Customer Reviews

Man with a Secret

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I don't know where I saw something favorable about this book and decided to buy a copy....maybe it was just the topic - the life of a secret immortal - which intrigued me. What a disappointment! First, this little (126 pages) book costs $11.95 (paperback). Second, the rather obscure publishing-house (Infinity) obviously took very little effort to check and edit the manuscript - the use of quote marks, for example, is often haphazard and erroneous, to the point that the reader can get confused about who is talking, what is or isn't direct speech, etc. Third, in the middle of the book, on one page the narrative suddenly changed from third person to first person without warning, and then swung back to third person a few pages later. Weird! Fourth, the book has a number of poor-quality illustrations, mostly photographs, which have little direct connection with the story -- just padding the pages?
The only redeeming feature is the "cowboy sci-fi" flavor found in the speech of most of the characters - the reader can find many folksy, old-fashioned expressions rarely seen in modern fiction: the author seems quite familiar with this sort of speech and the world that goes with it, but unfortunately not so familiar with how to write a good novel.