100 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Contrary Opinion, July 4, 2006
This review is from: The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Resistance (Paperback)
For me, the only good thing about this novel was the consistent, "wake up and see what your government is doing" message. As a cautionary tale, it served its purpose, but as a novel, it left me stone cold.
My first problem with this nearly 700-page story was its hero, a man who:
........was physically perfect (massive shoulders and tree trunks for limbs)
........had a touch of metaphysical/magical ability (he had "The Sight")
........was brilliant
........had vast wealth
........turned down a career as an NFL quarterback to become a mega-rockstar
........was expert in all forms of weaponry, both modern and antique
........could get it up four times an hour and keep that up all night
In short, I'm convinced the hero was nothing less than a Marty Stu (for those unfamiliar with the term, a Marty Stu/Mary Sue is a fictional character who is portrayed in an idealized way and who is lacking any noteworthy flaws -- a character made in the image of how the author sees himself in his fantasies)
Some of my other issues with the story involved:
........A cast of supporting characters so one-dimensional and boring that I never cared a whit about any of them
........Pages and pages of weapons description
........An absurd and pointless paean to Eric Carmen as the most underrated "rocker" ever
........Many equally pointless insertions of bad song lyrics
........An obsession with babies -- This obsession was so great that not only did our hero refuse to have sex with women who didn't want children, but all the "good" female characters wanted children immediately, the more the better, and brought up the subject with great frequency (here again, I became convinced that I was seeing little more than a projection of the author's wishful thinking, bordering on desperation)
To top it all off, I was supposed to believe that assassinating a few low-level government flunkies was somehow going to wake people up, change their minds, and set them on the path to righteousness.
It was depressing, because even though the message of the novel was serious and the author had some valid points to make, they became tainted by the unbelievability of the characters and the story. Maybe it shouldn't be that way. Maybe the ideas stand on their own as incorruptible. But if I have trouble taking the messenger seriously, how much credence am I going to give to the message itself?
All in all, this book had so much less impact on me than it could have. I purchased it because I'm concerned about government abuse and because I believe in reason, individual responsibility, and self-determination. But I also like my books to be well written, with fully realized characters, interesting dialogue, and a story that goes beyond the feel of a clichéd action movie. I didn't find any of that here.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally a libertarian hero, May 4, 2005
This review is from: The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Resistance (Paperback)
Robin Hood has been coopted to be a hero of wealth redistribution, even though he robbed from the tax collectors and gave to the tax payers. William Tell is largely unremembered except as an excellent archer. Batman and The Green Hornet are in many ways servants to the state, only going after the private criminals. The only hero one can compare The Black Arrow to is Zorro.
The first thing an observant reader will notice is that all examples of government abuse in this book are taken from real life, such as the case of Don Scott of Malibu. They are only slightly enlarged, to make things bad enough to inspire resistance and revolt.
Fast paced and easy to read, it seems shorter than it's 700 pages, but it is not light or lacking in detail for the enjoyment of the reader.
The hero is a paragon, more than human. He is a young, handsome, wealthy, ex-Rock star at the peak of physical fitness.
There is a fault with this book, but it is a fault common to most libertarian literature, in that the common criminal is missing. Some might object that the government is too strict to enable them to operate, but that is not an objection a libertarian can sustain. Others might object that they are all in government employ where it is safer for them to violate the rights of others. As sustainable as that argument is, there are always independent operators for the Zorros of the world to fight as there is never a shortage of people who want to violate the rights of others.
Be that as it may, this is a great read.
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35 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Concept, Mediocre Execution, December 26, 2005
This review is from: The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Resistance (Paperback)
I really wanted to love this book, especially considering the theme and the fact that I haven't read fiction in years; unfortunately, I can only rate it average. In the hands of, say, Harlan Ellison, it could have been outstanding, but, as written, this novel is too long and quite self-indulgent. For example, I do like the music of The Raspberries, but I wouldn't dream of inserting their lyrics into my novel (several times!) simply because of that fact. There are also frequent references to current popular (and past) culture that I seriously doubt anyone will remember thirty years from now, and "witty" dialog that consists of lines from 60's era pop songs. The entire opus seems to be a case of "it's my party, and I'll do what I want to." (My apologizes to Lesley Gore, but this is the type of thing the author adores.)
IMHO, there's too much rumination, and an overabundance of background material on things like samurai swords in the 700-page book -- while not enough actual *events* take place. Plenty of unnecessarily- detailed gore, though. It's as if the author is writing for the teenage graphic novel crowd, at perhaps a high-school reading level. Despite what other reviewers have written, I did find that the novel bogged down about two-thirds of the way through.
Ultimately, and sadly, I found it a fairly superficial experience.
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