Review: The common complaint
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 26, 2013
Healey actually shows promise as a story teller.  Yet I hit the common complaint with this - as with so many others, as I finally slogged through all of it. (And just screamed at the "gotcha, stay tuned" ending!) Namely, my first, biggest (but not final) issue is with the lack of editing, grammar, spelling and punctuation.  Each time I found yet another verb that did not agree with its subject or when I encountered the latest egregious spelling or punctuation error, I fought myself to keep reading.  Add to this the obvious cliche' stuff "borrowed" from Star Trek ("She's packing quite a wallop Captain!"), other Sci Fi sources, or such trite and adolescent stuff (When was the last time you heard a "hero" from Texas saying "Yuh" every time he opens his mouth or military personnel being described as "boys or "girls"?) I found there were times I almost just closed it and walked away.  Yet, until the terrible "non-ending" the storyline was somewhat captivating - albeit with the above mentioned (and much more) sci-fi repetition and cliche' writing.  (The Draxx are so close to the "dracs" of "Enemy Mine" back in the 80s, etc. and sometimes I cringe to think of actual military personnel using the language I'm reading.)  Overall?  It's - maybe - worth what I paid for it but this book really, REALLY needs a go-over from a good editor to be worth anymore than $3 bucks for over 700 pages.  What good is the story if no one is willing to suffer through all that to get to the end?To be fair:  This author isn't a bad story teller at all.  But either find a team of volunteers to read and proof the book or hire and editor if he's serious about moving ahead as a published author.