Customer Reviews

North Pole Lost and Other Holiday Stories

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wonderful collection a strange holiday-themed tales that take place in a world somewhere between the realities of Tim Burton and Douglas Adams, with stories for Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and or course Christmas, six stories in all. This is a great book to have sitting on your bookshelf where you grab it ever few months when the season is right for the next adventure. My personal favorites from this book are A Halloween Sail which is very reminiscent of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the book's namesake, North Pole Lost, which is a most bizarre journey into the inter workings of the Santa's government gone horribly wrong during the era of World War II. Fun stuff, great read, highly recommend.

I downloaded the sample of this Kindle Edition before purchasing the whole thing, and I read over an okay -- if not great -- story about a sailor who has been abducted by aliens out for a prank. I got the rest of the book, only to find that the quality dropped precipitously after that first story. After that initial tale, we get weak writing, clunky exposition, strained dialogue and infantile situations over and over again. The Christmas novella "North Pole Lost," is a painful attempt at a World War II allegory. The Easter story... to call it weak is an understatement. It's a silly, poor effort at a courtroom "drama." The formatting is totally off as well, with lines that all run together, whole segments with a carriage return after every line, and chapter headings that leave big gaps after the first letter. If that wasn't bad enough, the book is full of grammatical and punctuation errors. The only thing this book has going for it are a couple of good ideas -- the aforementioned sailor story and a decent twist on the Thanksgiving tale (although again, the execution kills it). If ever there was a book in need of an editor, this is it. Pass.

This book was given to me by a friend. It was an easy and interesting read. It was a like a modern Twilight Zone.

I've got to be honest...this book sucked...me in...and was not put down until the last page was turned. Why? Every story had a twist that was completely unexpected. The author must have a highly disturbed mode of thinking. Move over Stephen King!