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Have you ever read the book The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman?  How about The Art Of Punctuation by the same author?  R. Leigh certainly hasn’t.

As a big fan of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, I took this assignment, eagerly looking forward to traipsing through a new world.  Unfortunately, I kept tripping over the missed placed quotation marks, periods, and commas.  Then I fell into potholes left by missing words.  Here is a great example of why punctuation is important, not to mention the importance of a simple grammar check program.

When a manuscript is not edited, the reader has to constantly think about the craft of writing instead of getting swept away by the story.  It is like taking an afternoon drive through the mountains on a fall day.  If you follow a well-paved road, you can look out over the valleys and enjoy sweeping vistas.  If the road is full of potholes, you have to keep your eyes on the road, carefully dodging, slowing down, and speeding up.  It just isn’t enjoyable.

Let’s stop the car, get out and look at the vistas before I up-chuck on my floorboard.  I still have criteria besides punctuation to gage a story’s value and sometimes a great plot is worth a bumpy drive, or a call to your department of transportation, i.e. the publisher.

First of all, plot development:  Does the author put the main characters into a predicament that they themselves have to resolve?  No. The main characters are magically pulled into another world and are immediately okay with that.  They are not frightened, confused, or even dazed.  Every once in awhile they decide maybe they should find a way home, they even half-heartedly look for a way home, but they clearly-from the get-go- want to stay forever.

Here’s a few other basics of writing.  Is there a main, over-arching conflict to carry the reader through?  No, a few temporary conflicts developed here and there, but mostly the author just bragged on the world he created.  Does the reader understand the rules of the world created by the author and does the author stick to those rules to create suspense?  No.  I will offer one brownie point, however, since the author did manage to invent another world, albeit he repeated whole phrases of description throughout.

I’m not sure how, but R. Leigh managed to write in a style more indicative of documentary work for children, rather than a suspenseful Sci-Fi journey.  This was disturbing, given the fact that every single character in Asharra was stark naked and at the same time extremely boring.

Boredom reigned supreme because the author broke a cardinal rule of writing:  Show, Don’t Tell.  Cardinal Rule #1 for great writing.  The Winds of Asharra may have utilized erotica for shock value, but for every documentary-styled sex scene, there were five pages, five pothole ridden pages, of philosophizing.  The preaching went on and on and on using excessive adjectives without even illustrations.  Sometimes, whole sentences were repeated in the same paragraph three or four times with only slightly different wording.  At least the sermon would have ended if I had walked into a church and sat for an hour.  Sometimes I forgot which character was musing since all of them seemed to hold the exact same viewpoints to match the author’s philosophies.

Do yourself a favor, read Hemmingway, Herbert, or Voltaire.  Even if you stare at the original language of Voltaire, you’ll get more out of it than reading The Winds of Asharra by R. Leigh.  Usually, I loan out the books I read.  This one is headed to the recycling bin.

Additional Comments by Reviewer:  After baffling over how a manuscript could be so grossly edited, I checked out the publisher of this manuscript.  Outskirts Press is a POD publisher for completely self-published books.  I did a rough calculation, but it looks to me as if this author would have paid at least $2,000 for publishing this 600 plus page book.  That basic package would not have included editing but would have included a galley copy. 

A galley copy is the copy a writer looks over before s/he allows the manuscript to be published and sent out to reviewers like me.  It is the last chance for the author to go over the printed product with a fine tooth comb, the last chance to ensure there aren’t any mistakes in the printing of the book. With a reputable publisher, this is usually the moment the author sits back, reads over the book with a glass of wine, and cherishes the moment.  Outskirts Press, however, states that 25 minor editing changes comes with the “package.” After 25 minor edits, they charge 49 cents per minor edit.  If there are over 100 minor edits, the author is charged $50/hour for someone else to make these changes.  If the author orders a second galley copy to make sure the publisher got the edits right, then the author is charged another $50 and they cycle begins again.

Although I am not saying this happened, a self-publish press could easily rip people off by printing a galley copy chocked full of typos, deliberately ignoring a perfectly good, well-edited digital copy from the author.  Then the dissappointed author would have to hand over hundreds of dollars more in order to make sure his/her book went out to reviewers like me without obvious errors. 

As I said, I’m not saying this is the case, but I must say that there were extremely inane errors in every paragraph of this manuscript.  My own editor here at Pop Syndicate called it inexcusable when I gave him just two pages of examples.  Author R. Leigh would have had to pay an editor thousands of dollars just to make sure the quotation marks were all in the right spot. Personally, I certainly won’t be reading any more books from this company because I hate wasting my time.  The low star rating I have given the book still reflects the poor quality of the plot and execution of the story, but I am disstressed by the possibility an aspiring author has been fleeced.  I had to say something regarding this company’s editing fees. 

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