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The Beginner
Curtis Dupr has everything he could want to film his second movie- real studio backing, a location shoot near his hometown with his best friend as producer, and the chance to work with an actress he has admired for years. Then people begin to vanish from the set of his film, innocent people whom nobody but Curtis even remembers. There are clues out there- a discarded screenplay, a grubby old magazine, a photocopied birth certificate- that together point to a horrible truth. Something is stalking Curtis, an evil that once plagued his grandparents- a blade-wielding monster that people like Curtis have struggled with since the dawn of time. Night is falling, and to save himself and his friends, Curtis Dupr must learn to understand what it truly means to be...The Beginner.
275 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2005
4 people want to read
About the author
Blake M. Petit
18 books40 followersBlake M. Petit is a writer, columnist, reviewer, podcaster, actor, director, and teacher from Ama, Louisiana. He is the author of several novels, short stories and nonfiction examinations of geek culture available both in print and in eBook form. His original stage play, The 3-D Radio Show, was produced in 2004 and again in 2016. In a former life as a newspaper editor, his weekly Think About It column won the Louisiana Press Association Award for best column in 2001. In his free time, he teaches high school English, which at the moment pays better than the rest of his more impressive-sounding endeavors put together.
Blake lives in Ama, Louisiana, with his remarkably understanding wife, Erin, their son, and a sizable army of action figures, statues, and LEGO Minifigs.
Contact Blake at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at www.BlakeMPetit.com
Blake lives in Ama, Louisiana, with his remarkably understanding wife, Erin, their son, and a sizable army of action figures, statues, and LEGO Minifigs.
Contact Blake at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at www.BlakeMPetit.com
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 14, 2013
Even though I'm not a horror reader, I picked this up because of how much I enjoyed the author's previous book, Other People's Heroes. It grabbed me straight away and kept me reading, despite the higher-than-I-usually-go-for body count. Not that there are any bodies; the supernatural threat removes people from existence entirely, including everyone's memories of them.
It has fewer editing issues than the other book, though there are some. Most of them are along the lines of "if only should could get it to him" or "bailing wire". There are about a dozen of these that I noticed, plus some odd word choices that I couldn't be sure were wrong. The problems are more at a different level, like a woman whose almond-shaped eyebrows hint at exotic ancestry (I should say so).
The worst problems are with the author's lack of gun knowledge. I'm no gun expert, but I know that you hunt ducks with a shotgun, not a rifle (and definitely not a pellet gun). A shotgun later morphs into a rifle over the course of several pages, and a character twirls the "barrel" of a revolver.
There are a lot of shifts of viewpoint character, and it isn't always clear at the start of a scene who has the viewpoint, since it often isn't the first person who's mentioned. That makes starting a new scene mildly disorienting sometimes.
Apart from these issues, I didn't notice too many problems with the writing while I was reading the book, since the thrilling pace kept me interested and uncritically suspending disbelief, though the more I thought about the premise afterwards, the less likely (and consistent) it seemed. What is destroyed when someone is "closed", and what remains behind? Anything from a bus to a birth certificate can remain, and seemingly anything up to a popular sitcom (with all its videotape, box sets, TV Guide mentions, trivia and memorabilia, presumably) can be wiped out.
Regardless, I enjoyed the ride. So what if the indie filmmaker is making what sounds like a perfectly bland Hollywood movie? The Hollywood movie that is the book was enjoyable anyway. I liked the characters, loved the snarky, clever dialogue, and thrilled to the suspense. Take it for what it is: a summer blockbuster that doesn't have to make complete sense or get everything right in order to be entertaining.
It has fewer editing issues than the other book, though there are some. Most of them are along the lines of "if only should could get it to him" or "bailing wire". There are about a dozen of these that I noticed, plus some odd word choices that I couldn't be sure were wrong. The problems are more at a different level, like a woman whose almond-shaped eyebrows hint at exotic ancestry (I should say so).
The worst problems are with the author's lack of gun knowledge. I'm no gun expert, but I know that you hunt ducks with a shotgun, not a rifle (and definitely not a pellet gun). A shotgun later morphs into a rifle over the course of several pages, and a character twirls the "barrel" of a revolver.
There are a lot of shifts of viewpoint character, and it isn't always clear at the start of a scene who has the viewpoint, since it often isn't the first person who's mentioned. That makes starting a new scene mildly disorienting sometimes.
Apart from these issues, I didn't notice too many problems with the writing while I was reading the book, since the thrilling pace kept me interested and uncritically suspending disbelief, though the more I thought about the premise afterwards, the less likely (and consistent) it seemed. What is destroyed when someone is "closed", and what remains behind? Anything from a bus to a birth certificate can remain, and seemingly anything up to a popular sitcom (with all its videotape, box sets, TV Guide mentions, trivia and memorabilia, presumably) can be wiped out.
Regardless, I enjoyed the ride. So what if the indie filmmaker is making what sounds like a perfectly bland Hollywood movie? The Hollywood movie that is the book was enjoyable anyway. I liked the characters, loved the snarky, clever dialogue, and thrilled to the suspense. Take it for what it is: a summer blockbuster that doesn't have to make complete sense or get everything right in order to be entertaining.
Displaying 1 of 1 review