Thursday, August 9, 2012

Doodling-Jonathan Gould


Reviewed by: Pete Barber

Genre: Fantasy Novella

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: NO
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

The author lives in Melbourne, Australia. Doodling is one of five published works.

Description:

This is a fairy story of sorts. With Neville—our protagonist—finding that the world has begun to spin so fast that he can no longer hold on and he gets flung out into space where he ends up on an asteroid belt faced with the task of slowing the world down. 

Appraisal:

The beginning of this story, where the author describes Neville’s futile attempts to hold on by the tips of his fingers to an ever accelerating world was fun, whimsical—it had me smiling while I read. But once Neville reached the asteroids and started to meet up with various odd characters whose antics depict various ills affecting the world (religious fanatics, sports nuts, eco-nuts, party-animals) the fun pretty much went out of the read for me.

I suspect this work will be very polarizing. Personally, I found the silliness irritating and the thinly-veiled metaphors about modern life became repetitive. But then, I hated Alice in Wonderland, so it’s all about the reader’s perception. Maybe the best way to sum this up is if you enjoy Alice in Wonderland, maybe you’ll enjoy this. I didn’t.

Format/Typo Issues:

None.

Rating: *** Three stars

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