Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Story, August 27, 2006
This is simply a great story. It has you hooked at the beginning and keeps you wanting more. The characters are beleivable and you like some and dislike others.
I would never doubt buying any books or stories by this author. Very entertaining.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reads in spurts and starts, though it shows certain promise..., July 3, 2006
Author Peggy L. Johnson makes a valiant effort with her 24pp. MEDICINE SKULL to capture a spirit of "mystical magic" care of a shamanistic old buffalo skull. Possessing untold magic powers, the skull seems to aid and bless those who have pure life intentions, but addles those whose designs are dastardly and nefarious.
Woo...scaaaaaaaaaaary.
Told in a series of what I can only term vignettes, Johnson's Short seemed to hop around like Breer Rabbit from scene to scene to scene without the much-needed narrative cohesion between events.
In my estimation, there were several things which could have happened here to make this story much better than it played out:
a) it could have gone on longer: Johnson seems (to me) to be kind of scribe who likes to let her "narrative stallions" roam mighty and free. Regrettably, within this microscopic length of 24pp., narrative writers who feast on their prosaic line-spinning wizardry don't have much time to build-up their needed heads of steam. It negatively affected this piece, sadly. I'm sorry to tell you, Peggy.
b) eliminate the "George" angle, and other auxilliary characters who don't add to your story's central thrust: it's quite obvious that our protagonist is the "buff skull," and that it has -- woo, scaaaaaaaaaary! -- magical powers. Then why doesn't Johnson focus on that, instead of somewhat muddling the issue with other non-central characters? I wasn't grasping this angle.
I've given this story three (3) stars not because the content isn't promising -- let me say right off the bat (and to clear the blue mist, hehe), that she's got legs 'thar! But Indian/Native skulls and art with an indigenous theme MUST be treated more delicately; not as handy artistic add-ons in stories about magic, the occult, or old wives' tales to be recited around the mesquite fire over a plate of ribs and chipotle. Sheesh...
And there were other things:
** more dialogue would have been nice, Pegster -- and not dialogues which are so "on the nose."
** I couldn't tell how Tim got to be the "gold digging" son-of-a-gun that he is, which is why -- I felt -- it sort of came out of the wild blue yonder.
** how Tim ended up where he ended up (I won't spoil it for you, My Dear Readers) was also a problematic, and wonkily structured passage. I felt like Waltzing Matilda as opposed to being on terra firma.
All this to say that this was the sort of work which rather needed to unfurl itself over the course of many pages. Several hundred, in fact. Like a red carpet, Pegs.
Look, I'll break it to ya honest-like. Johnson is a more than capable writer. Still, I felt on way too many occasions inside of only twenty-four MEDICINE SKULL pages that I was being yanked in directions I just wasn't ready to go...yet.
As your reader, Pegs, I couldn't get into a rhythm, and that affected my overall read, and thus my overall entertainment of the piece.
If this ever goes to longer form, I'll be more than happy to review it again, but for now, it could use a rejiggering.
-- ADM
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Missing Twilight Zone episode that should have been., April 8, 2006
I absolutely loved this story. Even with it only being a short story, it captured all three acts with a style that left me wanting more. Though the magic of the medicine skull was apparent from the beginning, I found myself leaning forward in my office chair as the story stalked towards its ending, never expecting the direction that the author went with it until it was too late. Rod Sterling and Alfred Hitchcock would be proud. I would very much love to read a full length version of the Medicine Skull.
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