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Will Macmillan Jones

Autor(a) de The Showing

11+ Works 58 Membros 13 Reviews 1 Favorited

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Obras de Will Macmillan Jones

Associated Works

Terra Nullius (2018) — Contribuinte — 3 cópias

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Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
male

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Resenhas

I am going to caveat this review with this: I love books that have multi POVs, break the 4th wall, and have erratic timelines. These are books that I seek out. The issue comes when these type of books are poorly executed it is painfully obvious. There is no saving the plot because it depends too much on these specific qualities to be done perfectly.

By all accounts, this book should have been amazing. The basis of the story was fascinating, the plot was strong, but if I hadn't known better I would have thought this was a debut novel by an indie author that needs a strong developmental edit.

The 6 POVs should have been written stronger, really sucked you into to all of their worries, and had you rooting for characters by the end, but the abrupt short scene cuts were jarring, like flipping channels on a tv just catching snippets of conversation. Many of the characters didn't get enough time for you to even remember their name much less qualities about themselves to make you want to root for them. The forth wall breaks were strange and didn't really add to the plot over all, I would have rathered more time with the characters. Learning more about their magic, more about their mothers, just more to make us want them to survive and better understand the dynamics of the world.

I feel like the author was trying to write literature. I personally am a strong believer in the fact that a person can't sit down and try to write literature, it is only through reader acknowledgement that a fiction book can become literature. When someone tries to specifically write literature it turns out much like this book. Confusing, boring, and lacking in all the wrong places. There are good bones here, just not an enjoyable, engulfing story that leaves you book drunk contemplating life meaning etc.

The entire book was building to what seemed would be a very climaxing life shattering ending, but it ended up being very lackluster. One chapter later and business as usual, no major shake ups or lasting outcomes from what they discover on their birthday.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. I received this book via NetGalley.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
buukluvr | outras 4 resenhas | Feb 14, 2023 |
The Banned Underground is a band. A rock band. Not terribly famous. Not original. Well, their music isn’t. Mainly they do covers of old rock tunes and play gigs at pubs and such. But few bands, even in this fantasy version of present day England, consist of four dwarfs, a green bog troll, and a bass playing dragon.

In this edition of their continuing quest for good-paying gigs, their scaly, fire-breathing bass player has gone missing, and a slinky, mysterious, scooter-riding woman in black leather fills in. She’s pretty hot, and her bass playing isn’t bad either, but she has ulterior motives.

Mayhem ensues involving a Dark Lord accountant, a record executive, some Kali-worshipping thugs, and associated minions. Oh, and a roadie who says nothing but ‘Der,’ although his meaning is clear to those who know him well. He reminds me a bit of the librarian in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, who only says ‘Ook.’ And, of course, there are some superficial parallels to Pratchett’s book Soul Music in that it is a fantasy story staring a rock band.

I grinned all the way through this short novel. It has a good deal of clever word play, some terrible puns (which ones aren’t?), slapstick humor, and generally likeable comic characters. There is also some fiery dragon romance. I also liked the bits of author (and even publisher) intrusion into the story narrative. Most guidance on fiction writing warns not to do this, but it can work in humor, and here it does.

This isn’t great literature. It’s not cultural satire. There is no single main character, and the plot is not exactly spellbinding (although there are some magical spells), but as a comic farce, this is quite entertaining. I recommend it as a quick, light read for all fans of comic fantasy.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
DLMorrese | outras 5 resenhas | Oct 14, 2016 |
This is the fifth short novel in the continuing contemporary fantasy series featuring the rock band The Banned Underground. The band members include four dwarfs, a green bog troll, and a bass playing dragon. In this episode, we find them as almost a backdrop to the main plot in which the British government is working with the Edern (think elves or fairies) to develop a future-telling system that will help the government pull the British economy out of trouble. The Dark Lord wants to hack into this system for his own (evil) purposes, and he sends a team to the ostensibly secure Edern laboratories during a fund-raising event at which the Banned are playing. The Dark Lord’s minions are there to install a computer virus. Meanwhile, the dwarves are after those same minions for an unpaid bar tab. (Confused yet?)

Mayhem ensues.

The SatNav of Doom is a comic slapstick farce along the lines of Robert Asprin or Piers Anthony, full of puns, word-play, and references to old rock tunes. Now, I can’t say this kind of humor normally has great appeal for me. I’m more of a science fiction than a fantasy reader, and when I do read humorous fantasy, I prefer something with a bit more satirical or philosophical content (e.g. Terry Pratchett), but in the subgenre this book represents, it’s pretty good. The characters are all clowns, but they can be funny in a burned trousers kind of way (Yes - there is such a scene). The copy editing is adequate, and whereas the prose is sparse and could not be considered literary in any sense, it is serviceable for the type of book this is. I also enjoyed the Doctor Who twist at the end.

I will caution that some may not ‘get’ some of the references (old rock songs and Doctor Who, for example). Also, this is not the book to start with in the series because the character development occurs mainly in the previous offerings.

Disclosure: I received a pre-publication promotional copy of the eBook edition from the author.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
DLMorrese | Oct 14, 2016 |
This comic farce follows a rock band of (mostly) dwarves on a quest to obtain a replacement for a magical throne they inadvertently destroyed during a gig. Their efforts are complicated by a group of evil, magic using accountants that wants to stop them in order to weaken and then invade the underground dwarfish kingdom, and a strange religious cult that wants to take over the world, or at least Wales, and skim some profits from the endeavor. There are also a couple of dragons, a few humans, and a testy witch who resolves disputes by turning her opposition into frogs.
The book is set in contemporary Britain. As an American reader who last visited England at about the time of the first Moon landing, some of the references escaped me, although I don’t necessarily consider this a detractor. I’ve never visited Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, at least not physically, but I still enjoy reading about it. I just thought I should mention this for my countrymen because this book does assume the reader is familiar with British geography and jargon.
The Mystic Accountants is a zany romp that sometimes reminded me of The Three Stooges because of its slapstick humor or It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in that it has a large cast of quirky characters and unlikely car chases. The central plot, that of finding and procuring a new throne, takes a backseat to the antics of the characters, which are sometimes quite funny. They are more like clowns than they are believable individuals, though. There is some very clever wordplay, but the dialog felt contrived for the sake of a joke at times.
Witty banter is probably the strongest aspect of this book, although it may be being called upon to do too much. I saw several places in which dialog between characters was the primary method for conveying the action and describing the setting, which made these scenes difficult to visualize, at least for me. There were also cases in which the scene shifted without an obvious scene break using a blank line or some other convention.
The book contains footnotes, an obvious nod to Terry Pratchett, but, at least in the Kindle version I read, these were placed at the end of the book rather than the bottom of the applicable page, making them less accessible to enhance the scenes they referred to.
Whereas I would not group this book in the same category as Pratchett’s witty satire, it has its moments. Fans of zany slapstick, especially those with a fondness for popular music from the 1960s and 1970s, might want to try it.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
DLMorrese | Oct 14, 2016 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
11
Also by
1
Membros
58
Popularidade
#284,346
Avaliação
½ 3.4
Resenhas
13
ISBNs
9
Favorito
1

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