Review: Great story, poor editing
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 14, 2013
I found myself conflicted in rating and writing a review of this book and probably wouldn't have had I not announced ahead of time on my blog that I was doing it. This is a great story with a five-star premise, funny and sarcastic characters, and written in a compelling style at a manic pace. I was drawn into Mr. Day's dystopian future completely from page one, eager to read more and more.The protagonist and supporting cast are at least four-star characters. They aren't particularly deep or well-developed, but they don't need to be. This book is all story and pace, and none of the characters take themselves too seriously.I'll give the author an extra technical star, too. The Kindle version takes advantage of hyperlinks, so you can jump easily back and forth from the chapters to the table of contents. This is a nice touch, one I wish every author would employ.But the book has some major flaws, all of which could be remedied by employing a bit of editing. Mr. Day shifts point of view and tense often, regularly in the same paragraph and sometimes in the same sentence. Punctuation is erroneous, inconsistent, or abandoned altogether. Sentences are run together without capitalization, periods, or commas to separate them. It is particularly distressing in scenes where characters are talking to themselves, communicating telepathically with others, and having out-loud conversations at the same time, scenes which otherwise could be delightful.Thinking this was a condition that might have occurred in the kindle edition of Legacy of Daddy only, I peeked into the first chapters of several other Next You novels and found the same thing. There's even a good example of what I'm talking about in the author's bio on Amazon. It's as if he refuses to go back and read over what he's written, which is a shame since its otherwise pretty good.So, if you're looking for a great sci-fi story with lots of action and an occasional laugh, and you don't mind the regular WTF moments where you have to re-read a paragraph or two to try and figure who's saying, thinking, or experiencing what, and when, give The Legacy of Daddy a try. Unfortunately, for me, those moments were too often and, in the end, wore me out. By the last third of the book I was tired and eager to be finished with it, which is not a good sign.My rating? Three stars.