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Skull Flowers
Step into a story where forgotten legends, ancient sorceries, and high-technologies come together to create a world of scientific wonder and barbaric magic, where the stars will shine forever, where the sky it never ends, where all shall ride eternal, and the moonlight will attend, amongst, the riots, and make-believe...
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 19, 2019
16 people are currently reading
1054 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
March 7, 2019
This poorly written trash will rot your brain.
March 7, 2019
I slogged through this to only come to the conclusion that this book is a literary dog fart. I'm not kidding.
March 7, 2019
This book is a piece of shit.
March 7, 2019
This book gets a 1 because rating a book a 0 is not allowed.
March 7, 2019
Absolutely one of the most boring books I have ever read. This book is so bad it makes me never want to pick up another book again.
March 7, 2019
I wouldn't recommend this book to my worst enemy.
March 6, 2019
I almost never abandon a book without reading it, but after a third of the book was finished, I still couldn't get into it.
March 6, 2019
Couldn't get into this one.
March 7, 2019
I'll admit right off that I didn't like this book. Skull Flowers is lame and stupid. Alexis is the most shallow character I've ever read.
March 7, 2019
Pathetic. Really pathetic. Awful in every way. The writing style is horrific. The plot is flimsy. The characters are one-dimensional and simplistic.
March 7, 2019
This book will make you hate reading. It's extremely boring! I had a hard time getting through the first 10 pages let alone the first chapter or even the whole book.
March 7, 2019
This book sucks so bad I actually thought about wiping my ass with it.
July 5, 2012
Anyone who's read one of my reviews over the last year will know that I rarely give fewer than 4 or 5 stars. That's primarily because I tend to know what I'm getting into when I pick a book to read. It's either an author I've read before or one who comes highly recommended.
This time, I was contacted by the author, Jazon Dion Fletcher, who asked if I would read his book, Skull Flowers, and write a review. I've done this a few times, often with good results. This time, not so good.
In his e-mail, describing his work, Jazon told me it is "...a mixture of Contemporary Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror", elsewhere, I've seen it described as Cyberpunk. Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional Cyberpunk in my reading life. I particularly liked Rudy Rucker's Postsingular. That being said, perhaps I've set the bar too high, Postsingular was just an amazing read.
The writing style is somewhat unusual. Almost formatted as a movie script or play. Character names appear in...
BOLD CAPS
with dialog below and then any additional action or other incidental information is
below the dialog in italics.
Having read both plays and scripts in the past, this was similar and at the same time, like nothing I've ever read before.
The writing style itself is not what caused me to give the work 2 stars. I could get around that, but even when dealing with the wild and wacky way this is writen, there are certain rules which should be followed. Things like "here him out" being used when it should be "hear him out", or using "try's to trap" instead of "tries to trap", and twice I spotted "passed" used when it should have been "past". Believe me there are many more of these.
In addition, there's being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous which seems a bit silly to me. "Inside the Occult Bureau's Drone Transport Alexis sits alone handcuffed with Charm Bracelet's." That is the whole sentence. And really, "...handcuffed with Charm Bracelet's"?
For those of you who might be curious about the book, here is the Amazon Book Description...
"Skull Flowers is the story of Alexis, her robot 808, and her bumbling friend Officer Whistle Britches as they set off on an adventure to find out who and what was behind the assassination of her father Governor Champagne. Along the way they encounter many villains including Special Agent Scarzensky, Mistress LaReaux, and Dr. Necropolis and explore many strange places including the Death Factory owned by Controlled Substances Inc., the polluted bayou along Fiddlers Creek, and the Pyramid ov tha Priestess ov Mars. In her journey she is aided by her mentor Professor Proxy, her pirate friend Junebug, and his girlfriend Minx. Where the stars will shine eternal, where the sky it never ends, where all will ride eternal, where the moonlight shall attend, amongst the riots and make believe."
I'm a reader, not a writer. I don't even aspire to be a writer, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's been said that I like to eat. When I read, I read for pleasue and Skull Flower was not a pleasurable experience for me. The bottom line is that the work is very amaturish, like something a student might submit in a writing class. A first draft at best. And to make my overall experience even more bizarre, Skull Flowers, has more than 40 reviews on Amazon, 35 of them 5 stars and another 4 stars. This makes me wonder what I'm missing, but I have to be honest and say that I would not recommend this book for anyone.
This time, I was contacted by the author, Jazon Dion Fletcher, who asked if I would read his book, Skull Flowers, and write a review. I've done this a few times, often with good results. This time, not so good.
In his e-mail, describing his work, Jazon told me it is "...a mixture of Contemporary Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror", elsewhere, I've seen it described as Cyberpunk. Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional Cyberpunk in my reading life. I particularly liked Rudy Rucker's Postsingular. That being said, perhaps I've set the bar too high, Postsingular was just an amazing read.
The writing style is somewhat unusual. Almost formatted as a movie script or play. Character names appear in...
BOLD CAPS
with dialog below and then any additional action or other incidental information is
below the dialog in italics.
Having read both plays and scripts in the past, this was similar and at the same time, like nothing I've ever read before.
The writing style itself is not what caused me to give the work 2 stars. I could get around that, but even when dealing with the wild and wacky way this is writen, there are certain rules which should be followed. Things like "here him out" being used when it should be "hear him out", or using "try's to trap" instead of "tries to trap", and twice I spotted "passed" used when it should have been "past". Believe me there are many more of these.
In addition, there's being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous which seems a bit silly to me. "Inside the Occult Bureau's Drone Transport Alexis sits alone handcuffed with Charm Bracelet's." That is the whole sentence. And really, "...handcuffed with Charm Bracelet's"?
For those of you who might be curious about the book, here is the Amazon Book Description...
"Skull Flowers is the story of Alexis, her robot 808, and her bumbling friend Officer Whistle Britches as they set off on an adventure to find out who and what was behind the assassination of her father Governor Champagne. Along the way they encounter many villains including Special Agent Scarzensky, Mistress LaReaux, and Dr. Necropolis and explore many strange places including the Death Factory owned by Controlled Substances Inc., the polluted bayou along Fiddlers Creek, and the Pyramid ov tha Priestess ov Mars. In her journey she is aided by her mentor Professor Proxy, her pirate friend Junebug, and his girlfriend Minx. Where the stars will shine eternal, where the sky it never ends, where all will ride eternal, where the moonlight shall attend, amongst the riots and make believe."
I'm a reader, not a writer. I don't even aspire to be a writer, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's been said that I like to eat. When I read, I read for pleasue and Skull Flower was not a pleasurable experience for me. The bottom line is that the work is very amaturish, like something a student might submit in a writing class. A first draft at best. And to make my overall experience even more bizarre, Skull Flowers, has more than 40 reviews on Amazon, 35 of them 5 stars and another 4 stars. This makes me wonder what I'm missing, but I have to be honest and say that I would not recommend this book for anyone.
February 22, 2019
Book was crap.
February 27, 2019
cool, good to know we're having another Handbook for Mortals moment in 2019.
March 6, 2019
I don't think it's possible to like a book less than I liked this one.
March 7, 2019
I wasn't able to finish and couldn't bring myself to skip through. It was too painful.
September 22, 2019
No stars, doesn't register on the scale :(
I actually read this book from beginning to end so you don't have to.
The cover art is stellar.
But the book is sad. Not because it's really, really cringey and amateurish, which would be fine for just starting out (I don't want to be too harsh for this reason), but a single real proof read from an honest reader would have surely eviscerated the entire thing. Either no feedback was asked or it wasn't listened to. That's the sad part. There might be something there worth writing.
So what are you missing if you don't read this book?
* Too many characters, all with extremely cringey names. A really, really poor attempt at quirky references. Like, really. You would not believe the number of names that can be crammed into a single page.
*An incomprehensible magic + sci-fi kind of world with a convoluted backstory (which is probably impossible to do adequately in 180 pages)
* A cringey cliche ending
* Battle scenes which sound like video game or film retellings
* Especially in the second half, major issues with basic grammar and punctuation
* Repetitive sentences
* All feelings are "told" to the reader
I actually read this book from beginning to end so you don't have to.
The cover art is stellar.
But the book is sad. Not because it's really, really cringey and amateurish, which would be fine for just starting out (I don't want to be too harsh for this reason), but a single real proof read from an honest reader would have surely eviscerated the entire thing. Either no feedback was asked or it wasn't listened to. That's the sad part. There might be something there worth writing.
So what are you missing if you don't read this book?
* Too many characters, all with extremely cringey names. A really, really poor attempt at quirky references. Like, really. You would not believe the number of names that can be crammed into a single page.
*An incomprehensible magic + sci-fi kind of world with a convoluted backstory (which is probably impossible to do adequately in 180 pages)
* A cringey cliche ending
* Battle scenes which sound like video game or film retellings
* Especially in the second half, major issues with basic grammar and punctuation
* Repetitive sentences
* All feelings are "told" to the reader
February 22, 2019
Don't waste your time.
February 23, 2019
Not my thing.
March 6, 2019
The literary equivalent of belching the alphabet.
March 6, 2019
People actually like this book? How? Why? Seriously?
March 7, 2019
Rubbish. No redeeming features.
June 22, 2019
Why was this recommended to me? It reads like a screenplay for the dumbest action movie ever. It feels like the author couldn't decide between playing with a G.I. Joe or a Barbie and so smashed them together while listening to electronic dance music, and then, what the hell, wrote a screenplay about the whole experience.
November 26, 2012
I am deleting my original review and rating and will be rereading this play within the next few days.
My original review discussed the odd usuage of unspaced words throughout the play which I found infuriating to read and as a result I could not connect with the play or the characters very well as I was spending too long trying to seperate words out in my head.
It was brought to my attention by Fletcher that the galley I had was faulty and it should not look like that at all. I have now got a different downloadable version and after checking it on my kindle it looks fine and well, readable.
My original copy of this play was kindly supplied by the publishers through Netgalley so hopefully my galley from them was a one-off glitch and no one else's has been affected. However, I would still recommend people to grab a copy of this play direct from Fletcher's GR profile page as there are plenty of links up on there.
What I will say about the actual play and not the format I initially reviewed was from what I could make out, this was a fun and interesting story so I'm looking forward to rereading it in its proper format.
New Review
I decided to leave off re-reading this for a few months so I could go back into it with fresh eyes.
I'm glad that the author told me that my original galley for this was faulty as I thoroughly enjoyed reading it the second time round.
This is a fun play/script and there are some excellent plays on words and phrases by Fletcher, such as character names, guns, technology etc etc. It is also action-packed which makes it very easy and quick to read.
There were a few spelling mistakes (such as 'too' instead of 'to') but nothing too bad.
For a debut, this is really good. Fletcher is funny but can also write some great emotional scenes as well. I look forward to reading more by him.
My original review discussed the odd usuage of unspaced words throughout the play which I found infuriating to read and as a result I could not connect with the play or the characters very well as I was spending too long trying to seperate words out in my head.
It was brought to my attention by Fletcher that the galley I had was faulty and it should not look like that at all. I have now got a different downloadable version and after checking it on my kindle it looks fine and well, readable.
My original copy of this play was kindly supplied by the publishers through Netgalley so hopefully my galley from them was a one-off glitch and no one else's has been affected. However, I would still recommend people to grab a copy of this play direct from Fletcher's GR profile page as there are plenty of links up on there.
What I will say about the actual play and not the format I initially reviewed was from what I could make out, this was a fun and interesting story so I'm looking forward to rereading it in its proper format.
New Review
I decided to leave off re-reading this for a few months so I could go back into it with fresh eyes.
I'm glad that the author told me that my original galley for this was faulty as I thoroughly enjoyed reading it the second time round.
This is a fun play/script and there are some excellent plays on words and phrases by Fletcher, such as character names, guns, technology etc etc. It is also action-packed which makes it very easy and quick to read.
There were a few spelling mistakes (such as 'too' instead of 'to') but nothing too bad.
For a debut, this is really good. Fletcher is funny but can also write some great emotional scenes as well. I look forward to reading more by him.
February 22, 2019
Garbage.
February 22, 2019
The worst thing ever created since meth.
March 6, 2019
The name of this book should be Dirty Ass because every page is toilet paper.
March 6, 2019
Some unpleasant reads are worth it. This one wasn't.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews