Book Review: The Bell Witch [Kindle Edition]

The Bell Witch [Kindle Edition]
John F.D. Taff (Author), James Roy Daley (Editor), Books of the Dead (Editor)
File Size: 4491 KB
Print Length: 266 pages
Publisher: Books of the Dead Press (August 5, 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00ED5QAZW

I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

This story is about the infamous Bell Witch, a legendary poltergeist which is said to have terrorized the Bell family of Adams, Tennessee back in the early 19th century.  The first third of the book is very good, and if I stopped after the first third I'd rate this at four stars.  But I didn't, and so discovered that the plot tended to stall out during the second third of the book, and by the final third I was wondering if this thing was ever going to end.

The characterization is average, or maybe a little below average.  This is a handicap that you can get away with if the pacing is solid and the scenes are exceptional - which isn't true here.  The scenes are okay.  Not great, not bad.  Just okay.  The pacing in the final chapters drags along with the tedium people experience while they wait for the dentist to come back in with the x-rays.  The ending is in sight, but no matter what happens the author refuses to take us to the end.

What I found disappointing was that the rest of the book didn't live up to the high quality of the first third, which I found very enjoyable. Too bad, because it didn't have to be this way.

Critical Thinking (Humor)

Woman: Do you drink beer?
Man: Yes.

Woman: How many beers a day?
Man: Usually about 3.

Woman: How much do you pay for each beer?
Man: $5.00, which includes a tip.

Woman: And how long have you been drinking?
Man: About 20 years, I suppose.

Woman: So if a beer costs $5 and you have 3 beers a day, that's $15 a day you spend on beer, or $450 per month. In one year, it would be approximately $5400. Correct?
Man: Correct.

Woman: If in 1 year you spend $5400, not accounting for inflation, the past 20 years puts your spending at $108,000, correct?
Man: Correct.

Woman: Do you know that if you didn't drink so much beer, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 20 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari?

Man: Do you drink beer?
Woman: No.
Man: Where's your Ferrari?

Currently Reading: Characters and Viewpoint

I attended a lecture at Origins Game Fair a few years ago, and the most valuable advice I received was a suggestion to buy Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card (ISBN 0-89879-927-9, 173 pages).  I read sections of it shortly after I bought it and found it helpful.  I found it in my bookshelf the other day, and I intend to sit down and read the whole thing before continuing with Otheldo.  After I finish I'll post a review.

Writing a Bad Review

If you're self-published, you are quite literally one of millions.  After you've completed the laborious process of getting your work listed on Amazon and fixing it so it doesn't look too awful bad on a kindle, you've got to somehow get yourself noticed by the multitudes who are going to read your work and want more.  One major part of that particular flaming hoop is to get people to give your work a review.

Most of us have friends and family who say that they'll do that right away.  Most don't, and there are some that you'd really rather not say anything at all.  I'm somewhat borderline.  I tend to be overly critical and when I give something a good review, it sounds a little like flattery no matter how sincere it is.  I write reviews anyway, and I probably shouldn't.

So my current problem is that I've been asked to review someone's work and tell them how good it is, and it sucks.  It's poorly written, formatting is non-existent, the plot is disjointed, the characterization has been skipped because it takes a lot of work and, well, if anyone's reading this they may understand what I'm talking about.  It sucks.  How do I say all that without taking a soldering iron to their fingertips, figuratively speaking?

I think the person in question is looking for a mutual admiration group.  I know these sorts of groups exist, but I've never tried to find one and I wouldn't be interested in joining if I did.  Maybe I should encourage the newly hatched author to seek out and join such a group, and eventually run for club president.

Back to Life

I'm going to try and bring the blog back to life.  My lack of postings is not due to writer's block; it's a combination of misplaced priorities and the unavoidable condition of personal obstructions getting in the way.  For instance:

The snow.  For all intents and purposes, we are snowed in.  Our driveway is about 1000 feet of unpaved road, and even now that it's been plowed getting anything in or out requires either four wheel drive and a very savvy driver or Divine intervention.

In the middle of this I came down with stomach flu.  I was so incredibly sick that I wanted someone to come and put me out of everyone's misery.  The condition of the driveway prevented any and all good Samaritans from showing up.

Right after I survived, Mom came down with the same flu and, at the same time, came down with a bad case of sciatica.  So Mom is in so much pain she can't walk, and because of the flu she can't take any pills.  And again, because the ground is frozen to the consistency of iron, I can't shoot her because then what would I do about digging her a grave?  You can argue that I could just wrap her up in a tarp and put her out in the barn until Spring, but we all know how that kind of thing goes.  And this is Mom we're talking about here, not some pesky neighbor who doesn't really matter anyway.

Well, Mom survived the flue and recovered from sciatica.  So that's good.

So I guess I'm back at it.  I'm writing another anthology of short stories featuring Otheldo, and the ideas are coming faster than I can adequately get them on paper.  There are worse things, I suppose.  Like being outside in the snow and ice.

The Interview

Not the interview for a new job, no.  However, a fellow blogger and author gave me an in-depth interview which is published and can be read here: Books Are Magical by Kathryn Loving, AKA Momma Fargo. The questions are well thought out and Kathryn is very generous with her kind words of praise.

You can find Kathryn Loving's work on Amazon. Her first book, entitled The Boogie Man Is My Friend are true stories from her life as a police officer in Casper, Wyoming.  Her second book, also on Amazon, is The Boogie Man Is My Friend: The Rookies and describes her experience training new officers.

Kathryn has a third book that's recently published. The Last Song of the Meadowlark is the story of a recently divorced, vulnerable woman who encounters a confidence man - a true sociopath with only one priority.

Kathryn Loving is an excellent writer and her work exemplifies why the Amazon Kindle self-publishing model is working so well.

What's in a Name?

Pretty much everything if you're the famous J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.  Rowling decided to publish The Cuckoo's Calling under a pseudonym just to see what would happen, which wasn't much.  Inevitably the news moguls used their brilliant powers of deduction and discovered that Robert Galbraith was actually J.K.  Well, aren't we all surprised. 

Naturally when this harmless deception was revealed to the general public sales of The Cuckoo went through the roof, proving that brand recognition matters.  A lot.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened.  Prior to eBooks, every so often an undiscovered author would take a classic work of literature, a best seller or even a recent Pulitzer prize winner and change the names around, then submit it for publication.  The work would get rejected, and not because it was plagiarism.

I'm afraid Mark Twain never would have made in today's market.