I have been waiting for the review of my first book for some time and I finally got a peak at it. The review was done by ForeWord Reviews- ForeWord Clarion Reviews by Lee Gooden

I knew going into this book the lack of editing was the only chink in the armor. Considering I didn't have the money to have it edited this time around a three out of five star review is spot on. My next book is professionally edited and hopefully I can move past this initial bump in the road. Here is the review.

"SCIENCE FICTION
Extinction Chronicles: Includes the Hazel Short Story Collection as Well as the Observer–A Stand Alone Short
Jamie Horwath
AuthorHouse
978-1-4567-6513-2
Three Stars (out of Five)

It is always exciting to discover a new voice in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Rare is the writer who can splice the Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos with 1950’s Cold War fear and our twenty-first century worries of terrorism, xenophobia, and climate change the way Jamie Horwath has in the short story “Hazel,” which is part of his collection of short stories, Extinction Chronicles. “Hazel,” as well as the dystopian short story, “The Observer,” and the clever reboot of the werewolf mythos, “The Blood Harvest: Any Town USA” each examine a variety of horrific ways in which mankind is in the crosshairs of annihilation.
Extinction Chronicles shows great potential that is only limited by lack of editing. The overall punch of the stories is lessened by spelling and grammatical errors, and over-the-top purple prose that screams author intrusion. Even with such flaws, readers will still get svcked into the heart and marrow of each story. “Hazel,” the longest story in the collection, is a Lovecraftian nightmare wedded to the environmental disaster theme. Divided into four sections, Migraine, Bar Flies (this title contains a witty double meaning), Sub Blackness (cripple words), and Dwellers From Within, each story or vignette appears to be unrelated. The author weaves them together around his protagonist Kaley Walls.

The story begins when Kaley wakes from a nightmare with a seemingly innocuous migraine headache. She sets into motion a chain of events that changes her life and impacts all of humanity. The opening paragraph contains a sentence that demonstrates some of Horwath’s powerful descriptiveness and lyricism. He writes, “Her shadow flickered in the anemic
moonlight.” The crafting of such an effective and haunting sentence allows readers to share
Kaley’s nightmare. But the same story also has a sentence that reads, “Laugh, why would I laugh
I’m hear to help you.” The misspelling of the word “hear” is a mistake that would have been
found and noted in the proofs by an editor. Again, the sentence above about the anemic
moonlight is gorgeous and descriptive in its simplicity and musicality. However, Extinction
Chronicles also contains sentences that are clunky, full of author intrusion, bizarre similes, and
metaphors that are more distracting than functional. Horwath writes, “The sound began to trip
the light fantastic toe with Klein’s fading tone. Only to cast off the fading feeble attempt with an
intimidating try at a diabolical click of social prepossession.” The meaning of the entire quote is
unclear. Proper editing would have pointed these mistakes out as well.

Regardless, of the misspellings, typos, ambiguous sentences, and other short-comings,
Horwath’s writing has some of the poetic prose of Ray Bradbury, the characterization skills of
Stephen King, and the succinct narrative abilities and eclectic humor of Joe R. Lansdale and
Clive Barker.
Lee Gooden"

Sounds good. :foodndrink:

Congratulations. I might have to take a look at this for myself.

I bet you're thinking


gawd I wish I'd edited it for another three months





congratulations :goodjob:

Congratulations! :foodndrink:

Wright HARDERRRRRR!!!

Congrats.

Yeah, make better airplanes.

:rofl:

Congratulations, person I don't know! :thumbsup:

Congratulations! That's a nice review. :thumbsup:

Have you heard the phrase "the money always flows to the author"? It means that, in publishing, the author does not have to pay to get his book published, printed, or edited. What you're doing is called "vanity publishing," and, in short, they charge you up the bum and have no motivation to actually sell your work (since you've already paid them). If you actually want to make money on your work and be a professional author, you should submit it to actual publishing houses (since you're doing short stories, magazines would work), who would provide you with editing free of charge and pay you rather than you paying them. The review seems generally positive, so after doing a good editing pass or three ("hear"? really?), you probably have a decent chance of having your stories accepted somewhere.

As a fellow indie author, I congratulate you on your first publication. You may want to create an e-book version of your book as well, since they're generally cheaper, and tend to get a lot of views and reviews. Self publishing through Amazon is easy as well. Check out Smashwords too.

Good Luck,

SentientSurfer

EDIT: You're a Pennsylvanian too? Must be something in the water. . . .

My brain exploded trying to read this, but the stories all sounded interesting. I'm glad you're having your next book professionally edited, and I wish you luck in your writing career.

Well done on a generally positive review - must be very encouraging after you've put a lot of work into something.

I would urge you, though, to take any criticism into account. Yes, you must get your work thoroughly proofread and edited before you publish. To do otherwise is to betray all your hard work. I know as a reader I find it difficult to keep reading something that is full of typos. Learning to be as accurate as you can while writing can take a lot of stress out of that part of the equation. There will always be minor disagreements - Oxford commas? Colons or dashes? - but as long as your writing is clear and consistent it makes your tone seem more "professional", which invites people to put effort into promoting it.

It sounds like you have considered that, though, since your next one is professionally edited - though it would be great for you if you could re-release the first in an edited form to do justice to its content.

Anytime they start throwing names like Bradbury around in reviews of your work, it's a good thing. Congrats.

Congratulations. Is cool to see a new, competent writer develop.

Thanks for the kind words.

If a published book with such atrocious grammar and spelling still gets such a positive review, your stories must be really good. Congratulations, and good luck with your next publication!