An Antidote …

,,, to The Worst Book Ever.

For every indie author who puts lousy product out there, I come across a handful that do much better work. Kevin Brennan is the gold standard. Tammy Robinson is right up there also.

Sidetrack here. Tammy was one of the first indie authors I “got to know” when I started blogging and publishing myself. Her first book Charlie and Pearl just absolutely knocked my socks off. She self-published a few more books, ending with Differently Normal. It was that book that got Tammy a two book publishing contract with a major publisher. The second book, Photos of You, was recently published in New Zealand (coming to other countries slowly) and went to #1 there. Such success couldn’t have come to a better person.

Anyway, there are plenty of others out there. Two who recently came to my attention are Audrey Driscoll and Berthold Gambrel.  Audrey and Berthold write in genres that I don’t read much of these days. As a result, I’m not going to try to “review” them in the true sense. Hell, I never really try to review books. I do reviews my own way.

The best description I can provide for Audrey’s work is supernatural, historical fiction. She’s been compared to H.P. Lovecraft. Not having read Lovecraft, I have no idea if the comparison is valid. But I have read two of Audrey’s books — The Friendship of Mortals and her most recent work, She Who Comes Forth. Both books are well written with fascinating characters. They also are clearly the result of study and research. It’s clear that Audrey cares about her craft and want to put quality in front of her readers.

Berthold writes in science fiction. Through the course of a novel and several short stories he is creating a future world that you might compare to the Star Trek world. I’ve read his novel The Directorate and just completed his long short story 1NG4, with another short story he published several months ago still unread, waiting quietly on my Kindle. I also, maybe, had the opportunity to grab a sneak peek at something that’s coming up.

What I like about Berthold’s stories, and I think I said this before when I posted a review of The Directorate, is that they are science fiction stories with real people in them. The people and their feelings and how they deal with things haven’t necessarily changed because they exist in a future world. No, they’re just like humans today — it’s just that the world has expanded to planets and solar systems and travel by light years. His stories also don’t overwhelm the reader with the technical realities of the future world. Those details are embedded in the story naturally as you go.

So, there you have it. Just in case you think all indie authors publish typo-filled, poorly written schlock … it ain’t true. Go to Amazon, give Audrey and Berthold a try and while you’re at it, check out Kevin Brennan and Tammy Robinson. I don’t think you could be disappointed by any of them.

 

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