Review: A good idea, but patchy on the delivery
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2012
The usual (and forgiveable) typos exist (it's barren hills, not baron hills) but they pale in comparison to the flaws in what could, with some work, be a really excellent story.The plot has promise, and lends itself to a longer, and better written piece of work. The set up is great. We have a cast of characters that are well-defined and could carry a full novel. There are some flaws within the story's own rules (a man with no lips speaks very clearly - which bothered me). Structural issues around the repetition of ideas - we got it the first time, move on to something else - or present the point in a different way. Some of the metaphors made little sense as did the odd details.But the worst part for me was just when it was getting interesting - the story ended. And then started again. And then ended. And then started again. It was as if the author wrote notes on a novel and then published those notes as a short story.Of course it could use a really good edit (but so could everything self-published) and the author should take it down - expand it into a full novel (at least 60,000 words) and really do the story justice. Don't forget to hire a professional editor before publishing it again.