Official Review: Earth A B by Geoffrey Lloyd Vough

[NanoWasabi]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Earth A B" by Geoffrey Lloyd Vough.]

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Earth A/B is a Speculative Fiction novel that was written by Geoffrey Lloyd Vough in 2012, as the third volume in the series Multnomah. The series is about the desperate struggles of humanity to escape the influences of the “Others” who have claimed earth as their own. Earth A/B requires no knowledge of the other books in the series however, and does a good job standing on its own. The book brings up issues like claiming godhood and perfection; and how no one can live and not be evil at some point, and it still manages to remain true to its story. It was published on Smashwords.com; however, though I looked extensively, I couldn't find a way to buy the book, or any others in the series save Eleventy-One, the second book.

The book exhibits two different story lines. The first begins with a boy named J, awaiting the wizard who is expected to come soon and gift J with a real name. Eventually, J will become the wizard's apprentice and learn of the troubling things that are happening to mankind. The second starts on a young girl called Priscilla who, despite a career threatening injury, has been invited to play the all-important Game at the world renowned Academy.

The way the stories are slowly twisted together, revealing the connections between them one at a time is a masterful work in my opinion. At the beginning of the book, I had no idea how the stories would end up making sense with one another, and at just the right times the gaps were bridged and more was understood. However, though I thoroughly enjoyed the story, there were a few literary choices that I didn't agree with. For example, the wizard occasionally refers to himself as "perfect", which may be true, since we never see him make a mistake, but through the book he is fighting false gods who believe themselves to be perfect as well. It's hard to side with someone who has the same mind-set as your enemy.

The biggest problem with the book however, is with the words. Not only is there a typo to be found in almost every chapter, but there are also poorly phrased sentences, and completely out of place modern culture references that made me jump back into reality for a second, like inserting “gg” (which stands for “good game”) only once and at a bad time. These instances make it really hard to simply read through the book and enjoy a good story. Other minor irritations I had were; the lack of page numbers in the table of contents; excessive use of parentheses; and constantly referring to Priscilla as "The dark-eyed girl minder."

Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed the book. How the author told the story was incredible, and the way he expands upon his characters is beautiful. I give this book 3 out of 4 stars. While the book was very good, the typos and sentence structures bring it down from four stars, and a few plot developments might drop my score another half star. My advice to Mr Vough is to keep up the good work, but make sure to look out for grammar and punctuation problems. Many of the things that I saw can be easily fixed.

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[direcaant]

Hello!

I wanted to drop you a note of huge thanks for your review of Earth A/B. I've been shuffling the idea of re-working it in my mind for awhile now &, considering your feedback, have decided to fully engage & get it better fit to be published/read.

It was such a relief to hear you enjoyed the story & (please correct me if I'm wrong) that most of the criticism is structural/grammar-related, little plot "problems".

I'm looking into hiring an editor but it is so damn expensive... & $ is one thing I do not have in abundance right now so I may just have to go it again myself. I'm no editor, obviously, but so far it's all been on mine own & that maybe won't change. That said, I know another go through with an editor mindset would only take me a couple of weeks & would likely greatly reduce some of the frustrations / "issues" you touched on.
Also, I had a question since I'm very unsure how to check on this website (I first posted this well over two+ years ago & have visited this site very little since) -- was what I posted the entire book (as in, did you get to read unto the end?-- there was a time when I split the book into two parts, but from what you have reviewed I think I posted the entirety here... I can't recall & can't seem to find the way to check what file is uploaded here).

Anyway, I thank you immensely for reading my story, & I am very stoked you enjoyed the plot. I'd love to hear any other criticism or feedback you might have &, too, I apologize in advance if it's uncouth for I to have messaged you privately.

Thank You again so, so much! You've given me a glimmer of hope in this 3+ year odyssey.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey L Vough

[sahmoun2778]

A thoughtful, well written review.