Review: 4.5 real stars and here's why:
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2012
I think everyone should have a pet. It doesn't matter if it's a cat, goldfish, ferret, skunk, or even - as is the case in this "saga," a thinly-spread german shepherd. When it comes to books, I personally have my very own pet peeve.Do I think an author should be critically "punished" for endless typos and poor grammar in their efforts to produce a "professional" publication? I sure do. Do I believe they should be pilloried in the town square, or the modern equivalent of by being publicly cyber-spanked with a literary scolding and scathing review scores for an otherwise decent story? Your mileage may vary, but it's MY pet peeve and I'll stroke it and feed it as I see fit. My personal sense of fairness is to automatically dock a star off of a review if the grammatical mistakes (or overusage of that other writer's pet, the dreaded Thesaurus Rex)distract me from the story itself.For openers, that's what brought this down from being a 5-star read for me. As others have mentioned, there are a rather annoying and hard to ignore number of incorrect spellings, redundant clauses, and general failure to pay the syntax on a marked toll road. (See what I did there? At least I can amuse myself, if not the person considering snapping this set of Bones.) (See what I did THERE? Snap... Bones... sigh. I'm destined to appeal to the small but cacophonous crowd within my own mind.) Mr. Wheaton also appears to have a bit of a fondness for the word "incredulity." To be fair, it only appears a half-dozen times, but it is such an awkward choice that it felt as if I were tripping over the word far too often.I deducted another star because of another thing several reviewers complained about that I found to be a valid problem. Humans appear and file past the reader at a steady pace only to be eaten, shot, crushed, hanged, or otherwise not-so-neatly dispatched with all the regularity of the red-shirted ensign in the opening teaser of a Star Trek episode. After reading just a little ways into the book(s) it was as if the characters showed up and said, "Hi, I'm Paul and I'll be your next victim. Oh, while I'm at it, please let me introduce Sue, Teddy, Jack, Eunice,... you know what? See all those folks over there? Yeah, them. We'll all be playing the roll of "soon-to-be-dead-person."I'm a writer myself (humor mostly - sometimes it's even intentional!) and we're a quirky breed. I awarded Mr. Wheaton a bonus star for having the chutzpah to create a lead character and keep him (it?) viable and interesting for four entire novellas while also making said lead not only unable to speak and communicate well with others, but not even human. If you think it's an easy task, try it yourself sometime. It's just the sort of challenge that authors set for themselves just to see if they can pull it off. In the majority of cases, and with the majority of challenges, the truth is we CAN'T pull it off and the piece winds up in the dusty, "maybe I'll try to flesh this out again someday" drawer. Mark Wheaton not only took on this formidable task, he succeeded and deserves recognition for accomplishing the feat.While reading the first of the four rather short pieces, I was initially a bit put off. I'm quite the fan of post-apocalyptic stories - have been ever since reading Brave New World and The Stand during the same month one lazy summer. Unfortunately, it seems as if every recent entry in this niche genre has involved zombies. It's as serious a... wait for it... PLAGUE in apocalyptica as vampire romance novels have become in Young Adult market. But even here, Wheaton added some interesting twists, made an attempt at an explanation for the (ahem) rise of the undead, and took a stab at making it a portion of a thread woven throughout the entire quadrology. It wasn't the most scientifically feasible explanation mind you, but since most authors don't even try anymore, I gave Mr. Wheaton a half-star bump for his effort.When writing in this genre you have to keep a large number of balls juggling at once. First, you have to kill most (if not all) of the population off in a logical manner. Then you have to come up with a feasible reason for allowing a few people to survive (immunity for example) whatever toasted the other assorted 7 billion or so humans. You also have to keep the characters interesting by either making everyone realistic shades of good and evil, or creating a group so clearly good (innocent townspeople perhaps) and a group so morbidly evil (government hacks seem to be a popular choice) that you start rooting for one side over the other. THEN you have no choice but to kill off a character here or there that the reader has developed a sympathetic or empathic liking for just to spice things up. It's a busy little routine and that's also the reason I enjoy watching writers make the effort. Add to the fact that this set, as mentioned, uses a DOG as the central character involved in a series of potentially global catastrophes instead of just one and it's as if Mr. Wheaton decided to attempt a triathalon just for the heck of it and trained by eating 3 Bic Macs topped with X-lax as a warmup.I don't know. As I said, your mileage may vary. But that seems to me to be an awful lot of entertainment for less than a buck. I haven't even revealed any big "Vader is Luke's father" spoilers... well, except THAT one, but c'mon be fair. You already knew that one. Just like you all knew the boat sinks at the end of Titanic and... why are you all gathering pitchforks and torches? I thought we were hitting it off!Uh... gotta go. See you next time. Hey Mark? Nice job dude. You keep writing them, I'll keep buying them!