, as a few are absolutely vapid. The characters are true to life perhaps, in the sense that they are not fluffed to fit a literary paradigm, but they are also inevitably one-dimensional, and they experience no real arcs. Though the type of characters featured in this book haven’t seen much light of day in the larger literary world, Fawzy Zablah could have presented us with more in the way of story; more layers, more dimensions, just . . . more!

There is a story in the book that is a wonderful case in point. It is called Juanito Valenzuela’s Crack Rocks, and it is all of four pages long. The story recounts the first-time experience of a young man experimenting with crack. It starts out with him and a crack whore sitting on a blue couch in a studio in Coral Gables, and the two are gabbing about crack and other mundane issues, and meanwhile, expletives are flying around like so many cave-roosting bats. Eventually, more friends show up, and the five of them sit in a circle while passing around a crack pipe. When the pipe gets to the first-timer, he is instructed on how to smoke it—like “a regular bong” in this case. Three hours into the crackfest, the group is out of it, all of them laid out on the floor with music blaring in the background, “loud and incoherent” we are told. A little gibberish ensues before a character launches into a discussion on another mutual acquaintance, Juanito Valenzuela, of the story’s title. We are told about the beating he received from a few cops, and a rumor that suggests he lost an eye in the ordeal. But before all is said and done, quite frankly, nothing of any relevance is really said or done. And that is the problem with a lot of these stories.

Beyond this, there are a few issues with the typesetting, and one issue with the misuse of a certain punctuation mark. On page 5 of the book, a character says: “It’s too; I don’t know. It’s just a little too much for tonight.” The break in speech in the first sentence is punctuated by a semi-colon. In lieu of this, the sentence should have been broken by ellipsis points, like this: “It’s too . . . I don’t know.” I’m glad this opportunity presented itself here, because I’ve been meaning to address this issue ever since I read and reviewed James Somers’s The Chronicles of Soone: Heir to the King. Semicolons should never be used in dialogue, unless the person the dialogue is streaming from is a university professor, or a scholar. In other words, unless your character speaks like a scholarly journal article, or other formal piece, you can punctuate dialogue with less formal punctuation marks. In fact, this is strongly advised.

Other common errors come in the form of the following, which need no commentary:

The 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize

Now, I had no idea what a “blook” was before I became aware of this prize. It appears that a blook is a book based on a blog. Lulu has organized an award system around this new literary form (the first of its kind, in actuality), and according to them, “The prize will reward the best blooks in three categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction and Comic-Blooks (based on web-comics), but with one overall winner. It is open to blooks published anywhere by anyone, provided they are in English.” I found this interesting; one doesn’t even have to publish through Lulu to enter the contest—as a side note, the first place winner receives $10,000 in prize money.

I was also not aware that Andrew Losowsky’s book, The Doorbells of Florence—which received the POD Critic Special Selection seal for excellence—was shortlisted for the blooker prize before Mr. Losowsky informed me of this following his review. In an email to me, Mr. Losowsky wrote: “The book is up for the Blooker Prize, announced on Monday. I only hope the judges agree with your assessment!” He was referring to the assessments in the actual review, and my response to him was: “If they don't agree, then the competition had better be fierce, otherwise somebody is greasing somebody’s palm.” Well, it turns out that the panel of judges did agree with my overall assessment, because the book won the blooker prize for fiction, which put $2,500 extra bucks in Mr. Losowsky’s pocket. That makes for a successful POD book if you ask me.

Congratulations are in order!

*Raises champagne glass*

Here’s to more success.

Films I Took in This Weekend

Since I’ve opened up a discussion on films recently (a big love of mine), I’ve decided to add a recurring theme to the POD Critic posts. It will be called Films I Took in This Weekend. Self explanatory, yeah? In these recurring posts, which won’t necessarily come every week, I’ll be giving my brief assessment of whatever films I happened to catch over the weekend. Since films involve storytelling, and you all are storytellers, I figured it wouldn’t hurt. If anything, it will spark discussion, or it will inspire. But you will not be bored—I hope! Anyway, feel free to chime in with your further thoughts on these films, or comment on the films you took in this weekend. The first of my assessments follow below:

Dreamgirls (Fair)

I happened to catch Dreamgirls on DVD, as I do not go to the movies, and I absolutely hated the film! But let me explain. The film was supposed to be a period drama or musical of some sort (it was based on a play), but instead of evoking the ’60s with its musical renditions, the female trio that forms the movie’s singing group sounds more like a recent R&B act. This shatters any nostalgia one can hope to have, and it makes the movie seem unbelievable in spots. The only song that sounds remotely ’60s-era is the one sung by James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy), “Steppin’ to the Bad Side.”

Beyond that, the movie goes all over the place, not really establishing a solid, focused storyline. The film is loosely based on The Supremes, but since it isn’t a full-blown biopic, in the vein of Ray or Walk the Line, the film heads out in every direction it can without settling on a good one. The performances are okay, if you can stomach the awkward scenes where dialogue is sung—beginning about a third of the way in—and I say awkward because Dreamgirls, unlike Chicago, or any popular film based on a musical, does not start out like a musical at all, but it eventually ends up being one (we can probably blame that on the play it is borrowed from).

Eddie Murphy, though in rare form, couldn’t save this film, and Jamie Foxx is wasted here—he even seems bored with the role. In short, Dreamgirls goes down like hard medicine; the really nasty tasting stuff that leaves your face all twisted in disgust long after you’ve swallowed and chased it down with a spoon full of sugar.

.45 (Poor)

My wife and I watched all of twelve or so seconds of this film before we ejected it. The film actually isn’t even worth mentioning, but I’m trying to include everything I even attempted to get through this weekend.

Smokin’ Aces (Good)

Interesting and stylized film with an original plot and a few good characters; but it dies the death because of a really forced and incredulous ending—not that the film itself was any more believable, but at least it was palatable. The resolution killed this one for me so I won’t even labor over the plot. See it if you want, don’t see it . . . who cares?

Notes on a Scandal (Excellent)

The movie explores the secret world of illicit student/teacher amours that have gained popularity in America in recent years. But this is told from a UK perspective. Cate Blanchett plays a teacher who begins a dalliance that eventually wins her a full-blown underage paramour, and the relationship escalates to the point of white hot fervor, until recklessness exposes it to the eyes of another teacher, played by Dame Judi Dench. The plot unfolds with expert cadence, with revelations and complications coming at appropriate intervals, but it is the subplot that reveals Dench as the film’s antagonist. Her reactions are almost as nefarious as the actions of Blanchett’s protagonist, and the ballet of events that develop only intensify, making for a mesmeric overall experience; one that shouldn’t be missed if you have an appreciation for film, or are hankering for a good story.

Online Book Clubs

The power of popular book clubs is obvious nowadays, and that power is even recognized by the big publishers, who have since been supplying readers’ guides among the back matter of various titles (classics mostly). Many books have seen a million copies added to the number of units sold, thanks to the mere mention of them by Oprah Winfrey.

Now some would argue that an online book club is too impersonal; that a face-to-face group discussion is much more inviting, and, in effect, rewarding. Granted, but an online book club has many advantages over the monthly face-to-face meetings. For one, there is a little thing known to us as convenience. One can log on any time of day and join in a lively discussion about a chosen book. That kind of convenience can lead to many things—a much larger community, for one; a broader set of ideas and opinions on a particular title that can expand the discussion, for another.

What’s more, if your online community eventually commands any kind of respect (usually afforded by acquiring a good amount of active members) you can usually establish relationships with publishers and self-published authors, so that books can be purchased at deep discounts. (Hey, if you have a hundred members buying the same book at a moment’s notice, what author or publisher would balk at, say, 40 to 50% off the cover price of each copy purchased; especially when those copies are coming directly from the author or publisher, who bought them on the cheap to begin with.)

If you are already a member of an online book club, try suggesting a good POD title if you are afforded that privilege at some point. If, on the other hand, you would like to launch your own online book club, I would suggest you peruse this page first.

O, would that someone among you would launch an online book club solely concerned with POD books! That would be revolutionary indeed.

The Doorbells of Florence - A Review

Author: Andrew Losowsky
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: N/A
Pages: 138

I’ll start out by saying I have been to Florence, Italy (or Firenze as it is called in the local parlance) and I was thoroughly bowled over by the remarkable architecture, exquisite food and wine, and the hospitality and amiableness of not a few well-mannered Italians. Florence itself stood out most among the three cities I visited that year, so it should come as no surprise that Andrew Losowsky’s book, The Doorbells of Florence, piqued my interest immediately.

Upon scrolling to the first page of the first story, I am greeted by a photo of the first doorbell, a rusty, weathered, worn beauty—if there even is such a thing—and my eyes glance at the apartment numbers running vertically along the panel: N. 6, N. 4, N. 3, N. 2, N. 1. Great! Then comes page one of the actual story, and I see the familiar Italian language displaying the name of the short story itself, which is essentially the address of the apartment house in question—Borgo San Fergiano, 27. Well and fine. Then I read the first line of this unique opus: “She lived at number five and she didn’t exist.” Partially intrigued, I head back to the photo that introduces this story and I glance at the list of apartments again. There is no N. 5. I am now hooked. That is all it took to draw me into the taught, sticky web of this fascinating book.

In his query, Andrew Losowsky tells me that, upon visiting Florence, he came across a doorbell that he liked and ended up taking a photo of it. This happened again, and yet again, until he had what could have passed for a decent album, or portfolio. After sitting on the photos for a year, he started to study them again, and stories began to form in his mind; stories that related specifically to each image. Doorbells of Florence is the result of that exercise, and it is a spectacular achievement, to say the least.

The stories themselves are very short, with some topping out at a mere page and a half, and a few swelling to just two little paragraphs (the shortest story amounts to only five words), but what is surprising is that, despite their seemingly limited lengths, the characters in many of these stories go through a range of emotions, and actually experience arcs. The second story, for instance, has Paolo Cesarini lying in bed the day after he loses his job, and we are told that he is uneasy about the change in his circumstances. We then see him descend into passable madness, envisioning an imaginary friend who appears on day four of his jobless, apartment-bound mental odyssey. He develops the habit of binge eating, perhaps as a form of therapy. He experiences a positive change by dragging himself out of the house, visiting a bar, and meeting new people. He manages to fall in and out of love, and thereafter retreats “into himself again.” And by the end of the story, he is offered a new job, which he immediately accepts, and the very next day he wakes up a new man. And none of this is awkward in delivery.

Losowsky’s narrative style is smooth and supple, as he is able to move about with great ease within the confines of his stories—that is, whenever his characters aren’t leading him. The stories are light and airy, even playfully impulsive; and this is the beauty of the book. But it probably wouldn’t have been possible without those wonderful photos; they are the early spark of this literary inferno.

The following is one of the aforementioned two-paragraph stories, told in a manner that is forcefully expressive, and it is a complete tale unto itself:

There are more than 30 doorbells at the Raven Club. You ring one and then wait. If you’re lucky and there’s space, they’ll buzz you in.

By the time you’ve walked to the gentle strains of lounge jazz down the two flights of black iron spiral stairs, the drink you rang for at the door is waiting on the bar, ready-mixed by a genial artisan who is only known as Joe.

_____________

Please take a moment to browse Andrew Losowsky’s doorbell images in his Flicktion collection.

Soul Haven - A Review

Author: Sonja Baines
Publisher: Wild Child Publishing
ISBN: N/A
Pages: 187

A rookie cop, Renata “Ren” Bowers, is working a shift that happens to be her second night on the job. She’s a raw, inexperienced recruit with ties to the top brass, but is restricted to desk duty. When a perp is dragged into the precinct and thrown into a holding cell by a cop who seems to have it in for him, Ren is taken aback, especially by the rough treatment that comes on the heels of this. The perp, who is under suspicion for possible arson, turns out to be Kale Tyrell, a former U.S. Army Captain accused of a vicious double murder in Center City, Philadelphia. The double murder is ostensibly viewed as a crime of passion, as the victims, it is learned, were a police officer, Robert Jackson, and Kale’s wife, Virginia Tyrell.

Kale, having been tried and acquitted of the charges against him, is never quite forgiven by the cops who insist on his guilt—the same who were his arresting officers at the time of the murders. Our heroine, Ren, suspicious of the preceding events, decides to conduct a deeper investigation into Kale Tyrell’s past, while Kale himself, having been released from jail—and who is currently homeless—is tasked by a U.S. Army Major to infiltrate an offshoot Special Forces military unit suspected of targeting homeless people for the purpose of conducting medical experiments that may result in death.

Soul Haven, a book with elements of romance and suspense, is not really a police procedural, despite the few factors that would lead one to assume that. The plot and subplot of this book intertwine nicely, however, like the tendrils of a Japanese honeysuckle vine, allowing the reader to follow along without awkward disruptions in the story’s continuity. The language also hovers above that of your average style of expression. Sentences are comprised of neatly arranged words that convey just what they are meant to, with exactness. The book is well edited to boot. On top of all that, characters in the book seem real enough, a result of the dialogue, which comes with enough authenticity to aid in fleshing out the various players.

The intimation suffused her with a burning blush. Clearing her throat, she looked away and allowed her gaze to wander the wreckage of her living room. “Damn,” she said. “I don’t think they’re going to give me my security deposit back.”

Renata Bowers, for instance, blossoms before our eyes, going from a somewhat naïve rookie bent on proving herself to the world, to a pragmatist with a more subdued outlook. The story itself, while affording a good deal of suspense and intrigue—with a few twists thrown in for good measure—also delivers on emotion. All told, Soul Haven is a carefully plotted work, one that contains a solid original story that is told by a gifted author.

The Dream

Speaking of storytelling and stories, I was treated to quite a fascinating one last night (and I’m not referring to those hilarious episodes of Will & Grace my wife and I watched on DVD, no). I’m talking about a vivid, realistic dream I had. I was an agent of sorts, for a clandestine government outfit, I believe, but it was apparent that I was inactive, because I was at home with my wife and family (though I didn’t recognize anyone but my wife). She decided to send me out to the supermarket for a few missing ingredients she needed for a planned dinner, and while on the street, I was alerted to a message on my phone that spun the dream in a whole new direction, like an appropriate plot point at the end of the first Act in a film.

A female left me a voicemail informing me that my files had been compromised, and I was probably exposed. The trip to the supermarket took a backseat, and I was off to the agency in question, which was hours away from where I lived. When I arrived, I was approached by some buffoon who insisted on giving me an earful about things I didn’t have any interest in, and I ended up yelling at him and explaining my situation. I eventually pulled out an ID and handed it to him. When he looked at it, he called me Inez Berez, and he started joking about my plight, which infuriated me, and so I turned to someone else; someone higher up. (Everyone at this agency was Latino for some reason.) This official then directed me to the woman who left the message on my phone, and she told me that my identity had been stolen by a woman named Inez Berez, who used to work for the agency. Exactly nine hours had passed by now, and the one thought that crossed my mind at this point was that my wife hadn’t called to complain about my being gone this long.

My next thought was she was dead, having been killed by the person who stole my identity perhaps. I decided to leave the office on a quest to exact revenge, though I didn’t know whether my conclusions were right or not. I woke up shortly after that. Hey, I never said the dream made sense, I only said it was fascinating, which it was. Now, while I was experiencing the dream I found it entertaining, and I was interested in seeing what would come next. But, after the effects of the dream wore off and I was able to dwell on it with a clear mind, I found parts of it to be rather hackneyed. And if I were to be presented with a story like this from an author, I would toss it into the rejection pile without a moment’s hesitation.

My question is this: have any of you ever written short stories or books based on dreams you felt were powerful enough to be effective on paper? And what become of that story or book?

Storytelling: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I think it is obvious by now that I am drawn to a good story, whether that story is riddled with grammatical errors, or written by a hand that isn’t so deft. A good story is a good story, and I have heard my share of them, first from my father, who recounted tales of his youth with a certain candid quality, all of which enthralled me, and then from others in my family. Books came last on a long list of sources, but I have delighted in and been swept into numerous tales since I began reading many years ago.

For me, what makes a story really resonate is the way in which it is told, and I am referring mainly to the author’s prose style. I am drawn to good prose like a shark to blood, if I must paint a picture. I like to see sentences written in a way that I have never seem them written before, but with fluidity, and sans any well-worn figures of speech. I like vivid descriptions of people and places and things, and the writing could either be chiefly ornate or rhythmic, so long as it fits the story, or better yet, the genre. For instance, James Joyce’s prose style wouldn’t work in a hardboiled novel, but you know that.

Now, while many self-published print-on-demand books have been criticized for their poor quality and lackluster stories, this designation isn’t limited to POD books. I can’t tell you how many traditionally published books I’ve tried to read recently but failed to for the sake of the uninteresting subject matter, unimaginative writing style, or awful story that awaited me. And these are books that are selling by the boatload—but you know this too.

I don’t want to spend this entire post talking about books, however, so I’ll move on to another subject, an equally loved medium of entertainment that is also built on storytelling: movies. My wife and I have started a hate list, on which we jot down every title we have come to despise. Some of the movies on this notorious list are: The Black Dahlia, Lady in the Water, Scoop, Aeon Flux, Cold Creek Manor, Bulletproof Monk, Mission Impossible II, and People I Know, among many others. These films didn’t do it for us, not because of their production values (most of them were beautiful, expensive looking films) but mainly because their stories were weak—and I’m being very nice in saying this.

Among the films I’ve seen recently, a few exceptional gems did glisten within the pile of refuse we rented, a few of which will be noted below:

Quintessential Biopic: Monster, starring Charlize Theron. The film is an extremely effective character study, with a performance by Theron so powerful that I was left with images of this film swimming in my head long after the closing credits had rolled. It is truly a “visceral experience,” to drive the term further into the ground of use.

Dialogue-Driven Masterpiece: Closer, starring Julia Roberts. The film is noted for its clever and evocative dialogue, which was made possible by Robert Marber, who based the script on his award-winning play. This is a film one can listen to and enjoy with their eyes closed, it’s written so well.

Plot to Die For: Wicker Park, starring Josh Hartnett. A movie with a plot that has more twists and turns than a bag of pretzels, and it works! The resolution is the big payoff.

What Action/Thrillers Should Be: The Bourne Supremacy, starring Matt Damon. Simply put, this is a movie that does something I thought no action/thriller could: it defied the limits of the genre, caused me to identify with its lead character to the point where I expressed absolute empathy, became absorbed in the story, and forgot that this was supposed to be a mindless romp.

Now, I want to hear about some of the books and movies you’ve taken in recently. What made your good, bad, and downright ugly list? And why?

The Official POD Critic Rating System Post

Mistakes and errors such as those in grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and spelling, etc., won’t lose authors as many points as those in story structure, plotting, character development, and overall execution. Also, if a story isn’t accessible enough, major points will be taken off for that. If a book is engaging, despite its editorial flaws, it can certainly earn a passing grade under the POD Critic rating system. You see, errors in punctuation, grammar, and spelling can easily be fixed. Errors in story structure and plotting, and sloppy execution, are other matters altogether, and tackling these issues may not result in a better book. Once the underlying quality is there, however, and a story is captivating for what it is, despite its many flaws, a capable editor can usually salvage it.

Now I’m not quite sure how other reviewers arrive at their conclusions regarding the books they vet, but I evaluate books with all of the above in mind. It is just my way of doing things. And I offer this post simply to give you, the reader, a better sense of how we at POD Critic (that is “I”) do things around here. I mean, we are talking about POD books here, and we’re all aware of the limited resources available to many authors, so there is almost always going to be errors of some kind found within the pages of a given title. If I were to judge these books with the idea that grammatical, punctuation, spelling, and other errors aren’t supposed to be there, then hardly any of them would get the “A Worthy Read” rating. While I’ve acquired a reputation of being a “hard” critic, I am also very fair and considerate, without being partial or overly charitable.

That said, I’ve decided to add a guide of sorts to the site, which will clue you in as to what the ratings actually mean. This should aid you in your choice of books to purchase. The guide follows below:

Three and a Half Golden Eggs and Above

If a book receives four golden eggs, you can be sure that I’m endorsing it, with the full backing of the POD Critic Special Selection seal, no less. The book was considered outstanding for reasons that will be pointed out in the review; and there is probably a high degree of originality—basically the book hit all the right marks and is considered a rare gem. Nothing more needs to be said about this.

Three and a half golden eggs mean that a book is highly recommended for sheer quality, accessibility, and entertainment value. It is the next best thing to receiving four golden eggs, and this achievement won’t be met very easily.

Three Golden Eggs

Whenever a book receives three golden eggs, I’m not saying that the book comes without flaws, because it probably has a tremendous amount strewn throughout, but I basically warn of that in my review. Three golden eggs always indicate that I believe a book will be to your liking, despite its flaws—that is, if the genre, story, or plot is something that attracts you as a reader.

Two and a Half Golden Eggs

This means you may or may not like the book, but there are elements that will probably interest you. This rating also indicates that the book is perhaps poorly executed, meaning it isn’t as accessible as the books that receive a higher rating, but it isn’t exactly dead in the water either.

Two Golden Eggs

Venture at your own risk. I didn’t like it, but maybe you might. I appreciated the efforts of the author, and their valiant attempt at writing a book, but they fell far short of their goal, whatever goal that was.

One and a Half Golden Eggs and Below

Like the rating system says: “Fuggettaboutit!” Buy the book only if you need:

1. Firewood,
2. A new doorstop, or
3. Something to extend a short table leg.

A Man and His Maniac: The Bunkie Story - A Review

Author: Charles Emery
Publisher: Charles Emery/Lulu.com
ISBN: 978-0-6151-3838-1
Pages: 144

A Man and His Maniac: The Bunkie Story is a touching memoir about a rather amazing canine companion: an energetic yellow Lab with a lust for life and a remarkable sense of loyalty. The book is told through the eyes of the dog’s pet, the author Charles Emery, as Bunkie was obviously the “master” in this unique relationship. The experiences detailed in the book will cause you to run the gamut of emotions, as there are somber moments, one incredible action-packed sequence, gross accounts, and silly frivolity to spare. While the narrative itself is gripping enough, and riveting to the point of being unputdownable, the story is delivered with a bit of ineptitude, owing to the author’s limited writing experience—and it shows.

There were times I found myself hooked, salivating like . . . well, like a dog in this case, eager to learn what would come next in the series of events in the life of old Bunkie and his two-legged sidekick. But then the dreaded beast known solely as Poor Execution began rearing its ugly head, intermittently lunging at me like so many literary dragons.

Like many POD offerings before it, mistakes abound in this book. The author often neglects to add an apostrophe to his possessive nouns: “. . . my head is breaking the drivers side window.” And he creates possessive nouns when there is no cause to: “My fondness for Lab’s goes back to my younger years.” There are needless repetitions: “They appeared to be healthy, six or seven-week old week old Labrador retrievers.” The book occasionally offers us poor sentence structure and wording: “I was working 12 hours shifts”; or: “I dropped Bunkie and he lie there in a heap.” He also sets up thought dialogue with a semi-colon, rather than a colon: “I didn’t want to mutter it aloud for my future ex-wife to hear, so I kept my thoughts to myself; ‘Wow, this little guy really is a gentle creature and wants nothing more than to bask in the glory of my presence.’ ” There’s even a period in a sentence where a comma should be: “As I looked the car over. I was amazed that we had come through the accident relatively unscathed.” [Emphases added]

While Emery’s execution is a bit choppy, he has a good sense of story, and is keenly aware of how a tale is to progress. He knows just where to place the action; how to stack related scenes and add smooth transitions between them; he has a good sense of timing (important for the humorous portions of the book); and he writes well enough to keep a reader engaged. All of these wonderful attributes make up for his literary deficiencies; and the book earns three golden eggs on this account. A Man and His Maniac: The Bunkie Story, after all is said and done, amounts to a worthy read.

Legitimizing Your POD Book Review Source: Part II

One writer has used the advice I dished out with regard to legitimizing POD book review sources, because his book, Romance, Riches, and Restrooms, which received a favorable review on this site, has an excerpt of that review displayed on his Barnes & Noble product page. This is a good start to what could very well lead to what I said about self-published authors and small presses building up their own circle of renowned reviewers. Barnes & Noble has no problem listing this site on a book’s product page in the appropriate section, under From The Critics—a section, need I remind you, that would usually display a review from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and other reputable trade sources.

It is up to each author, and each micropress to take this business seriously, and to seek to establish POD as more than just a stigma-ridden, bad-book paradise. That begins with putting out quality products; and once those quality books are printed, getting them into the hands of your readers will be the next step. Readers will have to be convinced that the book they are considering for purchase is indeed a quality product, despite its POD status. What better way is there to make this happen than to have a qualified POD book reviewer do the work for you?

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. I had one writer comment as follows on a recent post that cautioned authors to avoid certain POD reviewers:

I don't know about avoiding POD reviewers. There are so many reviewers that reject self-publishing outright that you can't really be that choosy. Even getting your cover on someone's page can be worth it, so people will be more familiar with the book the next time a more thorough review comes along. People might not buy a book until the fifth time they see it listed, and even that's a longshot. I send the book to whoever will read it.

If self-published authors are so desperate for reviews from any and every POD reviewer out there, despite those reviewers’ qualifications or level of reviews, then I’m obviously wasting my time here. I can understand, on some level, a writer’s sense of desperation, especially when that writer hasn’t met with success in their quest for substantial reviews; but I have to say, that kind of thinking will never lift the status of self-published POD books.

Creating a circle of renowned reviewers will help to legitimize not only the reviewers, but the books, authors, and micropresses employing POD as well. Readers will come to trust and perhaps rely on your legitimate review sources once a set pattern is established; once there is some measure of consistency in the quality of the reviews put forth, as opposed to the slapdash fare of other reviewers that have no thought or effort put into them.

I mean, why should there be only one POD-dy Mouth? On the other side of this industry, where you have the trade journals and magazines, and so forth, there are several renowned review sources available to trade publishers, two of which I named above. Why not establish your own circle? I feel like I’m preaching to a dead choir sometimes, but I have to enforce this point. If you have an established, legitimate circle of reviewers, librarians will start to sit up and take notice, and they will order books based on those sources, same as they do when reading Library Journal. And others will follow. I keep pushing this point to you writers and micropress owners out there because this issue is largely in your hands. I can promote this site and the De Facto POD Review Ring all I want, but without your associated efforts, I am in doubt as to how far this will go. I didn’t launch this blog for my health; and I certainly didn’t do it to put food on the table. The least all of you could do is make a concerted effort to join the chorus here.
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Also, please read this associated article from The New York Times, which I received from a fellow POD reviewer just a moment ago.

Print-On-Demand and Chain Bookstores

At the end of last year there was a lot of talk about a major shift in book distribution on the traditional side of the publishing industry. That shift is being caused by something rather unprecedented. What is being called “long-tailed distribution” is a recent occurrence, where a variety of books are being distributed to a number of smaller niche markets, rather than a large mainstream market. Gone are the days when everyone is clamoring for the same book just because their friend’s friend is reading it. New book trends are cropping up almost on a weekly basis, and a lot of this is due in large part to the demand created by book clubs, specialty groups, and individuals seeking a particular niche title for purposes known only to them.

Smaller publishers are churning out titles to fill the demand, and the Internet, more than anything else, is being used to push these titles to the public, since there is limited shelf space in the chain stores nowadays. Self-published authors and micropresses employing POD technology would do well to focus on the Internet in their attempts to market and sell books. Seeking to have your book stocked in chain bookstores requires one very important thing: distribution. Chain bookstores mainly deal with large distributors, having forged relationships with many of them that are not unlike the long-established relationships between literary agents and major publishers. But even with a good distributor (many of whom often require that you have at least 10 books in print that are already selling fairly well) chain bookstores will be hard-pressed to stock a new title from a small publisher, which would require the unthinkable measure of pushing aside or removing proven bestsellers to make room for the untested titles.

My advice is to stick to the Internet. Getting into Barnes & Noble or Borders won’t guarantee you sales anyway, especially when they’re not going to put your title up front in a nice table display, or in the store window itself. Even if several stores across the country decided to order a few of your books, they would only jam two copies, tops, in between similar books on a shelf somewhere, and if those two books don’t sell within a given period of time, well, off they go, to make room for something more promising.

It has even been said that the book industry is going the way of the movie industry, where a book, much like a new movie release, has a limited amount of days to perform before the curtain falls. In this case, we’re talking five weeks. If there is a large amount of turnovers during this period—meaning a lot of book returns—or if the book just doesn’t sell at all, it is pretty much over for that title. With a 50-percent return rate on most books, traditional publishers both large and small are turning to niche markets to offload titles, seeing these markets are creating a demand for books that cover subjects that are specifically tailored to them; this equals definite sales. Print-on-demand should be no different. A niche market is key in the publishing industry nowadays. But even with a quality book that directly fits a niche where demand for that book is strong, going the chain bookstore route may not be wise, and it won’t solve your marketing issues. You’ll still have to work hard to get your title noticed by the niche market it caters to. That will take money, time, and lots of effort on the part of the writer or publisher (or both).

Getting into a chain bookstore doesn’t solve everything; if anything, it only creates a new uphill battle.