A Review of The Canterbury Tales, Volume I

Here's a review of a book I'm dying to read. The review is by M Joseph Murphy, co-founder of Suckers Guild and author of the paranormal novel Council of Peacocks:

Have you ever read a book that was so well-written you kind of hate the author? That's pretty much my feeling for Canterbury Tales. It's brilliant.

Amazon Synopsis
Every ten years each spacer pilot must make the pilgrimage to Vale, where the mighty and all powerful Federal Galactic Spaceflight Licensing Authority resides. From all corners of the nine galaxies they come, on ships such as the GSS Canterbury.

To pass the time over their three nights journeying through the void each traveller tells their story. Volume One features the tale of the Smuggler, the Merchant, the Assassin and the Knight. Join them to hear their tales of rivalry, revenge, piracy, insurrection, daring escapes and adventure in this all new re-imagining of the original Canterbury Tales.

This is what Geoffrey Chaucer might have written if he'd owned a ZX Spectrum when he was 12 and wasted his formative years playing video games through the 1980's.


If you're not familiar with the original, here's an overview:

What I liked

The first thing I noticed was the very literary and witty writing style. I was hooked by the first few paragraphs. I also like that each story has an element of social commentary just below the surface. That's what science fiction is supposed to do: use fantastical situations to make us look at ourselves.

Each character is unique and interesting. You also get the sense of a much more complex world in the background without the author wasting page after page in useless worldbuilding exposition. There are moments of horror, adventure, romance and intrigue. It hit all the right buttons.

What I didn't like

I have to wait til next year to read the second part. Seriously. That's my only negative reaction.

Links:

Luke Bellmason's Website
Luke Bellmason on Goodreads
Luke Bellmason on Twitter
Buy the Book: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk

Guest Post: Self Publishing Authors Are ‘Suspect’ and ‘Cheats’

Please help me welcome today's guest blogger, indie novelist Derek Haines:

Is paying for advertising, promotion or even reviews cheating? I read this press release and wondered what point it was trying to make. Yes, it of course refers to John Locke buying reviews, which I must admit is becoming very old news now, but it goes on with carefully chosen vocabulary referring to self-published authors being labeled as unethical, suspect, spamming, inferior and cheats if they pay for promotion.

Then Sean Platt, the author of the press release, admits to having bought thousands of Twitter followers. Talk about hypocritical in the extreme.

So it’s OK to buy Twitter followers, but it’s not OK to buy promotion, advertising or book reviews?

But it did start me thinking about this whole issue of paid promotion, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is not a carefully managed attack on self publishing as a whole. It’s no secret that self-published titles are doing very well, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this success has ruffled a few ‘established ‘ feathers.

In my mind the whole issue is boiling down to one basic point. That is, that it’s OK to spend a bucket-load of money on book promotion if you are a major publisher to ‘buy’ an audience, but if you’re an ‘Indie’, you’re expected to do everything on the cheap and free and wait around for your family and friends to buy your book. Then if you admit to spending money on book promotion, you get labeled as a cheat.

What’s wrong with the idea that self publishing is a business like any other and as such there are marketing expenses and without this investment, books struggle to sell? I think it’s up to every individual self-published author to decide how they operate their business, and from my own particular viewpoint, no one is going to tell me how I should run my own business.

And if you’re wondering. No, I have never bought Twitter followers. Yes, I have paid for advertising. Yes, I have paid for book promotion. There are always expenses in any business. Even self publishing.

Derek Haines lives in Switzerland, and is the author of Eyes That Could Kill and several other books.