This is just a short update to a previous post to say that I’m very pleased to see that Kit Derrick listens to critical opinion. Following on from my previous review, and some other comments, he’s had the good sense to go back to his original text, and has clearly spent quite some time looking at what he originally presented. Aside from punctuation and vocabulary corrections (the least you might expect), he’s addressed some of the issues that held this book back.
The pacing in the early sections is now much improved, and while it was no doubt difficult, he’s cut some of the repetition, and re-ordered some sections for much-improved readability. Stylistically, he’s cut back on some his short/ run-on sentence choices (they’re still there, but quite a few less) and tried to make a lot of the themes and internal shadowing more overt. While I personally enjoy endings that allow the reader to make their own interpretations, a lot of readers don’t and he’s perhaps capitulated to that a bit by making the ending, and tying up of threads, a little more obvious. I personally think it is still a little of a halfway house, which may not fully satisfy those that like neat endings, nor those who like to make up their own minds.
While I retain my view that this isn’t the best introduction to Derrick’s work, the version now available is much improved, and should be far more satisfying to those who like a narrative they can follow without the need to deconstruct text for a payoff.
Available from Amazon – mybook.to/RavenSound
Stay safe,
Kit