I tried to like this book, and the theme was one that could have led to a really gripping novel. There's a problem with it, and that's what has held me back from reviewing it.

The author has tried to write a gripping novel, and commend him for that, but I really couldn't even finish it. The errors I kept finding as a result of faulty proofreading notwithstanding, it seemed that the plot wasn't completely thought out, and the characters popped up and where immediately understood by the protagonist. It happened too fast. It assumed that the reader knew too much which hadn't been adequately explained. The protagonist was too quick to jump into the new life without any care or concern, other than his own arrogance.

Truly, it could have been good, but I found myself stopping and saying 'good grief' too often while reading the actions of the characters and the dialogue spoken. It could be a 'gripping yarn', but it needs a lot more work. ( )

This was a strange book. A young man is introduced in prison to Darius, a dark angel, and on release begins training with him for the ultimate battle for heaven with another group of angels. The other group, although supposedly closer to God, and with white wings as opposed to black, actually seemed to be the more evil ones. The premise behind this was vague and difficult to understand. The book was hard to read because of the extremely poor grammar, sentence structure and spelling. In addition, it was full of colloquial slang, much of which seemed to have an ethnic lean. The dialogue from the characters was poor and sometimes didn't even fit their personalities. I try not to rate books on the grammar, spelling, etc, and rather on the basis of the content. If I had to rate that, I would give it a 0 if I could. This was not a galley proof but a signed, final edition and it was pathetic. The publishers and editors should be fired. I cannot recommend this book. ( )

Two factions of angels war over the earth, the fate of humanity to be determined by those who win. I found it hard to determine who the good guys really were. The dark angels you meet promote learning and phsyical prowess yet they appear to be the ones who wish humanity to be wiped out. You are introduced to the light angels through a character that causes several people to die in unplesant ways in order to kill off an idea, yet these are the ones who seem to want to preserve humanity.

The story contained in this book is very imaginative and could be great if the author was to refine it further. There are numerous spelling mistakes, not counting the street slang used, and continuity errors that could use additional editing. ( )

There are 41 proof reading errors, from page 17 through to page 299. Considering there are only 300 pages, it is excessive. I found it very distracting. I don’t plan to go into a lot of detail in this review. The storyline is intriguing with black & white twin angels battling each other on earth and using humans to destroy each other. Depending on the Angel, he represents either Heaven or Hell. God is put forward as to be in a meditative state which is why the Angels are able to do what they want. It is written by a Black man with Black characters using ghetto slang which as a White man, I found hard to understand. An interesting read but I will not be reading any of his other books. ( )

The author signed my review copy, so I feel bad for what I'm about to say.

As most other reviewers have noted, a simple once-over for grammar would have improved the book tenfold. It's at its worst in the very first chapter, which is like hanging up a "Do Not Read" sign, but punctuation errors, poor execution of quotations, random capitalization etc... run through the entire text. These things are an irritant, but aren't so extreme that I can't understand what is being written.

The real problem here is in the style. Aside from a few rather well thought out bits of description, The Dark Ones is one big "Show, don't tell," violation. A big warning sign for this sort of thing is the preponderance of terms like, "Knew, Understood, Realized, Explained," and "Felt." One of these words pops up on almost every page. They fade out when the action picks up, but the telling still continues.

The result is that even if the book were grammatically perfect, it would be exceptionally boring. This isn't because the plot is boring, just that the way it is presented is completely monotone. The telling style actively diffuses any sort of tension and makes what could be an exciting story read like a textbook. ( )