Terri M. LeBlanc
Written on Dec 6, 2014
Do read this book if you would like to laugh out loud. Do read this book if you are an author and are looking for how not to write a book. Not that this is a step-by-step guide on how to write. This an actual first novel. And Hines is putting all the good and the bad (mostly bad in this case) out there for his fans to see. It's painful at times.
Can we all pause a moment to appreciate the artistry of that sentence? "Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat..." That's freaking art right there! Someone nominate this thing for the Hugo Award already!
It's also refreshing in light of some of the recent authors behaving badly stories that have cropped up. It takes a lot of guts to put an unedited rough draft out there with all its grammatical errors and gaping plot holes. (Is Flame an owl or a falcon?)
So why did I read it? I'm a huge fan of Jim's work. Over the past couple of years, I've followed authors from their first novels and beyond. As a reader, I am in awe watching a author grow. I also needed a good laugh and I knew Jim would deliver. For as awful as Rise of the Spider Goddess is as a novel, the annotations add a sense of humor and insight into the author which makes this a thumbs up.
This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews.