Are These Eyeballs?
by Garry Charles
Price: Free
Availability: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26630
Length: 7045 words
Formating Quality: Poor
Spelling and Grammar: Spelling was hurt as the author is British, and as Bernard Shaw commented the English can't speak (or write) English. A few grammatical errors brought the reader out of the story.
Review:
It was the best of eBooks, it was the worst of eBooks. ARE THESE EYEBALLS? Is a great example of what both fans of eBooks and critics of eBooks like to point to when talking about eBooks.
What fans can point to.
The two short stories in this book, ARE THESE EYEBALLS? And THE CUBICLE, have a raw passion and excellent imagery that often get washed out in the editorial process. In both short stories you can really feel the passion that the author has for the scenes he is writing and that makes up for the shortcomings.
What critics can point to.
First off the formating is all over the place. Some paragraphs are single line some are double, some paragraphs start with a tab others separated by a line, some have both. If the writing wasn't as good as it was I wouldn't have been able to get through it because of the formating.
Second, it is written in British English. So center becomes centre and so forth. If these stories were in a magazine or anthology the publisher would hire someone to translate it from British to English. This isn't a huge problem, getting a few pages in the story overpowers this and it is hardly noticeable. Still until the British learn to speak and write in English this is going to be a problem of eBooks going global.
Grammatical errors, I'm not that picky about grammar unless it pulls me out of the story. There were a couple places, two I think, where the author switched from present to past tense in the same sentence. This always brings my reading to an abrupt halt. It's also something any good copy editor spots.
Overall:
I'm glad I read this eBook, the voice and passion for telling the story outweigh the formating and language problems. Garry Charles obviously has talent for writing great gruesome imagery. If he had taken the extra time to do a really good job at formating this book it would be a must read.
A final note:
I looked at the sample of one of his books he has for sale, as opposed to free, HAMMERHEAD and it didn't have the formating problems that this free one had.
By Darrell B. Nelson author of Alien Thoughts
