Thursday, July 16, 2015

The Rings of One-Star Reviewers

On a long plane ride from Shanghai to Chicago, I was mesmerized by an excerpt from The Rings of Saturn. It was an amazingly interesting read which included sustained narrative on Chinese empire and British aggression in the 19th century as well as a vivid portrait of the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.

This evening, I surfed online to learn more about W. G. Sebald's book, and I see that the most recent Amazon review was posted almost exactly as I was enjoying the excerpt; alas, it's the classic one-star special: "A pretensious pile of rubbish. Paragraphs that stretches over pages... silly photos that will slow down the download... I prefer some dialogue in novels. If I really want to hear a long train of consciousness I would listen to my own."

No doubt, James Patterson is writing a sequel to Dante's Inferno, where one-star reviewers share an added circle in hell.

In other news, I'm happy to report that "Frade Killed Ellen" is now available thanks to Dutch Kills Press. I'm very grateful if you're able to support the writer and publisher by purchasing this 35-page e-single. Thank you. Follow this link for a teaser.

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