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faerietears's review
1.0
I have to preface this by saying that I don't know any of the authors of this book, they are probably wonderful people. Anything I say in this review is my opinion of the book itself and not the authors themselves.
I received a copy of this book for free via the Goodreads First To Read program.
With that out of the way, I give a word of warning to potential readers: DON'T PAY MONEY FOR THIS BOOK. As a reader, when I put out money for reading material, I expect a well edited, quality product. I can let a few errors go, because hey, we're all human, but aside from that, I have high standards. Thankfully I didn't pay for this book, but regardless, any book published should be at the best quality possible, and that simply wasn't the case with this book.
First, these were my thoughts on the individual stories as I read them, posted as status/progress updates on Goodreads:
Feb 21: "1st story, Cursed Blood: author doesn't know how to use POVs, the story was too short, and not engaging. It could have been good, but utterly failed. I only finished because it was 6 pages long."
Feb 21: "#2, Curse of the Ship Burial: What I managed to read before I gave up was B.O.R.I.N.G. Not engaging in the least. All tell and no show. I couldn't even finish. I skimmed forward until I saw dialogue, which was just as bad. The dialogue did not sound natural at all. Again, this was an interesting concept that was horribly executed. I pray to the Egyptian gods the rest of the stories are better..."
Feb 22: "#3, Pyramidion: While confusing at times, probably due to its short length, I could at least follow this story. the prose was at times poetic and with a good editor this story may be worth reading."
Feb 22: "#4, The Brass Gong: Wow... just.... wow. What starts in the tone of an article, turns into jibberish. I couldn't even skim to the end this was so bad. I don't have much hope for the rest of the stories in this book."
Feb 22: "#5, The Curse of Nilofer: This one was easy enough to read and follow, but... there was really no curse. It was more like a bunch of ideas thrown together without much thought. With a good editor this probably could have been fleshed out into a decent story, but it fell short. I also found numerous editing errors."
Feb 23: "#6, The Evil in the Sarcophagus: Now THIS is what the stories should be like. While, like the others, the editing is non-existent, and the action could have been described more vividly to give a sense of danger, the story made sense, there was a beginning, middle and end, and I knew who the players were and I was rooting for them. This story was not half-bad. They probably should have opened with this one."
Feb 24: "#7, The Gold Tusks of Ekhaptu: boring, rushed, but at least the story made sense...."
Feb 24: "#8, The Statue: At only 5 pages, this story could have benefited from being fleshed out more. 3rd person narrative might have allowed more detail to paint the picture as well. Overall though, this was one of the better stories in this collection. It made sense, and had a beginning, middle and end."
March 2: "#9, The Tomb of Necrohotep: Possibly the best written story. But.... too much military jargon. Also too many characters to keep straight. The end was decent, the beginning boring. It was like an Indiana Jones movie, but without the benefit of it being on film (or featuring Harrison Ford). Oh yeah, I also skimmed a lot. "
March 2: "#10, Touchstone: Meh. No pyramids or mummies. Read more like a paranormal story. Easy to read, but I didn't enjoy it." (NOTE: I should add that this one felt out of place in this anthology and would have been better suited for a general speculative fiction collection.)
So, with that out of the way, my biggest complaint was the lack of editing. The cover of this book does not feature the authors names, instead it says: EDITED BY Evelyn M. Zimmer. I think they use the term "edited" very, very loosely because there was no editing and no proofreading that I could see. If anything, this should say 'COMPILED BY Evelyn M. Zimmer' because editing is completely misleading. There was missing punctuation, incorrectly used words, the POV was all over the place in some of these. Overall it was a train wreck.
My biggest problem though comes from an ethical standpoint. Curious about exactly WHO would put out a book with this many errors, I looked up the publisher, Zimbell House Publishing. What I found greatly disturbs me. Quoted from their website here: http://www.zimbellhousepublishing.com/contest-submissions/
"All contributing authors will receive a free copy of the book in softcover. Authors that are chosen for the anthology will not be paid nor receive royalties for their submission. Again there is no charge for the submissions. This is an opportunity to build your platform."
Now, this is quoted on information from a different anthology they're putting together, but it seems to me this is their policy for all anthologies and I find it shady. A writer is worth more than one print copy of a book. An author deserves to be paid for their work in royalties or a lump upfront sum. It seems to me this "publisher" is collecting stories from authors who may not know better, throwing them together in a book without editing, and releasing to the public. Without an editor, these authors are not given the chance to learn and grow. Their website says this is an opportunity to build their platform, but it's not helping these authors at all if they're not going to bother properly editing the stories.
But enough of that. Ultimately, I was greatly disappointed in this collection. The only reason I finished this book was so that I could write up this review and warn potential readers of exactly what they're getting themselves in to. I'm a proponent of burning books, but I very well may do so with this, just so that nobody else has to try to endure this book.
Also, the cover does not look professional and should have been my first clue that this was not going to be a very good read. (Yes, I'm shallow, like many readers, I first judge a book by it's cover. That's why quality cover art is so important for a book.)
I received a copy of this book for free via the Goodreads First To Read program.
With that out of the way, I give a word of warning to potential readers: DON'T PAY MONEY FOR THIS BOOK. As a reader, when I put out money for reading material, I expect a well edited, quality product. I can let a few errors go, because hey, we're all human, but aside from that, I have high standards. Thankfully I didn't pay for this book, but regardless, any book published should be at the best quality possible, and that simply wasn't the case with this book.
First, these were my thoughts on the individual stories as I read them, posted as status/progress updates on Goodreads:
Feb 21: "1st story, Cursed Blood: author doesn't know how to use POVs, the story was too short, and not engaging. It could have been good, but utterly failed. I only finished because it was 6 pages long."
Feb 21: "#2, Curse of the Ship Burial: What I managed to read before I gave up was B.O.R.I.N.G. Not engaging in the least. All tell and no show. I couldn't even finish. I skimmed forward until I saw dialogue, which was just as bad. The dialogue did not sound natural at all. Again, this was an interesting concept that was horribly executed. I pray to the Egyptian gods the rest of the stories are better..."
Feb 22: "#3, Pyramidion: While confusing at times, probably due to its short length, I could at least follow this story. the prose was at times poetic and with a good editor this story may be worth reading."
Feb 22: "#4, The Brass Gong: Wow... just.... wow. What starts in the tone of an article, turns into jibberish. I couldn't even skim to the end this was so bad. I don't have much hope for the rest of the stories in this book."
Feb 22: "#5, The Curse of Nilofer: This one was easy enough to read and follow, but... there was really no curse. It was more like a bunch of ideas thrown together without much thought. With a good editor this probably could have been fleshed out into a decent story, but it fell short. I also found numerous editing errors."
Feb 23: "#6, The Evil in the Sarcophagus: Now THIS is what the stories should be like. While, like the others, the editing is non-existent, and the action could have been described more vividly to give a sense of danger, the story made sense, there was a beginning, middle and end, and I knew who the players were and I was rooting for them. This story was not half-bad. They probably should have opened with this one."
Feb 24: "#7, The Gold Tusks of Ekhaptu: boring, rushed, but at least the story made sense...."
Feb 24: "#8, The Statue: At only 5 pages, this story could have benefited from being fleshed out more. 3rd person narrative might have allowed more detail to paint the picture as well. Overall though, this was one of the better stories in this collection. It made sense, and had a beginning, middle and end."
March 2: "#9, The Tomb of Necrohotep: Possibly the best written story. But.... too much military jargon. Also too many characters to keep straight. The end was decent, the beginning boring. It was like an Indiana Jones movie, but without the benefit of it being on film (or featuring Harrison Ford). Oh yeah, I also skimmed a lot. "
March 2: "#10, Touchstone: Meh. No pyramids or mummies. Read more like a paranormal story. Easy to read, but I didn't enjoy it." (NOTE: I should add that this one felt out of place in this anthology and would have been better suited for a general speculative fiction collection.)
So, with that out of the way, my biggest complaint was the lack of editing. The cover of this book does not feature the authors names, instead it says: EDITED BY Evelyn M. Zimmer. I think they use the term "edited" very, very loosely because there was no editing and no proofreading that I could see. If anything, this should say 'COMPILED BY Evelyn M. Zimmer' because editing is completely misleading. There was missing punctuation, incorrectly used words, the POV was all over the place in some of these. Overall it was a train wreck.
My biggest problem though comes from an ethical standpoint. Curious about exactly WHO would put out a book with this many errors, I looked up the publisher, Zimbell House Publishing. What I found greatly disturbs me. Quoted from their website here: http://www.zimbellhousepublishing.com/contest-submissions/
"All contributing authors will receive a free copy of the book in softcover. Authors that are chosen for the anthology will not be paid nor receive royalties for their submission. Again there is no charge for the submissions. This is an opportunity to build your platform."
Now, this is quoted on information from a different anthology they're putting together, but it seems to me this is their policy for all anthologies and I find it shady. A writer is worth more than one print copy of a book. An author deserves to be paid for their work in royalties or a lump upfront sum. It seems to me this "publisher" is collecting stories from authors who may not know better, throwing them together in a book without editing, and releasing to the public. Without an editor, these authors are not given the chance to learn and grow. Their website says this is an opportunity to build their platform, but it's not helping these authors at all if they're not going to bother properly editing the stories.
But enough of that. Ultimately, I was greatly disappointed in this collection. The only reason I finished this book was so that I could write up this review and warn potential readers of exactly what they're getting themselves in to. I'm a proponent of burning books, but I very well may do so with this, just so that nobody else has to try to endure this book.
Also, the cover does not look professional and should have been my first clue that this was not going to be a very good read. (Yes, I'm shallow, like many readers, I first judge a book by it's cover. That's why quality cover art is so important for a book.)
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