I had an e-mail conversation with David Waldron, the author of Dark Grid. He has re-released the second edition of Dark Grid on Kindle. Based on suggestions and comments there has been a serious edit. With a 16,000 word count reduction, he reduced much of the redundant dialog, and excess polemics. The combat is still fast and furious, but it doesn't take quiet so long to get to it. If you go to the link above, you will see that I edited my original review to reflect the changes.
For those who don't recall, I reviewed Dark Grid within the EMP-Solar Flare series of reviews. A series of reviews that just about killed me, although Dark Grid was not one of the contribution causes. In this novel, a small group of civilians gather together with a small Tennessee National Guard unit and head for the hills after a severe societal collapse caused by a solar flare. At the time I noted it was one of the few novels within the series that actually seemed to do some research beyond reading other EMP-Solar Flare novels.
From experience, I have had conversations with many authors, and in when I was able tried to gently warn them that they might have a few issues with what they were doing - its not like I don't read just a few of these books after all. Very few of them take the criticism to heart and actually make adjustments to what is for most of them a true work of love. Mr. Waldron made those adjustments to a novel that was actually pretty good to begin with.
Which leads into the fact that I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series. He was kind enough to send me a gratis e-copy, but it is competitively priced at Amazon. As it turns out, I have a hole in my schedule and so I won't wait 6 months to post on his second novel.
The second novel in the series being:
The Dark Road
Which is available as a paperback and in the Kindle. For reasons I don't understand, the two formats were not yet linked together at Amazon - thus the two links.
The reason I will be able to report on it sooner than usual is that I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel - or given the cover of our novel above - the light at the end of the dark forested road - with my current series of reviews - the internationally focused apocalyptic-dystopian novels. I have have to complete Oryx and Crake to keep follow the rules as laid down by our Nova Scotian friends, and then finish a couple that I have already started. There are over 20 novels I have on hand that I can include in follow International Groupings, so I didn't see the point in waiting to finish all of them. That light at the end of the dark road might be a tractor trailer with my cash earnings from winning the lottery - in which case "I would be out of here."
3 comments:
Seems I'll spend money today...thanks for the tip.
as usual - i can't wait for the review! good job, Russell, buddy!
your friend,
kymber
Stephen: Relevant to us, he is one of the relatively few people writing this style of novel who lives in the Southeast (North Carolina if I recall correctly).
Kymber: Thanks, Oryx and Crake is going along well - if a little strangely. She handles well the life of a modern, somewhat nihilistic (as many are), teenager well.
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