A new electronically-published fantasy novel is sweeping the nation. Everyone is reading it. Some love it, some hate it, and some vanish without a trace.
High school English teacher Jan Fitzgerald adores literature. But her students have begun to disappear, and somehow this new ebook is responsible. To protect the people she loves, she must discover how the nationwide outbreaks of violence and missing persons could be caused by the latest fiction craze.
Jan has no choice but to read the ebook herself, and hope that she can resist its mind-altering power long enough to unravel the mystery.
Steven W. White has written science fiction and fantasy since he was a teenager. Along the way, he's been a Christmas tree farmer, a rocket scientist, and a snake handler. Lately, he's earned a Fiction MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island, Washington. He writes, teaches, and occasionally plays with fire in the Pacific Northwest.
Picked this up for free from Amazon along with a few others. Of those free books, two I couldn't read much as the writing was too poor and another was not bad but turned out to be a short story. I was wondering if it was worth downloading free books after all. Then this book came along and really swept me off my feet.
It starts well and draws you in but that's just a taster. Once it gets going it is really hard to put down. The ideas are very good and I found myself reading into the early hours of the morning to finish it, just unable to stop (and anyone who reads the book will notice how ironic that is).
Highly recommended and I will definitely be looking at other work by this author.
At first, I thought this was a polemic by someone who thinks EReaders are the devil...you know, it has to Be A Real Book! Which is silly: it's the content that makes it a book, not the delivery system, else why aren't all of you book purists still reading parchment scrolls? Then I thought someone had written a fantasy novel that just didn't work, so incorporated it into A Book Within A Book horror novel.
Turns out I was right. About which? You figure it out.
Anyway, I was entertained enough to read it through but, ultimately, was disappointed. Turns out to be the Matrix, or Terminator, pick your scifi AI.
It would have been much better as a horror novel. You know, a curse, witchcraft, not HAL.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I was intrigued by the description and was really eager to read it. was a bit disappointed as when there were excerpts of screen shots and notes etc, they ended up being superimposed over some of the text - annoying as I may have missed something vital. I can't rave about it as much as I would like as for my it wasn't really resolved.
Jawoll, eBooks sind garstig, böse und überhaupt der Anfang vom Ende... Ich schau mal, wo ich für meinen Kindle 'nen digitalen Maulkorb herkrieg! Davon abgesehen ist diese Story ein überraschend fieser Pageturner, den ich in einem Rutsch durchgelesen hab. Und ich hab meinen Kindle immer noch lieb ;)
I liked the idea of the main character going from quiet, timid schoolteacher to kickass hero. I didn't like the story within the story very much. It was a little boring, but at least they say it's not very good in the main story.
What to say about this book? I did read it to the end just to see if it got better. It didn't. Honestly don't bother. Badly written and even worse printed.
I think there's something inherently scary about ordinary things being dangerous. The videotape in the Ring films comes to mind. Or seemingly random coincidences working to kill a person (the Final Destination films).
I already read one book about a Kindle book that kills people. I guess I was sort of expecting a similar plot in this - but it turned out to be less of a horror.
I don't know if it was just my Kindle, but I noticed several letters had been grayed out. If there was some sort of message contained within, it would have been interesting, but nothing was indicated in the book, so...
I did find the ending - or the explanation - a bit of a let-down. I won't go into too many details, but although the book ended about as well as could be expected, I was hoping for something... more. Then again, the ideas were pretty unique and interesting and the book was good enough to keep me reading. For a free book, that's actually pretty good.
The whole spelling words wrong thing - even if they're readable so long as there are the right number of letters and the first and last letter are the same - did get confusing after a while. I had to stop and try and figure out what was being said half of the time.
I thought that the book made good use of the features of the Kindle and of Amazon itself - from the reviews that were included, to the notes... even the battery low screen. I would have liked more explanation about the weird-sounding notes, though.
Kudos to this author for writing such an ambitious book -- this was not just one story but a book within a book! Was just a bit creeped out reading a story about an ereader book taking over the minds of the readers especially since I was reading it on my Kindle Fire! Definitely a story that makes you wonder - similar to Stephen King's "Cell"...
Good basic premise - people who read a book on their e-readers inexplicably disappear or kill themselves. Since the "book" they are reading is in this book, we read it as well. The story was so weak that I can't understand how anyone would have read enough of it to have it take over their minds. Weird book.
Very odd. Different, but good. This book isn't like anything I have ever read. Unique & interesting. I wasn't near as interested in Young Rad's part of the story as I was how Jan's handling it. I keep saying that sci-fi, techy stuff isn't my thing, but I did enjoy this book.
I got this as a mystery/thriller and didn't realize what a sci-fi plot it had. I enjoyed reading it but did not enjoy reading the book in the book. I quickly skipped those passages and didn't miss anything meaningful.
Did not enjoy this and I skipped through the story within the story, the kindle formatting needs sorting out too, with the cut and paste bits I was not able to read some of the text of the book.
An interesting concept. I really liked the main character and felt like I was in her head at times. The garbled words were an odd literary device, but effective in context. Worth reading.
In this age of the machines and the internet this book will blow your mind ! It is true , scientists have said that we are but years away from being surpassed by computers that can think for themselves. What then ? They have already taken over most work done by man. Can mankind be replaced? This book will make you think!!! I RECOMMEND. ENJOY if you dare!