New authors and publishers, and old. Chin up. "Don't let the bastards get you down." I recently reread the following review of my first to publish novel, "Hobble." I always remembered that it originally appeared alongside what that particular book review website thought was THE BEST pick. I still find it interesting and odd, to say the least.
I also find this to be one of two of my least favorite reviews: always because the reviews sounded as if the person really didn't read my work, and/or didn't have the decency to say I don't get it or I don't like this sort of thing so my review is highly skewed, or I passed it on to someone who reads this genre.
Do note that the review on my work is anonymously signed, "staff." Isn't that special and obscenely discourteous. I come naked to the party and someone hides behind "staff." I bet his staff is quite soft and inadequate or her inner staff is utterly dry and shallow. Or maybe staff has both genitalia or none. Because "staff" can say anything when too coarse and disrespectful to just place its initials on its supposed witticism.
And the bloody thing just won't die, as it always comes up on the search engines, first page often. Oh, well. My consolation is that those REAL people who read Neale Sourna's "Hobble" and who have the ability to actually read, always "get it" and can't put it down, or can't retrieve it from their lovers. That's better than one anonymous poopfest from the too inadequate to author and publish themselves.
--Neale Sourna
Other "Hobble" Reviews can be read at:
http://hobble.neale-sourna.com/
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-6637399-1494866?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=neale+sourna&x=0&y=0
PS: One last amusing bit is the use of the other book of the name de Sade as in Marquis de Sade, with whom I shall always have something of a link, as we're both born on the same day. Hm. Radical, as they used to say back in the day.
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B O O K R E V I E W
Spring 2003
Hobble by Neale Sourna
Hobble
Neale Sourna
Infinity Publishing, Pennsylvania
291 pp. $18.95
It’s books like Neale Sourna’s Hobble: An Adult Fiction that make us seriously consider giving up the reviewing of self-published books. Though well-meaning, Sourna makes just about every mistake possible with this weakly written, amateurish yarn about sex and control. The back-cover blurb lays out the story like this (normally we'd break it down ourselves, but in cases like this, it would be a waste of time):
"BENNET GILLESPIE, a brilliant but burned out, Native American surgeon, too quickly becomes entangled in an obsessively sexual, emotional tug of war for irresistible, homicidally "insane," and ... mysteriously lamed DAY, whose body and love promises loss of soul ... and life."
Sic. Simply count the ly's in the setup and you'll begin to see the problem. Now contrary to industry standards, we at ALR are champions of muscular modifier use in fiction, but authors need to use some common sense for crying out loud. Sourna shows very little. This inattention to prose fundamentals doesn't stop at verb and noun modifiers—oh no. The author commits almost every classic beginner's error: failing to identify the speaker in dialogue for pages at a time; over-over-OVERwriting; cliché; reckless, silly, and downright incorrect usage; horrendously melodramatic dialogue and narrative; general lack of descriptive elements; a droning repetitive voice prone to redundancy and self-indulgence.
The story and characters aren't bad on a basic level. A decent professional writer could have done something with the character and relationships, but Sourna uses them so ineffectively and broadly that the reader gets bored after a page or two—every page or two. The numerous sex sections, which at least show a hint of natural spark, aren't enough to pull this self-published novel out of its self-involved spiral.
Despite all the negatives of Hobble, Sourna isn't necessarily a lost cause. As we said, her basic ideas are fairly strong. A year or five in a solid critically-based fiction writing program (which is quite different from film and video writing—Sourna's alleged areas of expertise) or a no-holds-barred, rip-the-story-apart workshop environment might just make her understand how naive she was to think this book worth publishing, especially at $18.95 softcover! Our diatribe against Publish America's policies in our review of Nathan Leslie's Rants and Raves applies to Infinity Publishing's practices as well. These online publishing “stores” are preying on the meek, the young, and the yet-to-be-talented—which would be fine if these people would just stop sending their half-told tales out for review.
Unfortunately Sourna is not alone in her folly, and it is our sincere hope that this review communicates the world-wise message to all prospective self-publishers out there: Think twice before going that route. This applies especially to those under the age of thirty (or forty) with little or no experience in writing for publication. It doesn't matter how much of a genius you are—odds are the mistakes this author made in Hobble are the ones you'll make in your book, so you had better be damned sure you know the Ten-Thousand Things about writing before you throw underdone hamburger to the big dogs. True, they may eat it, but we guarantee it's not going to look pretty when it gets vomited back at you a few hours later.
-Staff-
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B O O K R E V I E W
Spring 2002
Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish by Supervert
Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish
Supervert
New York: Supervert 32C Inc
216 pp. , $15
In ETSF, a rogue author named Supervert has offered us a bizarre literary assay into parts and orifices unknown by attempting to combine philosophy, psychology, science fiction, and serial pornography (a la Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom) into a single, sound literary work.
Sound like a difficult proposition? Like a pipe-bomb text more likely to explode in the hand of its creator than in the mind of the reader? Assuredly. Should the self-inflated tenor of the author’s nom de plume give further pause to any prospective audience? Probably. Does Supervert deserve a round of applause for this blending of discipline, subject, and raw psychic fiction?
Strangely enough, he does—as well as meriting a standing O and a curtain call or two. Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish is nothing short of brilliant. Misanthropic, satirical, informative and undoubtedly shocking to many for its ongoing examination of pedophilia and exophilia (alien sex fetish), ETSF resounds as a deft dissection of the disaffected mind in the post-postmodern period. While the protagonist, a computer programmer/philosopher/practicing pedophile named Mercury de Sade thinks he has evolved into a philosophical creature quite beyond the simple apathetic sentiments of existentialism and nihilism, the author’s controlled exposition and development of de Sade’s sickness—a fetish for something beyond the boring, disgusting human sphere— shows that despite its space age manifestation, this sickness springs from the same basic earth: a deep-seated loathing for mankind. However, the inverted posture of de Sade’s misanthropy does make for unique viewing. We seldom see distaste for one’s fellows based on their frustrating inability to be or become extraterrestrial.
The format of ETSF follows a parallel development of four precisely related lines of fantasy, plot, analysis, and dissertation. “Alien Sex Scenes” chapters (ASS) represent the imaginary encounters of Mercury de Sade’s ever stalwart erogenous accompli with just about every orifice and/or skin surface available on a series of alien worlds. Death, dismemberment, intergalactic whores, detachable genitalia, sex battles, humiliation, excretory prolapse, sexual time travel, and pedophilia of the third kind are just a few of the delights that greet the protagonist on his voyage, which must be perceived in the greater context not as pornographic science fiction per se but as the stuff of the protagonist’s boiling brain.
The plot heavy “Methods of Deterrestrialization” (MOD) chapters deal with a real time liaison between Sade and a shoplifting sixteen-year-old schoolgirl named Charlotte Goddard, who Sade (in the frustrated context of his impossible fetish) seeks to convert to an alien or more accurately an alien surrogate. As with other victims in his past, his disenchantment with the veracity of the stand-in leads him to sadistic extremes. The twisted line of plot in these chapters helps bind the book together, lending a disturbed sense and subtext to some of the more abstract and clinical sections.
Chapters marked Lessons in Exophilosophy (LIE) might read like studies from a well constructed Western Philosophy textbook were it not for their often subtle connection to the perverse action in the MOD and ASS chapters. In LIE, Supervert lays out a historical progression of argument from Anaxagoras and Heraclitus to Kant, Schopenhauer, and even Sartre on questions of extraterrestrial life and sex. The convolution and bastardization of logic in his syllogisms displays de Sade’s monomaniacal psyche perfectly, while the controlled use of fetishistic obsession as handmaid to philosophical method lends a humorous lightening hand to the material. The use of veritable philosophical works to prop up a burning desire to fornicate with aliens summons to mind the old maxim of the Devil quoting scripture for his own purposes. One is often tempted to decry the protagonist’s ill use of reason until one remembers that it is the character’s disease talking; as such, every fallacy falls perfectly in line.
“Digressions and Tangents” chapters are mostly diary entries, descriptive texts, and self analyses wherein de Sade confronts and studies his demons and their psychological / cultural /physical origins. The subtitle for ETSF is Materials for the Case Study of an ET S&M Freak; the DAT chapters expand upon this principle, feeding and being fed upon by the whole as the protagonist seeks to justify, deconstruct, and even explode the basis of his fetish.
We should castigate the author for the repeated de-capitalization of Earth (though there is perhaps some textual support for this “de-capitation”) and for one or two exceedingly minor copy-editing mistakes, but since we’re sure this gem was never sullied by a trip through the entrails of the regular publishing beast, we’ll offer a sly wink instead. In the interest of clarity, ALR isn’t especially fond of the self-published book industry—it leads too many young or under-talented writers to publish long before they understand their craft—but occasionally an author like Supervert throws his work into the press, knowing full well that no publisher would ever take the chance on his book. Marcel Proust self-published Swann’s Way due to a staid and unreceptive market; in the same vein, accomplishments like ETSF need to be printed, distributed and sold.
To sum up: Had Immanuel Kant, William Burroughs, Carl Jung, the Marquis de Sade, and an overly libidinous Captain Kirk been confined to a single spacecraft to write a book, ETSF would have been the result. That this montage of reason, disease, and literary style is the work on one writer is laudable; that it not only hangs together but spins and thrums, creating a perfect, demented cosmos is a miracle; that the author of such a fantastic work is named Supervert is hysterical. If you have philosophical and transgressive cohones large enough to appreciate it, you should buy this book.
– CAW –
