Sample-athon or "Reading Small"

(written Saturday night, March 3rd, but not posted 'til today)

Totally unfair. But here it is: I am bookless this weekend. Things are coming in -- from the library, from publishers -- but they are not here yet. And there is nothing on the shelves that I was motivated to pick up. Oh woe is me. Whatever shall I do?

I decided to browse Amazon's ebook shelves for dystopias. I'm really in the mood for a dystopia, and there are many. But which to buy? Well, how about reading some samples to decide!

SideNote:::I've learned to download samples, especially if the book is self-published. Not that there aren't good authors that self-publish. It's more a case that you can't trust their reviewers, too many of whom have only ever reviewed one book-- and that one given a raving 5-Stars.

After downloading nearly a dozen samples it occurred to me that this could be a fine game. I could read the samples, rush to some hasty conclusions, write those down, and then see how my 'initial impressions' pan out compared to how I enjoyed the books once read! (Okay, maybe only enjoyable by a book-geek. But I AM curious about whether I'm good at assessing covers and samples.)

So here are my impressions of 3 book samples that I read Saturday night :

The 11th Plague
by Jeff Hirsch
Scholastic Press
304 pages

This book gets off to a good start with a burial. The grandfather was overbearing and violent, and as much as his son and grandson appreciated the survival skills the old man had to teach, they aren't really sad to see him go into the hard parched earth.

There's a moment when father and son hesitate. There's a gold ring they could take. It would buy them food and bullets, but in the end they just get their donkey and cart and head out to look for things to scavenge. The sample ends with their finding something...

The writing in the sample is good. However, I am made wary of what might be on the horizon. First, because of the introduction of a character named Casey, "or General Casey as he liked to call himself". A man who is "the king of the Southern Gathering." Yikes, if this doesn't have a cliche feel, an impression that isn't made any better by the reference to the fact that this general prefers Battlestar Galactica toys to Star Wars themed ones :(

I'm still interested in the book, but concerned enough that I've relegated this one to Library-Find status. Check out a sample yourself at amazon.

The Scourge
by A.G. Henley
self pub'd-Amazon Digital Services

A zombie book! Or so it appears from the first chapters. There are two enclaves of humans and the principle danger to them are the diseased and rotting flesh eaters that like Army ants are kept on the move as they hunt out an area and are forced to move on.

Unlike several other apocalyptic books featuring this sort of theme, this author has chosen to not go with the global warmed and parched earth backdrop. And instead has chosen a dense forest setting, with 'Lofters' living in the threes and our heroine Fenn's people living on the ground and in caves.

One thing I particularly like about this story, thus far, is that our heroine, Fenn, is blind. And whats interesting is that it's this blindness that thrusts Fenn into the center of the story, as it's the blind person (apparently there is only one per generation) that is responsible for getting water from the only water source when the flesh eaters are about.

The other thing I like is the writing. It's competent and actually reminds me-- for reasons I have yet to put a finger on-- of Jean M. Auel's prose (that's Auel of Clan of the Cave Bear fame).

That said, there are a number of points that cause me concern. Now I don't need my YA to be totally believable. In fact, I frequently enjoy some pretty inconsistent/silly stuff, but out of the books I've reviewed here, this one is the one that requires the most 'suspension of disbelief'. And the following are some of the questions which immediately jump to mind that cause me put this book in the LibraryFind category.

--If the yucky zombie-peeps are so horrible to view that you need a blind person to go get water, what does the clan do if no one happens to be blind?
--If the blind guy/guyette needs the protection of a Lofty (who shoots threats dead from the trees) to get water, how come the Lofties don't send more than one guy. It would seem to be a good opportunity to kill a bunch of zomboids, why only one guy for protection? And how come he isn't so grossed out by the appearance of the 'scourged' that he can work?

Thinkin' LibraryFind here, but check out a sample yourself.

Taken
(The Taken Trilogy)
by Zia Marie
self pub'd-Amazon Digital Services

This one starts out with troubled family. Mom and Dad are divorced, and for good reason, neither are angels. In fact, now that Mom has remarried (to a nice enough guy) Dad is mostly missing, and Mom... well, she sort of likes it when the kids aren't around. Which is lucky for her as Jackson, our hero, and his little sister Aubry manage to vanish into a Twilight Zone-like area. You can come to town, but you can never leave.

The excerpt ends with lots of tension and no explanation for how and why people are stranded in this place. There's plenty of undertones of danger, and to be honest, this is my favorite of the samples and the one I'm likely to read first.


One line I particularly like is this one: "My mother is the kind of woman who learned to hide any negative emotions with red lipstick and a smile. She told me once that no one can see the tears in our eyes when they're staring at your mouth." (lol!)

One error. It makes me laugh. In the middle of what is actually an exciting segment, someone snatches Jackson's GPA from the dash of his car. (he-he)

I've added this one to the TBR. Nice and tense. If she doesn't blow it, this could be an excellent book. Check out the sample yourself.

So there they are. My three sample subjects and my first impressions. On the surface all appeared all the authors appeared to be competent wordsmiths, and certainly the plots look interesting.

If you want to play along, feel free to let me know what you think. Or link to your own post. More's the Merrier.

Pam T
Somewhere in the X-burbs