Review: Terry Bison's Fire On The Mountain
Okay, everyone take this review with a big fat grain of salt because this one, no, I didn't get done with it. It got me too upset. I purchased it at a book faire. I like the publishers--PM Press. I read some other stuff from them and it was good stuff and I thought I'd give this one a chance, based on the reviews of the author. Also the reviews for this one weren't bad. So why not?
The premise is pretty cool. What if John Brown's revolt had worked? Cool, right. How do you not want to at least pick it up and check out a few chapters? Also it's I believe 1959 and there's all this technology and the U.S.A. isn't the U.S.A. It's the U.S.S.A. I don't know, a bunch of cool stuff. And then you start reading it.
It's a deep narrative that gobbles you up from the get go. So a plus there. And then everything I don't want in a novel is quickly introduced. Like I said, this is not a bad novel; it just pissed me off. It's told through a few perspectives but I don't know why. It seemed like the only reason to change perspectives was to cheat on the storytelling.
The paragraphs were way too long and in turn meandered through thought processes that didn't lead anywhere. I had a hard time figuring out where they were in time and space. I couldn't tell what people were doing or why they were doing it, and to tell you all honestly, it seemed like a lot of telling instead of showing. It lacked drama and there weren't any hints that drama was coming up any time soon so I dropped it.
Honestly, I might not have given this one enough of a chance. I was on about page twenty something when I saw that there was a journal from someone and I was like, are you friggin kidding me. A stupid journal. Nothing against journals, which are a perfectly fine tool as far as storytelling, but I didn't see any story to tell, to detail.
Sorry, I know this seems egotistical and pretty lame to the author and the publisher but I've just made a personal decision to not watch bad movies, or read books that are way too easy to put down. And this was one of those books that was just begging me to put it down.
If perhaps you read Fire on the Mountain and were actually really impressed by it then I'll repeat that I think the book is perfectly fine its just not something that I liked very much. At the same time, man, why did you like it? Shoot me a note or something. I'm curious. Maybe I should pick this one up again.
And just to let you know, I wrote a book with a journal in it. Here goes
Here's an unnecessary direct link to Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Blackness-Book-...
The premise is pretty cool. What if John Brown's revolt had worked? Cool, right. How do you not want to at least pick it up and check out a few chapters? Also it's I believe 1959 and there's all this technology and the U.S.A. isn't the U.S.A. It's the U.S.S.A. I don't know, a bunch of cool stuff. And then you start reading it.
It's a deep narrative that gobbles you up from the get go. So a plus there. And then everything I don't want in a novel is quickly introduced. Like I said, this is not a bad novel; it just pissed me off. It's told through a few perspectives but I don't know why. It seemed like the only reason to change perspectives was to cheat on the storytelling.
The paragraphs were way too long and in turn meandered through thought processes that didn't lead anywhere. I had a hard time figuring out where they were in time and space. I couldn't tell what people were doing or why they were doing it, and to tell you all honestly, it seemed like a lot of telling instead of showing. It lacked drama and there weren't any hints that drama was coming up any time soon so I dropped it.
Honestly, I might not have given this one enough of a chance. I was on about page twenty something when I saw that there was a journal from someone and I was like, are you friggin kidding me. A stupid journal. Nothing against journals, which are a perfectly fine tool as far as storytelling, but I didn't see any story to tell, to detail.
Sorry, I know this seems egotistical and pretty lame to the author and the publisher but I've just made a personal decision to not watch bad movies, or read books that are way too easy to put down. And this was one of those books that was just begging me to put it down.
If perhaps you read Fire on the Mountain and were actually really impressed by it then I'll repeat that I think the book is perfectly fine its just not something that I liked very much. At the same time, man, why did you like it? Shoot me a note or something. I'm curious. Maybe I should pick this one up again.
And just to let you know, I wrote a book with a journal in it. Here goes
Here's an unnecessary direct link to Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Blackness-Book-...
No comments have been added yet.
