Critiquing the Review of The Aledan

My first novel The Aledan has received exactly four reviews, two from volunteers when I requested ARC reviews. Then there were two other reviews, one said it was a good read and gave it five stars.  The other gave it one star because it was "NOT my thing." I was kind of annoyed with that one because I'm guessing they probably don't like romance novels. That lousy one star review gave my book an overall rating of only three stars. The point is that the one star reviewer gave no reason why the book was not his/her thing, basically telling the world my beloved first novel was not worth bothering to read.

I've done a few ARC reviews myself.  I like doing them because I get to read new stuff for free, but I only review the kind of fiction I like which is romance and scifi romance. If I have a problem with the book, I usually won't publish a review and just send the author an email with constructive criticism. One that I didn't like was a series where the story was not a standalone. So much time was spent setting the stage, which was quite fascinating, that the romance barely started and the story was over.

The following is one of my four reviews for The Aledan:

"I tried out this book, not knowing what to expect. But it left me a bit confused as to what to think about it. So I decided just to name all the good points and the things that could be better (in my opinion) and hopefully that will help people decide. I do like where the writer is going in general.

Good points:
I like the world, the story has lot of background which is revealed along the way. Off course psychic humans aren't new, but I like the cultural interaction. The book focuses more on the cultural aspects and problems then on technology, which is nice. It's a romance, the connection between the characters is nice. The story line itself is good though. The relationship and it's problems develop not to fast.

Downsides:
The writing style is really not my favorite. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it correctly, but it feels a bit as if she states everything instead of letting the story speak for itself. I.e. she states all feelings the characters have. Hankura said this, Hankura felt this, Hankura noticed his body doing this etc. It feels forced. As a result I found it hard to get with the characters and believe their feelings. This makes the romance a bit abrupt. I have to add it also felt like it wasn't a really balanced couple, but that may be just a pet peeve of mine."

This is a well thought out and detailed review.  I honestly thought the good points outweighed the criticism enough to give the book three stars instead of two. Telling what each character felt and thought was partly to illustrate how Hankura and Chelle were privy to each other's thoughts and feelings through the psionic bond of their minds. I may have overdone that a bit.

I'm not sure how the romance seemed abrupt because from the time they made that first mind connection, I thought I'd made it clear that Chelle pretty much idolized Hankura though not in so many words. By the time he came to Earth to find her, they had already fallen in love through their shared dreams.

The reviewer was right on point that they were not really a balanced couple in that Chelle was not Hankura's equal. He had completed physician level by the time he returned to find her.  She was an uneducated woman of the streets in dystopian Faringay. But their relationship continues to evolve throughout the series until she becomes his intellectual equal.

While I would wish this reviewer would have given it a better overall rating, I appreciate that it appears well thought out and that they took the time to write it. It makes some valid points. It gave specifics on why they liked it and why they didn't.

When I go on Amazon to buy books from authors I haven't read before, I don't just read the 4-5 star reviews, I read the 1-2 star reviews as well. Just because someone didn't like a book doesn't mean I won't, but I like to know why the reviewer doesn't like it. Sometimes what they don't like is exactly why I would like it.

I do the same thing when I am reviewing a book. If I have read the whole book and enjoyed it I give it a good review. Sometimes reviewers just don't like how a story plays out. That observation is probably one of the biggest reasons I became a writer in the first place. I wanted to make stories that would proceed and conclude on my terms.

Selling them on Amazon is a whole other story. For anyone who is interested the Aledan Series has just been re-edited for publication in paperback and the second Kindle edition.  

However, I caused some kind of glitch in revising Psi Factor so that it inserted duplicate paragraphs throughout the manuscript.  Anyone who purchased the Box set or the Psi Factor with the errors, contact me at crisane1@gmail.com with a copy of the receipt and I will provide a corrected copy of that book. A corrected copy will be uploaded within the next seven days.

 Copyright © 2016
All Rights Reserved

Proof Reading

I dread proof reading have never been good at proof reading my own work, but when you are self publishing on a shoe string like I am, you need to get good at it.

I just finished proofing the hard copy of my second Aledan novel Journey of the Searching Star that I am preparing to go live on CreateSpace. When I revised the manuscript last year, I only had a hard copy of the manuscript that I could use.  So I used the Windows voice recognition program to dictate it into the computer. Years of keyboarding on the job and for my writing have resulted in repetitive stress injuries to my hands.

Reading aloud from the manuscript meant I was not looking at the screen, so I missed a lot of wrong words that sounded like what I was saying. Spell checker does not catch those kind of mistakes. Even though I proofed the manuscript two times, I still didn't discover all of them as I learned this time through the hard copy proof of the book. I found many more typos and wrong words than I ever expected---to my chagrin.

However, I find I am not alone in the quest for an error free manuscript. I have found numerous typos in books by far more successful authors than I. When possible, it is especially helpful to have someone else proof your work because it's much easier to find simple errors in works that are not your own.

That said, the best way for me to do it is to read it as though I'm reading it aloud one word at a time. It's not fool proof, but it helps.

Because of the numerous errors in the second Aledan novel I will be re-editing the rest of the series and releasing new editions of each as well as the box set. Anyone who bought it previously should be able to access the revised editions.

Chris Myers

 Copyright © 2016
 All Rights Reserved