I need a new word

On May 24, 2025May 24, 2025 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing7 Comments

There is a very specific type of bad writing that I feel like we need a name for, and this couple of paragraphs from the book I’m currently reading may be the literal Platonic ideal of it:

I’m not going to name the book, but the sleuths and generically curious among you shouldn’t have a whole lot of trouble figuring it out.

This is the wrong verb, in a way that would make Mark Twain’s eyelid twitch. One does not “snatch” a piece of paper that is sitting on one’s own desk.
Also the wrong verb. I also kind of want to quibble about the use of the word “worn,” which implies age– “tattered” might work better here. That said, I think this is probably the point I’m most willing to argue about.
A blockade “of sorts”? You’re surrounded by twenty thousand enemy troops. That’s a fucking blockade. Or, even better, a siege, which has the advantage of being the correct word.
Two sentences ago you said the blockade happened “one night past,” and now they’re testing your defenses “each night.” You’ve got to be outnumbered thirty to one; what the hell could they be waiting for?
How are the scouts getting past the twenty thousand enemy troops? Why do you need scouts when you’re fucking surrounded? Also, how the hell did this letter get past the siege in the first place?
This is Capital One arena, which seats twenty thousand, in far tighter accommodations than troops besieging a fort would use. See note #5.
This is a world where dragons exist. So do the Uraks themselves, who are basically tall orcs. “Monsters” really doesn’t tell me anything about what these “larger beasts” are.
Why? Why in the world would you not believe them?
I don’t think you will, sir, and you’re sending this letter because you don’t think you will either, so “No matter” is a really weird way to conclude this letter.

This book is six hundred and eighty pages long, and this type of thing is on nearly every page, although it’s quite a bit more concentrated than usual here. I’m going to finish the book today, because while the writing is … again, I need a word more descriptive than “terribad” here, the story itself is engaging enough to keep me interested. But god, man, find a better editor. You need the help.

This Book is Good and This Book is Also Bad: a #review of Autumn Christian’s CROOKED GOD MACHINE

On July 29, 2018July 29, 2018 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading, ReviewsLeave a comment

41rQ16mZceL A quick programming note: my wife is in Boston all week for a work thing; I drove her to the train station at midnight last night, so while I am technically on vacation for a week once my shift ends at 6 tonight, I’m also on solo daddy duty all next week and I have a couple of full-day training things for my new job, plus at least one other life-related excursion for each day next week. So I’m gonna be kind of busy! I’ll be using my spare time to work on Book Stuff but it’s gonna be an interesting week and there may not be a ton of time for bloggery.

Which means a 2000-word post every day, obviously.

Anyway. I’m on Warren Ellis’ newsletter, and he pointed out this little indie-published (!!!) novel called Crooked God Machine, and I’m tempted to just quote his entire brief review because he’s Warren Ellis and he’s better at this than me but instead I’ll just link to it. At any rate, the review doesn’t need to be complicated: in some ways this book is one of the most fucked-up things I’ve ever read in a deliciously good way; it’s about a world that is ending but is not in any hurry to do so, and what growing up in a world like that is like, and God yelling from you inside of a television, and people deliberately turning themselves into brain-spider zombies so that they don’t have to deal with their own existence any longer– the sales pitch for the brain-spiders is literally you don’t have to experience the next ten years. The writing is uniformly gorgeous throughout– Autumn Christian wrote this between the ages of 19 and 21, which is unbelievable– this is A Confederacy of Dunces-level Evil Young Genius writing going on here. If you are a fan of dark and really creepy horror I recommend it unreservedly. If you aren’t, be aware that the subject matter is deeply fucked up throughout– a dead infant gets fed to a monster in a swamp at one point, and the monster torments the main character for the rest of the book, and that’s just that one thing, so maybe assume a trigger warning? Ellis calls it “young, raw work” in his review and he’s absolutely right– there is a certain immaturity here, and it’s very clearly the product of a preternaturally talented young person who is very, very angry with the world she has been handed, and that’s something you probably need to be aware of about it, but it’s definitely worth reading and is gonna stick with me for a while.

That said. I bought this book in print because I try to buy everything in print, and also honestly the cover is compelling as hell and I wanted it on my shelf. Notice how the title on the cover omits the definite article? The name of the book is The Crooked God Machine, according to everything on Amazon and everything inside the book. It is perhaps a sign of how carefully the print manuscript is edited that the book gets the title wrong on the cover. You will look at this and know immediately that it is an indy title, unfortunately– everything from the print size to the font choices to little things like chapters starting on the left-hand page once in a while screams that this was put together by someone who 1) had no experience in book design and 2) did not take the time to carefully look through the books in their possession and pay careful attention. It is also, unfortunately, riddled with the types of errors you get when you are depending on spellcheck as your primary source of editing– in other words, there are next to no misspelled words, but there are lots of errors– nearly every chapter– of omitted words, autocorrecty sorts of errors where the word used is a real word so spellcheck won’t catch it but it is nonetheless completely the wrong word, and sentences where some editing took place but the editing itself introduced a second error that didn’t get caught.

I have seen from reviews that the ebook is not prone to this, but the print version will drive you crazy if you are the type to notice this. It’s still absolutely worth reading but it cost the book a star in my Goodreads review because indie authors have to be better than this. Then again, Warren fucking Ellis reviewed her book positively so maybe what the hell do I know. Warren Ellis sure as hell isn’t reading The Benevolence Archives, right?

Sigh.

A reasonably serious question

On August 10, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing13 Comments

Where are y’all at on audiobooks? Do you listen to them frequently? More or less than regular books? If any of my work existed as an audiobook, would that make you more likely to purchase it?

Indie authors, do any of you have audio versions of your books? How did you create them? Was it worth it?

I am not an audiobook person. But I also like new markets. Trying to figure out how many of y’all are into these things.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: James Wylder, Poet/Playwright/Raconteur

On August 3, 2015July 31, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing2 Comments

I met James Wylder at InConJunction, and spent three days sitting next to him and selling each other’s books. He’s cool. You should check his stuff out.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m the author of “An Eloquence of Time and Space” the Unofficial Doctor Who Poetry Book“, the plays Cryptos and God Save the Pres.! as well as my first book of poetry, Cascade. I graduated from Hanover College in Southern Indiana, and currently live in Elkhart, Indiana. I’m also the co-owner of Shotgun Angel Games LLC, and I won second place in a costume contest as Seneca Crane from the Hunger Games once.

What about your work? What projects do you have going right now, and what older work are you proudest of?

Right now I’m serializing a story on my website called 10,000 Dawns, with a new chapter being released every Thursday. I’m also editing several of my books for an upcoming release. 10,000 Dawns is the really exciting one for me, as every chapter has its own piece of artwork drawn to accompany it by Annie Zhu, and each chapter is also being released in an audio format by the Southgate Media Group as a free download. People are really enjoying it so far, so I can’t wait to bring out the rest of the story!

On the game development end of my work, I’m working on a Tabletop Roleplaying Game called Greys by Gaslight that features investigators in Victorian London fighting alien invaders. Essentially it’s “The X-Files: 1888.”

Can you tell us more about 10,000 Dawns? (Later Luther edit: I phrased this question in kind of a dumb way. Of fuckin’ course he can. I would have been really entertained had James just answered “No. I cannot tell you more about my story.”)

It’s a science fiction story about a teenage girl named Graelyn who takes a research internship in an underwater city, only to find out the secluded city is being used to attempt to create a portal into a parallel universe. The experiment works, and Graelyn is thrown into a reality where she finds out she grows up to be a person she finds abhorrent. How she reacts to this, and how she changes as a character are the big questions of the story. Using science fiction to peel back the layer’s of a person’s character and self-image has been fascinating, and a lot of fun as well. The mix of drama and fun is what’s drawn readers to the story so far. There is real character drama, and exploration of the future and alternate universes, but also things like the dance sequence in chapter two that people adored. I’m very proud of it .

When did you realize that writing was something you really wanted to do?

I’ve wanted to write ever since my Dad was reading Michael Stackpole and Timothy Zahn novels at my bedside! Or maybe even before that. I used to make my sisters and mom write down the stories for books I would then (badly) illustrate. Its been in my bones as long as I can remember.

I know you just came off a fairly extensive con tour. Do you have any suggestions or advice for authors about getting people at conventions or book signings interested in their work?

Have a hook. That is by far the most important thing I could advise. There are tons of people at booths all over the convention all: why should people stop at yours? What makes yours special? You might be afraid a hook will push people away because it will alienate people who aren’t interested in what you’re drawing them in with: and you’d be right.
But you will lose far more sales from people who aren’t interested in your work because nothing could draw them in at all than you will from the few who go “Well that doesn’t sound like something I’d like.” You’d never have gotten their sales anyways.

For me, my hook was Doctor Who. I dressed as the Doctor nearly every day at the conventions I was at (with a few exceptions due to heat in the facilities making wearing a full suit for eight hours a health hazard) as well as bringing a banner that said exactly what I was selling- Doctor Who poetry!

What’s your social media presence like? Outside of conventions, what are you doing to promote yourself and your work?

I have my website, jameswylder.com, where I am currently serializing my story 10,000 Dawns, as well as a Facebook page for myself and several of my most important works. I also am on Twitter as @arcbeatle, and you can find me on tumblr at 10000dawns.tumblr.com.

Outside of conventions I do interviews like this one, and try to break through the clutter on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. I find it much easier to get fans interested in my work in person. I also do stops at regular old bookstores and cafes, and between those and conventions that’s where most of my publicity comes from.

I’ve been struggling to make my online presence really notable, and its an egg I’m just not adept at cracking compared to my skill at in person interactions. Hopefully as I keep learning I’ll be able to promote myself better in both forums!

What’s the best response to someone who tells you “I don’t read poetry” or “I don’t read plays”?

For some people, its as simple as what they said: they know they don’t like poetry or theatre, and there is little I can do to change that. However, the best response I can give is to hand them one of my books and let them read it. There’s so often a look of joy and surprise as they find poetry and theatre that they find they can relate to and touches them or makes them laugh.

I feel like a lot of people have the impression that poetry and theatre are elitist mediums that have to be elusive from their every day lives, and they certainly can be. Whenever I see someone teaching children Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets and bulldozing over the witty humor in it because they see the text as ‘sacred’, I cringe. A lot of people have kept that mentality that poetry and theatre isn’t something they can let loose inside– when that’s exactly what it should be there for!

So just saying to give it a chance is the best I can do. It so often works wonders.

What’s your favorite poem from An Eloquence of Space and Time, and why is it your favorite?

My favorite poem from the book is one of the shortest, and also the most complete. As a poety being able to create a short poem that truly captures and expresses the truth of something big is a much larger accomplishment than making a very long poem that does that.

3.3 Gridlock
trapped on a turntable
round and round we go
with Sally Calypso

Is there a poem that has been your readers’ favorite?

The poem that has always gotten the best reactions from readers has been the one for the episode “Smith and Jones”.

3.1 Smith and Jones
A Judoon Platoon on the Moon?
why did you assume that would be a boon
only a loon would attune to the goon
that harpooned Doctor Eun and its
not even noon in June to Harpoon
with Judoon on the moon! So soon!
Don’t listen to a tune on your Zune,
I know I make you swoon across this lunar dune
you’re a Doctor? I am too! Fate like runes!
bandits together like raccoons
leading to our Judoom

Smith and Jones to the rescue then
to assume the doom Judoon will zoom
into the room and entomb us like a womb
with a boom on the moon

we’ll weave this all up like a loom, this doom
and then no more Judoon
will harpoon in platoons on the moon
I assume?

Speaking of Eloquence, I see that that book’s production was actually successfully funded through Kickstarter. Can you tell us more about that? Did it work out as well as you hoped? Have you thought about using it again since then?

When the 50^th Anniversary of Doctor Who started to creep onto the horizon, I really wanted to do something special for the fans of the show. After all, it had been my favorite show since I was a little kid. I’d already done a Kickstarter to fund my first book of poetry, Cascade, so I thought this would be a great way to go about bringing this book into the world as well. As it turned out, it far exceeded my wildest expectations! The book met every single stretch goal I put in front of it,to the point that I ended up having the money to write a poem about every episode of Doctor Who from the whole first fifty years of the show– plus all the episodes of the spin offs! It was a daunting task, but I think it turned out spectacularly.

Not only have I thought about it, but I’ve used it twice since then. I have five more books funded by two different Kickstarters coming out in the next few months, which should be exciting!

Kickstarter is a wonderful tool for creators to get the funds they need to make what they want to. I should warn would be Kickstarters that its not just free money. To actually get funded takes a lot of work, and your backers will expect you to fulfill your promises. Plan your project hard, and don’t take it lightly!

There’s a new season of Dr. Who coming. Any thoughts to updating the book?

I’ll definitely be doing a “Volume 2” at some point– but I’m probably going to wait till Peter Capaldi finishes his whole run as the Doctor. After all, I blew through 50 years of TV for the first book, I’ll need a nice meaty amount of Doctor Who to chew on for more poems!

I can’t wait to watch Series 9 of Doctor Who– Peter Capaldi is so good in the lead role, and I know he’s going to do spectacular things with it.

Let’s talk about fandom for a moment. You’re obviously a big Dr. Who fan. What else are you into? Any hobbies/life passions outside fandom and wordsmithery?

Oh plenty. I’m a gigantic fan of Decipher’s WARS Universe, for which I run the only fansite: thezocho.weebly.com. I also love Star Trek, Star Wars, the Middle Earth Universe, the World of Darkness…. Oh goodness I could go on forever. I’m a giant nerd.

I’m fairly new to comics, but I’ve loved Ant-Man since I was a little kid (unusual, I know) so the recent movie was a big treat for me. I’m also big on Captain America, Black Widow, the X-Men and Batman (thanks to Bruce Tim’s excellent animated series). Since the Marvel Cinematic Universe started I’ve never missed a film or a TV show. They’ve got me hook line and sinker at this point… Though I’m still waiting for a Black Widow movie (C’mon Marvel, make it happen!)

I also love running, though sadly with all my writing and touring I’m out of shape. Exploring nature is a big hobby of mine. Oh, and roleplaying games. I’ve been playing those excessively since I was a tot as well!

Anything else we should definitely know about?

Right now I’m a part of Southgate Media Group’s Charity Drive to help raise money for a child fighting cancer named Ben. If you want to help donate to his recovery, use the link here.

Just in case you missed all the links, here’s where to find James out there on the interwubz:

REVIEWS: Katherine Lampe’s DRAGONS OF THE MIND & Robert Bevan’s CRITICAL FAILURES

On April 26, 2015April 26, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews2 Comments

I took my Kindle with me on the trip, and actually got some reading done from my backlog. Considering how much of my writing income is made up from ebooks, I really ought to find a way to integrate this thing into my regular reading life, but at least I leave town every now and again.

Katherine Lampe’s Dragons of the Mind: Seven Fairy Tales is interesting. It’s a side project from her Caitlin Ross urban fantasy series– a series I haven’t read yet but the first book is on my Kindle waiting for me. The first story in Dragons is a modern retelling of Puss in Boots, and is the closest to the urban fantasy genre the rest of her books fit into. The remainder are more traditional fairy tales, and unless my Grimm calibrator is off the rest of the stories aren’t necessarily retellings of older tales. Interestingly, Cat, Sack, Boots was my least favorite of the stories in the book; I found Lampe’s writing to be much stronger in the quasi-formal, repetitive tone of the more traditional stories that followed, and the second story, entitled The Harper on the Hill, was strong enough that I read it twice through before moving on to the third. Another strong effort was the sixth story, Whiskers and Fur, which is about cats. Lots of cats. It has a fascinating hallucinatory quality to it that I liked a lot and was one of the highlights of the collection.

Dragons of the Mind can be had at the scant price of $2.99 from the Amazon, and is also available in print. You can also follow Katherine on Twitter if you like; she is reliably interesting and entertaining, so you should.

I four-starred both of these books on Goodreads, but you should understand that the first is a full four-star and the second is more three and a half. I had downloaded Critical Failures long enough ago that I had honestly forgotten about it, and opened it on the flight from Atlanta to Raleigh just to see what it was. I ended up finishing it before I landed, and that isn’t a terribly long flight. (Note that this is a compliment.) You’ll get a good idea of what the book is about from the (rather striking, if I’m being honest) cover; it involves some D&D players (yeah, he calls it “Caverns and Creatures,” but it’s D&D, and nothing else is altered but the name of the game) being forcibly transported into the game and having to live their lives as their characters–which works out well for them when their characters are atheistic clerics and less so when their characters are half-orc barbarians with Charisma scores of 4.

It’s entertaining, but calling it “juvenile” doesn’t quite do it justice. See how he uses the word “shit” right there on the cover? I have a rule about profanity in my books: I use it, but on my second pass through the manuscript I try to eliminate half of it.

Robert Bevan does not have that rule.

There are so, so many swear words in this book. So many “your mom” jokes, although some of them are genuinely hilarious. And dear lord you could put together any five or six other books from my shelves and not have half the number of instances of vomiting and pants-befouling as happen in this book. But the story itself is fun, and the ending clever enough that it pulled the book up to three and a half stars from the somewhat less than that it was before, and got me to order the second book.

You can order Critical Failures from Amazon for $4.99.

Regarding shutting up, again

On April 15, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing3 Comments

Delilah Dawson has posted a follow-up to the post that got me all het up the other day, and it is completely and 100% correct. So go read it, and then we can all lie together in a happiness pile.

Also, Chuck Wendig’s post on the same topic is full of yes. zqiiizvq6rtlw6f1s2no

In which I refuse to shut up: a response to Delilah Dawson

On April 13, 2015April 13, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing20 Comments

no-u tl;dr: See the image. But hopefully a trifle more polite.

Earlier today, Delilah Dawson posted a piece on her blog entitled Please shut up: Why self-promotion as an author doesn’t work. I discovered the piece when a fellow independent author Tweeted out an approving link to it. I suggest you go read it before you continue further here.

I am thinking carefully about how best to respond to this piece, and part of me feels like the best way to respond to it is to pretend I never read it and walk away. I am struggling with tone, for one thing. I will admit that at the moment my blood has been angried up a bit. I’m going to try to keep that from coming through; my apologies if I fail.

Let’s start with this: I sold six books today. So far in April I have sold 53 books. In 2015 I have sold 236, and over my entire career as an author– which began last May— I have sold 760. I am using an idiosyncratic definition of “sold,” as well, because as far as I’m concerned if people download something I’m offering for free that counts as a sale. Quibble as you like, if you want. I made an attempt to get my book Skylights traditionally published. I sent out query letters to agents for months. It failed. I’ve sold 115 copies on my own, and “sold” means “sold” that time.

My point is this: I am small-time. I am small-time, but the trendline is absolutely pointing the right way. My third book comes out in less than a month. It is looking, right now, like launch day for that book (April 28!) is going to be the best day I have ever had for sales.

And if I had paid any attention to anything Delilah Dawson says in her post, I would not have sold a single damn book. Well, okay. My mom might have bought one. Maybe a couple of my aunts. But that’s it.

The piece starts off oddly. The post-colonic part of the title reads Why self-promotion as an author doesn’t work, but the first half of the piece appears to be about why stupid self-promotion doesn’t work, which is not the same thing. In fact, I agree with a number of the points Ms. Dawson makes here. Facebook, for example, is genuinely useless, and it’s useless because they’ve deliberately crippled it. Twitter messages from “insane cuckoo clocks” are ineffective. I admit to being entirely clueless as to why anyone would attempt to use Instagram to market books, and I’m a year older than Dawson is and I promise I understand Tumblr even less than she does. I’ve sent my book to a handful of book bloggers who I genuinely thought would like it (and gotten good reviews in response) and I don’t have a newsletter. (Possibly appending a “yet” to that last one.)

Stupid marketing is stupid. Wasting time is wasting time. These are both bad things. But neither of these reasonably lead to Why self-promotion as an author doesn’t work, and they sure as hell don’t lead to Shut up.

Let’s continue. Allow me to quote a section of the piece:

Are you seeing the thread here?

Social media is PUSHING.

And today’s reader doesn’t buy things because the author pushed them.

As a reader, I want a book to pull me.

When I see a book’s name pop up again and again among people I trust, I want to read it.

When the cover is beautiful and the hook is compelling, I want to read it.

When I meet the author and they are gracious and kind and insightful, I want to read it.

When I listen in on a panel and like what I hear, I want to read it.

When I chat with someone on Twitter, and they make me laugh and add value to my life, I start to think that their book might add value, too.

How, I ask, are any of these things actually possible without some degree of self-promotion by an author, particularly an independent author? Here is a list of people who will promote my work if I don’t do it:

1.)

That is the entire list.

I’m an independent author. I don’t get invited to be on panels. Amazon isn’t doing anything for me to put my book cover in front of readers. Bookstores won’t stock me without some mighty buzz, and Barnes and Noble won’t stock me at all because CreateSpace currently handles my print distribution. And while I’m doing a signing in a few weeks– my first one, in fact– signings are terrifying, and finding opportunities to do them is not exactly easy.

So how in the world do I make that connection with readers if I’m supposed to “shut up” and not promote myself? The answer is simple: I can’t. It’s literally impossible. I can be the most charming person in the world on Twitter and if I don’t occasionally say oh by the way folks you might like The Benevolence Archives not a one of those people I’ve charmed is gonna type my name in the search bar at Amazon to see if maybe I have a book. Not one of them.

Another couple of pull quotes, if I may. This is all one paragraph, but I’m breaking it up for the purpose of responding to it:

I have a book out tomorrow, and I feel like I’ve done everything in my power to get the word out. And I also feel like what I’ve done is not enough. And I can’t imagine what amount of publicity or work would *ever* feel like enough.

I suspect what you have not done, Ms. Dawson, is shut up.

There is no road map to success here. Most of the authors seeing the results I would like have either been writing for 20 years, have publishers dead-set on a bestseller and paying mad bank to help it happen, or wrote a book better than what I believe I’m capable of writing, and all I can do is keep trying to level up.

This part of the paragraph is exactly and completely true and I feel exactly the same way about my book.

One more tweet from me is not going to get HIT on the airport bookseller shelves, and it might just lose a few followers who are sick to death of that teal and blood-spattered cover.

And here’s the rub, right? There is a balance here, and shut up is not a proper response to that necessary balance. If all I ever did was Tweet links to my books, no one would ever click on them, and I’d have nothing but spammers and ‘bots as my followers after a while. If my blog contained nothing but promotional material about my books, no one would read it. I have to be interesting in order to have any chance of the promotion being effective.

When I put Skylights on one of those Kindle Countdown Sales last month, I Tweeted about the sale roughly once an hour. I was rewarded with 31 sales over five days. Is that a lot? Not to a Real Author, I imagine, but for me it was immense, especially since every one of those sales resulted in money in my pocket. And if I’d not promoted it, I’d have had zero sales instead of 31. On an average day, if I’m on Twitter at all, I’ll Tweet about my books two or three times– at least once for Skylights, and once or twice for Benevolence Archives since it’s available in a few different places.

Has that lost me some followers? Maybe. I don’t care. We will both be fine. Will “one more tweet” get your book on the bestseller list? Probably not. But it might get one more reader to notice you, and at my rung on the ladder I need every reader I can find. And shutting up will find me zero of them.

Two anecdotes and then I’ll shut up. This portion may be a bit snide, and I apologize for it in advance if I come off that way: I am only aware of who Delilah Dawson is because of Twitter. I’ve been following her account for some time, and at one point was under the impression that she was a fellow indie author; why I thought that is lost to the mists of time. I didn’t realize she was agented and traditionally published until I had reason to look at her profile one day just a few weeks ago. Most of the trad-pubbed authors I follow (or, mostly, have on a list) are folks whose work I have read. I have not read anything of Ms. Dawson’s, but I’m going to order a copy of Hit, her new book, because I love the cover:

The only reason she’s made that sale is because of Twitter. Now, I’m sure she’ll sell many other copies through non-Twitter methods. I’m not trying to pretend that the $3 or whatever she’ll get from my hardcover sale is some magic set of dollars that she needs to treasure forever. She’d live if I didn’t buy her book. I’m not doing her a favor. But Twitter sold that book.

The second anecdote: I said earlier I’ve sold six books today. Before I found out about this article, I had sold five. I literally sold a copy of my book to someone who was talking with me about whether Twitter sells books. It entertained the crap out of me when she told me about it.

Twitter does sell books. It just does so slowly.

Blogs sell books. But, again, they do it slowly.

Self-promotion sells books. It is, in fact, the only thing that sells books, if you’re an independent author. You just have to make sure to not be an idiot about it.

I’ve got a plan here, kids, and while I completely agree with Ms. Dawson’s contention that the most important thing is to write the next book, it would be nice if someone would buy the first books while I was doing that.

And if I shut up?

They never will.

Review: ALONG CAME A WOLF, by Adam Dreece

On January 17, 2015January 19, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading3 Comments

Book-1-COVER-Sept2014-Along-Came-a-Wolf-by-Adam-Dreece-196x300 I promised at least three reviews of books by fellow independent authors, and this would be the third. I’ve owned a copy of Adam Dreece’s Along Came A Wolf for nearly as long as I’ve owned my Kindle, and based on (finally!) finishing the first book recently, I’ve ordered both it and its sequel in print form. As I’ve said repeatedly, print books sit on my unread shelf and stare at me until I get them read. My Kindle can’t do that, so print books always get read faster.

Dreece calls Along Came A Wolf and its sequels “Emergent Steampunk” (Breadcrumb Trail is available now at the same link above, and the third volume, All the King’s Men, is forthcoming,) which is an interesting choice, because I suspect most people aren’t going to know what the hell an emergent steampunk is until after they’ve read the book. The idea is this: technology is pretty highly variable depending on where you are and what you’re trying to do in Dreece’s world, but the world is almost at a point where steampunk-style technology is becoming available. One of the main characters in the book is an inventor, and there are hints everywhere that the things he’s working on are going to change the world.

Wolf is also YA, but it’s the kind of YA that adults won’t have any problems with, other than a few little references here and there that kids might not pick up on and grown-ups at least ought to, like the fact that the book is called Along Came a Wolf and the villain is named LeLoup. Or the Cochon brothers. (I’m not sure what part of Canada Dreece resides in, but I’m guessing it’s one of the Frenchier sections. EDIT: Calgary. Is that Frenchy? I don’t know Canada.) The inventor character I alluded to earlier is, in Dreece’s own words, a combination of Santa Claus and Nikola Tesla, which somehow works out super awesome.

I haven’t actually mentioned the titular Yellow Hoods. The three characters that make up this… group? Club? Organization? are Tee, a twelve-year-old girl who is the book’s main character, and her friends Elly and Richy. Elly and Richy aren’t nearly as well-drawn as Tee is, but watching the trio work together to solve their problems is fun. I won’t spoil the plot (Bad happens! They try and fix it!) but it’s a genuinely fun adventure and, well, like I said, I paid for it twice and have already bought the sequel.

~~One unfortunate criticism: the book does have some minor editing issues here and there, mostly coming in the form of slightly misused serial commas.~~ (EDIT: See here.) If you’re not a grammar purist it’s not something that’s going to bother you, and Dreece’s writing itself is of high quality, but… former Language Arts teacher. I’m a grammar purist. 🙂

A final note: I want to steal Dreece’s cover artist from him. I know the books have been through at least a couple of cover changes (the cover image on my version of the book is not the same as the one above) and the character work on his current set of covers is fantastic. Chain this person to a table so that he or she can’t get away. This is great work.