My 1st post!! The Secret of Ka
An adventure on flying carpets with genies and cute boys? What more could a girl ask for?
um... How about not getting my heart crushed by an incompetent author who couldn't even be bothered to do research. An author who believes that his readers are so stupid they wont even question any of the inaccuracies he pots on his pages. I'm still mad so I'm going to copy-paste my amazon.com review here under the lj cut.
I was thinking 'yeah, finally a fantasy book that will use the rich tapestry of Turkish culture to weave an exciting tale!' What I got was a story about some girl and a dude named Amesh. AMESH!@!! Amesh is not a Turkish name! Couldn't the author google 'Turkish names' for two minutes and come up with a TURKISH NAME for the TURKISH character? Really? He couldn't? Was naming the guy Ali too hard? I guarantee you the only Ameshes living in Turkey are immigrants from India. The word "Ka" doesn't mean anything in Turkish either.
Okay, page 1. PAGE 1!!!! Istanbul is NOT THE CAPITAL OT TURKEY (Ankara is!)
Page 2. TURKEY IS NOT AN ARABIC COUNTRY! Turks are not Arabs the same way Japanese people aren't Chinese! It's two completely different cultures!
STILL ON PAGE 2. it is not a crime in Turkey to say the word "Hell." Turkish people do not wear TURBANS.
Page 3. TURKEY IS NOT PALESTINE. There are no bloody wars being fought outside of the Hilton every night!
Page 4. The vast majority of Turkey's population DOES NOT HAVE CURLY HAIR. They have straight hair.
Page 13. "Grandfather" in Turkish is DEDE not PAPI. Mira is NOT a Turkish name.
Page 14. THERE ARE NO DESERTS IN ISTANBUL It is completely 100% impossible to take a taxicab in instanbul(in any direction) and arrive at a desert! it simply DOES NOT EXIST.
Page 17. There is no such thing as male/female segregation while eating lunch in Turkey. Both genders eat together, the same thing applies at a work cafeteria, there is no such thing as separate cafeterias for males and females.
Page 23. Spielo is not a Turkish name (I have not seen one Turkish name in this book so far except Amesh's lastname Demir.)
Page 24. TURKISH WOMEN DO NOT WEAR VEILS. Some people (old ladies) might wear headscarves but nobody wears a VEIL. No, just NO!
okay, i'm not doing the whole book, i'm just getting madder and madder. christopher pike should be ashamed of himself. this is the most ignorant garbage about turkish culture i have had the displeasure to read. it really bothers me that people are reading this thing and probably trusting pike and believing all the cultural inaccuracies he put in the book.
Shame on you Christopher Pike! i wish i could put you in a box and mail you to that imaginary turkey in your head so that the veil and turban wearing arabs with indian names can CUTOFF YOUR HANDS.
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As it turns out, This Christopher Pike person is a YA author from the 80s/90s who is jumping on the magical adventure bandwagon. As an experienced author HE HAS NO EXCUSE for not sitting in front of the computer for half an hour and doing research.
Honestly, after "Midnight Express" came out, the people of Turkey are nervously waiting to see what foreign authors will say about them next. Although Christopher Pike's book will probably not be seen by most readers, it will certainly make a completely inaccurate imprint about turkey in those readers minds. books like this influence where people travel and where people avoid. What tourist wants to go to a country where wars are being fought outside of hotel rooms? a tourist looking for a seaside escape might avoid istanbul (a city that is surrounded by water on THREE SIDES) because christopher pike said it was a desert. after reading pikes book people will imagine all turks walk around in turbans and veils. The opposite is true. turkey is a secular country where people wear whatever they want, they had their 1st female prime minister back in the 90s!
I am just so outraged that this author just couldn't be bothered. he just used the name of turks like a rag and tossed it away when he was done with it.
Edit - please be sure to read the next post where a sockpuppet named Michael Brite appears pretending to be Christopher Pike's editor but is revealed to be none other than Christopher Pike himself!
http://community.livejournal.com/bookfails/200781.html