Review: On Goodreads.com, this is the only book I shelved in my "threw-it-at-the-wall" bookcase.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2013
I finally decided to do something I have rarely done in my 66 years on this earth -- I stopped reading a book less than 1/2 way through.  Heck, less than 1/4 of the way through.I feel terrible about it.  I hate to quit anything, especially a book.  And, I especially hate to quit when I found the subject matter intriguing, the characters, although not yet very fleshed out or explained (I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt that this would have happened as the plot unfolded), interesting.  But, there were just too many spelling and grammar errors in the early going for me to have any faith that I'd spend any enjoyable time reading this book.I decided to look up the author, Jack Eason.  I assumed he might be a younger author, perhaps new to the business.  Nope.  He has at least two other novels(and sob, both appear to be on a subject I find especially interesting -- ancient Egypt).  He is UK born, lived in New Zealand for 42 years, then returned to England.  His bio indicates he was in the military in the 1960s, so I'm assuming he is in my age range.I was reading this on my Kindle ($.99 -- one of the few times you'll ever hear me say a book was overpriced).  I can't comment on the plotting, the action, the character development, or the denouement, but I sure can comment on the editing!On the Kindle, the book had 7622 "locations."  I stopped at 893, or just 11% into the book.  Here's what stopped me.1.  Word usage.  This, I assume, is just the difference between UK English and US English, but it was still distracting to me.  If the rest of what I'll mention didn't exist, I could have overlooked these two things.  First, artefact for artifact:  I looked the word up and the spelling with the "e" is legit, just not the primary spelling.  Also, as the devices for which the word was used were made by aliens, the term artifact, which is defined as something being man-made, doesn't really apply, does it?  Second, defence for defense:  again, a legitimate alternative spelling, just not what I'm used to seeing, so it stopped my eye every time.  As these two words were used a lot -- and I mean A LOT -- in the mere 11% I completed, I assume I'd be gnashing teeth by the end if I'd continued.Let's move on to the real stoppers for me.2.  Misspelled and misused words.At location 679 (8% completed -- that's when I started keeping track, not the first occurrence)came this sentence, where the main character is describing his ransacked house.  "Draws hung open with their contents thrown to the floor."  Draws, eh?  Personally, I have drawers.  (NOTE: since I first wrote this for Goodreads, another author contacted me to say that draws is the common word for drawers in countries that speak the King's -- or Queen's -- English).And another comment on this spot in the book.  He never calls the authorities?  What?  You come home from a trip abroad and someone has broken in and ransacked your home (ransacked is the word he used -- and to me that's a lot of damage) and you don't make a call to the police the first thing on your list?  Absolutely unbelievable.Moving on.  At position 759 (9% completed) you'll find this:  "His nickname was as you might have guessed was Speedy."  No punctuation used, plus a double word used, and obviously no editing!At position 835 at the top of the page, this was part of a very run on sentence:  "... Isis replied from the depths of the massive stones that made up the structure of the temples basement."  No apostrophe for temple, so evidently the basement wasn't part of it?  Ignore the "from the depths of the stones,"  that part is okay.  Evidently that character could exist inside walls; one of her alien abilities.Just down the page at location 836, we see this in one of the sentences:  "...looking for a knew and safe home..."  <Sigh>3. I guess this category would fall under writing style?  Most authors I've come across, when using a multi-paragraph speech from one of the characters, use the quote marks at the beginning of each paragraph to indicate to the reader that the character is still speaking.  The ending quote marks do not come until the very end of the last paragraph in the speech.  Not Eason.  He just keeps writing that one character's long segment of dialogue without any quote marks after the opening marks at the first of the first paragraph until the ending quote marks at the end of the last paragraph.  With my Kindle, that means that the seven paragraph section appearing at 869 through location 930 stretched across 6 pages with no indication that the character was still speaking, rather than just thinking.I stopped there.  I found that, in that little space of time, I'd been stopped by unusual spelling choices, misused words, awkward sentence structure, confusing actions, and just maddening stylistic choices.  I read for fun.  This wasn't fun.Note that it took me 4 days to get 11% through the book.  Why?  I kept going back and re-reading sections, thinking surely I'd missed something, or perhaps I'd just misunderstood something.  No.  I hadn't.  It's just badly written.