Mel Odom writes librarian hero novels (The Rover, The Destruction of the Books).
I've just finished Rover and cannot in good conscience recommend it. The copy editing sucked rocks. I kept reading things and saying to myself, "But that contradicts/doesn't match what he just said in the previous paragraph." Over and over and over. Also, it appears to have been run through a spell-checker rather than proofed. In numerous cases a wrong word appears which is just a letter away from the correct word. This was particularly unfortunate when sagacious got turned into salacious. Then there's the writing. Cliches abound. Also verbal tics. Everytime the narration refers to the hero by something other than his name, it's always "the little librarian." That same phrase for 500 pages! Somebody else is always "the master thief." You get the picture. And good grief the clumsy stealing from Tolkien. Elves, goblins, and halflings. Even plot points. This plot for this is rather similar to The Hobbit but runs more than 500 pages. Very twee in places too. I'll read the next one because I bought it in hardcover, but I'm going to be more cautious about buying things recommended at the Tor presentation in the future.
I've just finished Rover and cannot in good conscience recommend it. The copy editing sucked rocks. I kept reading things and saying to myself, "But that contradicts/doesn't match what he just said in the previous paragraph." Over and over and over. Also, it appears to have been run through a spell-checker rather than proofed. In numerous cases a wrong word appears which is just a letter away from the correct word. This was particularly unfortunate when sagacious got turned into salacious. Then there's the writing. Cliches abound. Also verbal tics. Everytime the narration refers to the hero by something other than his name, it's always "the little librarian." That same phrase for 500 pages! Somebody else is always "the master thief." You get the picture. And good grief the clumsy stealing from Tolkien. Elves, goblins, and halflings. Even plot points. This plot for this is rather similar to The Hobbit but runs more than 500 pages. Very twee in places too. I'll read the next one because I bought it in hardcover, but I'm going to be more cautious about buying things recommended at the Tor presentation in the future.
MKK
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