Review: Needs fleshing-out.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 4, 2013
*May contain spoilers."The Disembodied" is a complete short story and a sample for a lengthier anthology that was published later. So John Grover managed to come up with a little local legend (not sure if it's an actual legend in some vague town) and make it his own. I will not reveal the legend, you'll just have to read for yourself.The book is littered with minor mishaps of editing and punctuation. The very first sentence suffers from bad capitalization (should read "Murk Woods"). "The town sat on the edge of Murk woods, woods believed to be cursed."When the hovering body appears in the morgue, the book says "it screamed again" and in looking back, I realized that the body didn't scream the first time. So it should say "it screamed".And then there are weird sentences with seemingly extra words. Exp. "Instead he struck the its naked leg, hacking into it."The things in the mist were described as being impatient and then two sentences later, the book reads "they are evicted so to speak and they head straight back to Murk, waiting patiently", which sounds strange. Are they patient or impatient?'"Gerald! Gerald!" Mat stood there, the phone cradled in his hands, the feeling of being watched shimmering over his body." - I'm not sure shimmering is the right word.There were sentences where it kind of seems like two sentences were smashed together. Exp. '"Dad!" Sharon called, rising from her chair, screaming was joined by thuds."The last mistake happened at the very end, where it broke the pace of reading. "Searching about he for a moment he finally pulled the bottle of whiskey into the open."Having said all that, the storytelling itself is good. Where Grover excels is in his verbose descriptions of the fog and the dead woman, which would get anyone in the mood.The father's death, I saw coming about 5 pages ahead of time. However, the death of the mortician, I absolutely did not see coming and it was a brilliant way to end the story. Very creepy.The story could use fleshing-out and character development needs expanding upon. It even could be lengthened with more of the townspeople getting involved. The bio in the back says that Grover took a creative writing course. My suggestion is to either take an editing course (commas have a purpose!) or switch to scriptwriting.