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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